The City That Built Itself: Seattle’s 1876 Bet on Railroads and Real Estate
While Portland urges unity to secure a transcontinental line, Seattle’s council quietly reshapes the city’s physical landscape—lowering street grades and paving sidewalks—betting that infrastructure will drive the boom.
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.
TO THE POINT.
An editorial in a late issue of the Portland Daily Bee contains the following sensible and pertinent remarks:
We must have railroad connection with the East. The noise of its construction will bring thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of money to us. Where the line is laid does not matter, if done. We should not counsel extravagance, but still its cost is a secondary consideration. To build it is the first. What if taxes have to be levied and debts incurred? Other people will come to help pay them. Those here will then be better able to pay two dollars than one now.
City real estate has touched its lowest ebb, and must from this time surely advance in value. New manufactures have commenced and more must follow. We discern every prospect cheering. If all to work with a will to make business good and times better, it can be done. If our neighbor needs help, assist him, and he in turn can help us. We should not disparage the efforts of the weakest or of the humblest. We lose time for ourselves when we turn aside to hinder our neighbors. This year of all others personal rivalries and political animosities should stand aside for a combined effort of all the people to advance the best interests for the whole State. If all the people unite for any purpose, it is accomplished. Let all unite for the early construction of a railroad to the east, and it can be done.
We can take common cause with our Oregon brethren on the question of direct railroad connection with the East. A highway for steam communication which shall bring us practically as near to New York and the Atlantic seaboard, by land, as we now are to San Francisco by water is the great thing needed to build up an empire on the shores of the North Pacific. It matters not much whether it runs a few degrees more to the South or North. It will benefit us in any event.
True, every mile of railroad extension westward, is in some sort an extension to the same extent of the suburbs of New York or St. Louis or Chicago, as those cities draw tribute from every district to which their railroad connections penetrate. Yet, nevertheless, they plant people and business at the outlying termini at the same time, and the movement is mutually beneficial. Seattle and all the live towns on the upper coast will derive more advantage than injury by the building of a Northern line of transcontinental railroad, let it be located as it may. Natural advantages will determine the point of concentration in the end. This result is only a question of time, and we believe its consummation is not many years remote.
COUNCIL PROCEEDINGS. SEATTLE, Sept. 4, 1876.
The Council met pursuant to adjournment. Mayor Weed in the chair. Councilmen present at roll-call, Messrs. Bell, Hall, Kenney, and Leary. Also Marshall Turnbull, and City Attorney Jenkins.
The minutes of last meeting were read and approved.
On motion, Mr. Geo. W. Hall was elected Fire Warden for the ensuing year.
It was moved that a half grade be established on Madison street, between Front and Third streets. Upon the yeas and nays being called, the vote stood, yeas—Bell, Hall, Kenney and Leary. Motion carried.
The following resolutions were made:
Resolved, That the established grade between West and Second streets, on Seneca street, be reconsidered.
Resolved, That the city attorney be instructed to draw an ordinance establishing the grade on Seneca street, at sixteen feet below the present grade of Front street, at the crossing at said Seneca street.
Resolved, That the city attorney be instructed to draw an ordinance authorizing a partial grade twenty feet wide, from West to Second street, on Seneca street, with the proper slopes.
The yeas and nays being called, the vote stood, yeas: Bell, Hall and Leary; nays, none. The resolutions were adopted.
It was moved that the City Surveyor be instructed to make estimates for a partial grade on Seneca street, and make plans and specifications for grade and bridge across said street at its junction with Front street. The yeas and nays being called, the vote stood, yeas: Bell, Hall, Kenney and Leary. Passed.
It was ordered that the City Attorney be instructed to draw an ordinance providing for the building of a sidewalk on the East side of Front street, from James to Pike street, 12 feet wide, with plank two inches thick, and with stringers four by six inches thick.
In 1876, Seattle was still a small territorial town fighting for relevance against Portland and Tacoma. The editorial’s desperate plea for a railroad reflects the existential anxiety of early Pacific Northwest cities: without rail access to the East, they feared becoming isolated backwaters. Today, that same logic drives debates over high-speed rail and freight corridors; the city’s survival has always depended on its connectivity to global markets.
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