Seattle Boosts Its Canal Fund, One Property Owner at a Time
A $26,000 day for the Lake Washington waterway campaign brought in $5,000 from Fred E. Sander and a promise of $2,000 from J. H. Larman as boosters sold the canal as a sure way to raise land values.
Twenty-six thousand dollars was added yesterday to the subsidy for the Seattle and Lake Washington waterway. Fred E. Sander headed the list with $5,000. J. H. Larman will give $2,000, and Albert Hansen increased his subscription. The committees collected $760.
The canal subsidy has been discussed for a long time and the work is being pushed in an energetic manner. The office of the company is kept open evenings until 8 o'clock so that busy people may have a chance to subscribe. Those who know the names of non-resident property owners should send them to the office at once, so that they may be communicated with by mail.
Enthusiastic meetings were held last evening at Kirkland and Georgetown. Good speeches were made and great enthusiasm was shown. Meetings will be held tonight at Green Lake and this afternoon at O'Brien's. Parties who made pledges at the Armory and on the street are to call at the office and sign the subsidy notes.
Albert Schlosser, one of the committee appointed to visit the merchant tailors of the city, brought in $1,500 from that trade and reported promises of further subscriptions. W. H. Gleason, a committee of one, brought in $275. G. A. Burch solicited among the insurance companies. Messrs. Mehlhorn and Groll, of the German committee, came in with $1,080 worth of pledges, and F. W. Bense came in with $600 worth of pledges.
Every property owner should subscribe in proportion to his holdings, as the building of the canal will increase the value of his property many fold more than any sum he may feel called upon to subscribe. A large number of people are subscribing who only own a small house in this city, and a number of subscriptions have been made by those who do not own real estate here.
“Every property owner should subscribe in proportion to his holdings, as the building of the canal will increase the value of his property many fold more than any sum he may feel called upon to subscribe.”
Seattle's leaders sold the Lake Washington Ship Canal as a private subscription drive that would repay property owners many times over. That playbook—public infrastructure financed by boosterism and justified by rising land values—still shapes debates over Amazon, transit and waterfront megaprojects.
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