The Mukilteo Real Estate Boom
Developers pitch the 'natural advantages' of Mukilteo as a prime hub for shipping, milling, and homesteading on the Sound.
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.
The valuable Mukilteo townsite property is divided into twenty-two strips of about nine acres each, extending back from the water so as to include meadow and garden land already cleared, besides room for land on the hill. Five of these fine homesteads are already sold. Credit will be given at low rates of interest to those unable to pay cash down. Also delightful property on the front for sale or lease on reasonable terms for business purposes. Bargains are offered in tracts of 40 and 80 acres of land adjoining the Mukilteo townsite. The natural advantages of Mukilteo are not excelled by any other place on the Sound for fishing, milling, shipbuilding, or manufacturing purposes. All the steamers down the Sound to Snohomish, Whatcom, and Island counties stop there going and returning. It is also on the direct route for steamers up the Sound. There is also an excellent location for establishing of warehouses, from which to ship the products of Snohomish, Whatcom, and Island counties in deep-water vessels. On these premises will also be sold a herd of cattle, some thirty or forty head in all, thus affording those purchasing homes a chance to secure stock if they so desire.
“The natural advantages of Mukilteo are not excelled by any other place on the Sound, for fishing, milling, shipbuilding or manufacturing purposes.”
This 19th-century advertisement frames Mukilteo as a raw frontier for industrial expansion and homesteading, a far cry from the suburban residential and tech-adjacent community it has become. The promise of 'natural advantages' for shipping remains a core part of the region's identity, though the scale and nature of the development have shifted entirely from homestead tracts to global logistics hubs.
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