Firing Up for the Building Boom
Veteran brick maker J.S. McAllister gears up to turn the Duwamish riverbank into the foundation for Seattle's next wave of construction.
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.
As there are a number of brick blocks to be built in Seattle during the coming season, the writer inquired where the brick would come from. A reporter called on J.S. McAllister, the veteran brick maker who recently bought the Jordan farm on the Duwamish river. Mr. McAllister replied: 'I have ordered from the factory in Michigan a machine warranted to turn out 30,000 bricks a day. I also have ordered a machine for making brick tile.' He expects to turn out at least 1,000,000 bricks this season, and potentially over 3,000,000 if all goes well. He also noted the discovery of a 40-foot vein of excellent clay on his property, which he considers superior to anything else seen on the coast. 'Rest assured that we brick makers will endeavor to turn out the material as fast as the Seattle bricklayers can convert it into houses.'
“Rest assured that we brick makers will endeavor to turn out the material as fast as the Seattle bricklayers can convert it into houses.”
The frantic industrial preparation to meet housing demand in 1883 feels remarkably familiar to modern Seattle residents. Just as McAllister scrambled to modernize production for a growing city, contemporary developers and policymakers struggle to balance the speed of construction with the city's rapidly expanding footprint.
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