Seattle Incorporates Northern Pacific Iron Works
A look at the birth of the Northern Pacific Iron Works, a grand manufacturing dream that once promised to turn Seattle into a regional powerhouse.
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.
A new enterprise has been formed under the title of the Northern Pacific Iron Works. The object shall be to carry on and conduct the business of manufacturing iron and other metals. The capital stock of the corporation is $25,000, divided into shares of $100 each. The incorporation shall exist for fifty years. The principal place of business shall be the city of Seattle. The trustees who shall manage the concerns of the corporation for the next six months from November 29 are Robert Condon, Joseph W. Brown, and Frank W. Chambers. We wish them all the success which their enterprise justly merits. There is a deal of advantage to be gained in a city like ours by cooperation in manufacturing enterprises. We possess a fruitful field for such operations; our advantages in this regard are quite unrivalled on the coast, and we only need capital and enterprise applied to the favorable conditions to give us wealth and prosperity. We can hardly expect, however, to gain these manufacturing enterprises through single individual enterprise and capital, nor would this be the most desirable means through which to gain the desired end. Manufacturing establishments by cooperation—the small capital of the industrial classes combined in such enterprises—would be the most productive of good, and it is in this direction we may look with the greatest hope.
“We possess a fruitful field for such operations; our advantages in this regard are quite unrivalled on the coast, and we only need capital and enterprise applied to the favorable conditions to give us wealth and prosperity.”
This 1876 editorial highlights Seattle's long-standing obsession with industrial growth and the 'cooperative' promise of local manufacturing. Today, the debate has shifted from iron works to tech and green energy, but the civic desire for a self-sustaining local economy remains a central pillar of Seattle's identity.
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