A Passenger Revolt Against Seattle’s 'Dirty' Steamers
A visiting general and his party refused to board a local vessel, sparking a public outcry over the state of regional maritime transit.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
One day last week Gen. Stoneman, family and friends, came to Tacoma with the intention of extending their journey to Seattle. On going on board the steamer they found the accommodations so filthy, disagreeable and unsafe that the ladies of the party refused to take passage, went on shore and returned to Portland the following day. It is a great detriment to Seattle, and disgraceful to the Star line of steamers, that among the innumerable fast and comfortable boats upon the Sound, one of the oldest, slowest and dirtiest is kept to convey passengers from Tacoma to Seattle. This is done by Capt. Starr admittedly for the purpose of discouraging as much as he possible can, travel to this place. By running his boats so that all arrivals and departures are in the night, those passing through to Victoria and the lower Sound never see Seattle, and those coming here from Tacoma are put to the inconvenience of a long passage on a dirty and unsafe boat.
“It is a great detriment to Seattle, and disgraceful to the Star line of steamers, that among the innumerable fast and comfortable boats upon the Sound, one of the oldest, slowest and dirtiest is kept to convey passengers from Tacoma to Seattle.”
This 1880 account captures the early tension of Seattle’s transit infrastructure, where monopolistic boat captains intentionally throttled the city's growth. It mirrors modern complaints about reliability and transparency in regional ferry and transit systems, reminding us that 'who owns the route' has been a civic fight here for over a century.
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