The Great Flood of 1876: Seattle’s River Runs Wild

THE LATE RAINFALLS playing the role of a late Indian volume of water brought down by the tributary lands in our vicinity as if a warm Chinook wind. Profiting too much betide the capacity of its banks, one night the water rose ten feet above its former level. The torrents that came during this storm through the streams have altered its course to such an extent in many places passing in over its banks and flooding the bottom lands. Some of the old settlers say that they never knew so large a rise in so short a time during their experience on the river.

The waters continue to rise; it has lost two or days they will find them at the head of a little island, in which little space will be required to pass the force of the stream has washed away the filling, filling the river with mud and debris, and put into the land. It has given the river a deep muddy tinged color for the only thing that is capable of floating it is been the breaking of a boom of the river, six hundred feet long, containing 300,000 feet of lumber. These came rushing down into the bay and drifted off in every direction. It was feared at first that a large number of them would be lost, but by the help of the tides, we understand they have almost all been recovered, and the only loss the owners will sustain will be the expense in rebashing them.