Seattle Bets Big on a Canal to the Sea
A booster item from the Goldendale Republican celebrates Seattle citizens pledging $250,000 toward a half-million-dollar Lake Washington canal fund.
It is no wonder that Seattle is a great city. Its greatness is made out of the stuff of which great cities are evolved. When Lake Washington Canal is proposed for Seattle's advantage the citizens come to work as a unit. Hard as the times are they have subscribed in a few days the sum of $250,000 towards the half million necessary to build the Lake Washington Canal. That the balance will be raised in a few days more is beyond question. The building of the canal will be the greatest undertaking ever attempted on the Pacific coast. It will involve the expenditure of six or seven millions of dollars and will make Seattle one of the greatest harbors in the world.
“The building of the canal will be the greatest undertaking ever attempted on the Pacific coast.”
The Lake Washington Ship Canal was eventually built and opened in 1917, reshaping Seattle's shoreline and economy. The 1895 subscription drive shows how boosters sold huge infrastructure projects as civic destiny—a pattern that still shapes Seattle's debates over bridges, transit, and waterfronts.
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