From Soap and Apples to a Commercial Powerhouse
The late William Montgomery arrived in Seattle with nothing but a few boxes of soap and ended his life as a prominent tobacco merchant.
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 Providence Hospital in this city, July 18th, Wm. Montgomery died, aged seventy years. Mr. Montgomery was an extensive dealer in tobacco on Commercial street, and was known to the majority of our citizens. Seven years ago he located in this city. He was as nearly broken pecuniarily then as a man could well be, apparently not having a dollar. He got a box of apples and two or three boxes of brown soap, and with this paltry beginning made a start in trade. He crowded into the little space between the Kenny and Harrington & Smith buildings, about four feet wide, and there made his beginning. When he had got up to about fifty dollars he moved to the old Williamson building. There he added tropical fruits, cigars, etc., and in the course of a year or so increased his stock to an extent represented by about five hundred dollars value. He moved down to the place he has occupied during the past four years, where he began a trade in tobacco and cigars that soon became the leading one of the place, requiring a stock represented by from five to ten thousand dollars.
“He was as nearly broken pecuniarily then as a man could well be, apparently not having a dollar.”
Montgomery's rise is a quintessential Gilded Age 'rags-to-riches' narrative. It reflects the rapid, often volatile economic expansion of Seattle in the 1870s and 80s, where a small alleyway stall could grow into a significant business in just a few years.
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