The Machine That Would Make Land: Dredging of the Tide Flats Begins
Surveyors break ground this morning on the bulkhead along Railroad Avenue, the first step in the Seattle and Lake Washington Waterway Company's scheme to fill the tide flats and carve an east waterway.
The first work on the contract of the Seattle and Lake Washington Waterway Company with the state for the filling of the tide flats will be done this morning, three days before the time required by the first contract. A party of engineers under County Surveyor Albro Gardner will run the lines for the bulkhead along Railroad avenue, and the construction of the bulkhead will immediately follow. By the time the bulkheads are well under way the big dredger will be here, ready to excavate the east waterway and deposit the material excavated on the flats south of King street, from which point the work of filling will be continued southward. The plant will be in full operation within a month, and from that time it will be constantly increased until the company is working to its full capacity.
“The plant will be in full operation within a month, and from that time it will be constantly increased until the company is working to its full capacity.”
What began here — dredging mud and dumping it to conjure new ground south of King Street — became the industrial flats and SoDo district that still define Seattle's waterfront. The same instinct to reshape the shoreline for commerce drives today's seawall replacement and waterfront rebuild, asking again who the tidelands are actually for.
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