The Muddy Arteries of Early Seattle

Whilst our citizens have raised some twenty-five thousand dollars within the year in extra taxation for the construction of a jail and embankment of a street on the water front—both desirable improvements in their way—the rear approach to our city from the lake and river settlements, since the rains set in, have been closed against loaded wagons and are barely practicable for adventurous mustangs to pick their way along by-paths over the heights in the south of town. Last summer an ordinance was passed ordering a cut and fill on Mill Street, which would give a somewhat comfortable grade through to the forks of the lake and Renton road. But it was abandoned in desperation after being carried far enough to cause the hillside to slide down into the unfinished cut, breaking up the old road and entirely closing the street against travel. It was also ordained that Washington Street should be opened through to the Renton road to afford an easier gradient than Mill Street. When this job had progressed so far as the swamping out, and part of the logs and brush piles had been burnt, the street was declared 'opened' and was left with the springy spots un-drained and the bumps and ridges un-smoothed—in a word, impassable for winter traffic. Its withholding is a kind of economy that does not pay. Since the freshet, this route has been the only land access to the city for nearly the entire outside population of the county, numbering several thousand people.