Addressing the Standing Menace on Washington Street
Seattle City Council contracts for new sewer lines to drain the low-lying lots that have long threatened the city's health.
At the Council meeting Friday evening, contracts were let for the construction of the new Jackson, Mill and James street sewers; that for the first, going to William Marking, and the other two to S. O. Simpson. These sewers are to be of wood and of the same size, arrangement and construction as the new Mill street sewer. That on Washington street is to be built in the center of the street from the east line of Fifth street to a point 500 feet west of the west line of Commercial street. One of the prime objects in constructing it will be to secure drainage for the low-lying lots on both sides of Washington street, in which water continually accumulates, and which have long been a standing menace to the health of the city. This sewer will be 1,100 feet in length and will cost, when completed, in the neighborhood of $4,000.
“One of the prime objects in constructing it will be to secure drainage for the low-lying lots... which have long been a standing menace to the health of the city.”
Before modern engineering and the massive re-grades, Seattle was defined by its soggy, low-lying landscape; these early wooden sewer contracts were literal life-or-death efforts to manage the city's standing water and sanitation.
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