Seattle Rising: The Blocks Going Up Where the Fire Burned
Dexter Horton & Co. reopens on the same corner it held before the great fire, as new brick blocks, houses and excavations push out across the young city.
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.
John Collins has awarded the contract for excavating the lot on the southeast corner of Second and James street to Peter Frisell. The space is eighty feet front on Second street by 160 feet in depth. The excavation will be carried to a depth of nine feet below the level of Second street, requiring the removal of 8,000 cubic yards of earth. Mr. Collins refuses to talk about the building he may erect there.
On Saturday Dexter Horton & Co.'s banking house moved into its new building, corner of Commercial and Washington streets, thus resuming business on the same site as before the big fire. The new block, built by this company, is one of the handsomest in the city, and the bank's quarters are considered as fine as any on the Coast.
The new row of houses built by Rev. John F. Damon on Fifth street, corner of Marion, is nearly completed.
The three-story brick block on the corner of South Third and Washington streets is now complete and ready for occupancy.
The Sackman-Phillips Investment Company has a number of buildings going forward on Kenton hill, and are making preparations to put up a large number of dwellings this spring.
Building permits were issued Saturday to William Harris to erect a one-and-a-half-story frame dwelling house on lot 8, block 5, McAleer's addition, on South Thirteenth street, between Anna and Catharine, to cost $2,000; also to C. L. Maxwell for a two-story frame house on the corner of Franklin and Woodland avenue to cost $1,000.
“Dexter Horton & Co.'s banking house moved into its new building, corner of Commercial and Washington streets, thus resuming business on the same site as before the big fire.”
The 'big fire' was the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, which leveled the downtown core; four years later the paper tracks the city rebuilding literally on the same ground. Every corner named here — Second and James, Commercial and Washington — is still a downtown address, a reminder that Seattle's booms have always been told in permits and corner lots.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.