The Boom That Refuses To Bust
While critics predicted the collapse of the Washington boom, the territory points to its literal bedrock—coal, iron, timber, and grain—as proof of its enduring prosperity.
Washington Territory is having what may be styled fairly good times, but some never tire of saying that the bottom will drop out of the so-called boom. No doubt such an event would happen were it not for the fact that below this bottom there is too solid a strata of coal, iron, timber, hops, fruit, wheat and precious metals.
“Some never tire of saying that the bottom will drop out of the so-called boom.”
This 1889 editorial captures a recurring anxiety in Seattle’s history: the fear that its rapid growth is a fragile, speculative bubble. Today’s concerns over housing affordability and real estate volatility mirror this Victorian-era skepticism about whether the city’s economic foundations are truly sustainable.
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