The Price of Fire Protection
A debate in City Hall reveals the cost and complexity of securing fire hydrants and water service for a growing Seattle.
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.
At the special meeting of the City Council last Friday night, two bids were presented for supplying the city with water for fire extinguishing purposes. One was from the Spring Hill Company and the other from the Union Water Company. The Spring Hill Company offered to furnish water for four fire hydrants at a monthly rental of $7.50 per month each, with a minimum pressure at the highest points of 40 pounds per square inch. The Union Water Company offered to lease the city the use of their present supply of water in their mains for six months, conditioned that the city pay all its own expense for hydrants, in exchange for free water for that term. Upon its face, the proposal of the Union Company appears to be the lower of the two. An investigation, however, will show that the Spring Hill bid is the lower. Putting in or adjusting the hydrants costs $30 apiece. This, under its arrangement with the city, the Spring Hill Company does at its own expense. The other company calls upon the city to undertake that expense.
“Looking at it in a pecuniary light alone, the Spring Hill proposition is cheaper for each plug for the first six months.”
Public utility disputes over infrastructure costs are a staple of Seattle’s history, echoing modern debates about the funding and control of essential city services. The transition from private water companies to public infrastructure was a major theme of the late 19th-century city-building era.
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