Seattle Stealing the Wholesale Trade
A local merchant reports that San Francisco wholesalers are losing their grip on the Washington market to Seattle firms.
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.
C. H. Lilly, who has just returned from a trip to San Francisco, says that with the large wholesale dealers there, Seattle is the only city north of Portland that they seem to take any interest in. He was told by several jobbers there that Seattle merchants were gradually getting their trade away all through Washington, east of the mountains as well as on the Sound; that their trade kept growing less and less, while the Seattle jobbers kept constantly increasing.
“Seattle merchants were gradually getting their trade away all through Washington.”
This reflects the early 'growth machine' era where Seattle began its aggressive expansion into the regional economy, eventually eclipsing older Pacific Coast hubs. It illustrates the classic Pacific Northwest rivalry over who controls the distribution of goods in the hinterland.
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