The Great Seattle Hillside Regrade
While city engineers work to tame the steep streets with plows and rollers, the rapid expansion of Seattle's geography remains a constant, labor-intensive battle against the elements.
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.
Superintendent Utile informed a Star reporter this morning that the work of leveling streets was proceeding rapidly. He stated that outside of the regular street crew, they had extra workmen employed in leveling streets from Broadway down Denny Way to First Street. The rains have made long gullies down the hill. The streets are first plowed and then rolled.
“The rains have made long gullies down the hill. The streets are first plowed and then rolled.”
The 'leveling' mentioned here was the precursor to the massive Denny Regrade project, an engineering feat that fundamentally reshaped Seattle's topography by sluicing away hills to create the flat downtown core we know today. Much like today's infrastructure debates, the city struggled to balance constant maintenance against the push for urban expansion.
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