Seattle Buys Its Future, One Subscription at a Time
Boosters raised nearly $340,000 in thirteen days to subsidize the Lake Washington waterway and tide-land improvements, as the company filed contracts covering Seattle harbor.
The subscription to the subsidy for the Seattle Lake Washington Waterway Company has now reached nearly two-thirds of the amount required. Previous subscriptions totaled about $231,790; yesterday's additional subscriptions brought the total to about $339,701. Among the new contributors were James R. Hayden, M. R. Webster, F. L. Blodgett, James T. Greenleaf, Edmond S. Meany, David E. Davies, Harry White, Hallack & Banfield, J. D. Davidson, James Spurr, W. H. Murray, C. A. Holmes, the Washington Dental Supply Company, the Scandinavian-American Bank, and many others.
The work of raising the fund had been under way only thirteen days, since the mass meeting at the Armory. Those who had subscribed had either come forward with pledges or responded to the calls of the volunteer solicitors. Many others were still in communication with outside parties before giving their contracts. But there remained many business men and property owners in the city who had not yet subscribed and who perhaps had not yet been reached by the solicitors. It rested with these men to decide whether the subscription should be promptly raised and the conditions fulfilled for beginning the great public work on which the heart of Seattle had been set for forty years.
The trustees of the Scandinavian-American Bank, at an adjourned meeting, passed a resolution giving to the canal subsidy. The executive committee for securing the subscription issued a circular letter to all lenders who had not yet come forward, urging them to act. It stated that the work was enthusiastically supported and that the subscribers were doing their full share. "The question rests with you and others not far removed," the circular said.
A special telegram from Olympia last evening reported: "The Seattle Lake Washington Waterway Company today filed a contract for the improvement of certain tide lands in Elliott Bay. The company now has entered into contracts for the improvement of all the tide lands in Seattle harbor covered by the three notes published."
“It rested with these men to decide whether the subscription should be promptly raised and the conditions fulfilled for beginning the great public work on which the heart of Seattle had been set for forty years.”
The 1895 canal subsidy was an early round in Seattle's long argument over public money, private contracts and who gets to reshape the shoreline. The same questions surface today in waterfront redevelopment, the ship canal and the use of public tide lands.
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