Seattle’s First Great Infrastructure Boom

For natural reasons there has been less apparent evidence of prosperity in the way of building in our town in the few months than was the case at this time last year. Yet, taking the year altogether, there has been at least fifty percent more of building than in any previous year since the founding of the town. Not far from two hundred buildings of all kinds have been constructed in this city and immediate surroundings during the year 1876. The expenditure upon the local railroad and the coal wharves has probably exceeded in amount the total outlay for building during the year. There has been upwards of a hundred thousand dollars expended on the fifteen-mile section of the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad, and we are informed that, notwithstanding the dullness during the autumn in the coal trade, the Seattle Coal and Transportation Company has paid out during the year for labor and improvements the sum of four hundred thousand dollars. Another notable item characterizing the year just closed has been the expenditure, for the first time in the history of the town, of thirty or forty thousand dollars for the grading of streets and other public improvements. What has been done in this line serves as a very creditable beginning, but its most patent result is to disclose the immense amount of this kind of work now impending over us and pressing to be done without delay. Once embarked upon the sea of municipal improvement there is no let up until the task is carried through. It is of the utmost importance—in fact, it may be said, of imperative necessity—that at least as much more should be done in this direction the present year as was done the last, and that it should be continued year by year until our city can vie with any in the land in convenience, salubrity and well-kept order.