The Vanishing Sidewalks: How Seattle’s Council Cleared the Streets of 'Obstructions'

At the last regular meeting of the Common Council, the committee on fire and water submitted a report regarding the removal of street obstructions, which was adopted. The report recited at length the fact that petitions have been received from sundry persons asking permission to erect boot-black stands, fruit stands, and other structures on the public streets and sidewalks.

The committee, after carefully considering these petitions, concluded that the time had come not only to cry halt to the erection of these obstructions but also to cause their removal from streets. It therefore recommended that Chief of Police Mitchell be directed to remove all fruit, candy, or other stands from Commercial, Front (north to Battery), South Second and Second streets, and all that portion of the intersecting streets which run in an east and west direction, lying between the west line of Commercial and Front streets, and the east line of Second and South Second streets. Further, that bootblack stands and all signs, awning posts, telegraph and telephone or other similar posts that constitute obstructions on the sidewalks be removed within a reasonable time.

On Monday, Chief Mitchell ordered Officer Bigelow to go on with the work as ordered by the Council, and that officer has been busy ever since. Those merchants whose stocks of goods could be carried off by one man were compelled to move forthwith and did so, but not without an occasional growl. They had been occupying good business sites on the best streets without paying for rent or taxes, gas or water. Their profits must have been large hence their reluctance to move.

Those who had stores of a more permanent character have been given until Thursday next to move. That the removal of these street merchants from the more frequented streets has had a disastrous effect on their business can be seen by the long faces worn by them when they are seen in their new places on the less populous thoroughfares.

All will remember the persuasive voice of the colored gentleman who sold marshmallows on the sidewalk on the corner of Yesler avenue and Front street. On Wednesday he was seen looking as disconsolate as the chief mourner at a Chinese funeral. He had moved down Yesler avenue, in front of the Western Union telegraph office. The colored candy merchant was asked how business was in his new location, and replied:

"Business, honey, be hanged; dere ain't none since de police driv me off an' dat ere corn shoo up dar. I kin make more walkin' roun', I kin. It makes me smile, sure enough, when I think of the way I used to gin away the sweetest and mellowest candy in the world fer cents a bag. An' if I was to gin it away on dis street for nawnin' I couldn't do no business," he concluded lugubriously.

Yesterday the colored candy man was not at his accustomed post, and it is said that he has retired from business. It is a business failure for him, and yet Bradstreet will fail to record it.