The Real Estate Pitch That Promised a Mediterranean Paradise in West Seattle
A 1889 promotional blurb captures the early, breathless hyperbole used to sell West Seattle as the 'Italy of the Pacific Northwest.'
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
We trust that friends will patronize a stranger within their gates, and we take an exceptional interest in the growth of this community, West Seattle. We must not be 'pushing' in our prices by being 'cheeky' to our neighbors. We trust that we may be guided by the advice of others. We have viewed this locality from the top of the hill and further have seen the beauty of the front, where one feels the soft influence of the Mediterranean and delights in the glorious shine. We have sought the mimicry of the Old World and the New, but we have never seen one so favored with all the landscape. It is simply a miracle of nature. West Seattle points its finger toward the very heavens. Alki is its beauty, with its wonderful front of 14,000 feet, and winding into the surrounding mountains that would clear the sky. Look you at Mount Baker, another white-clad giant, towering miles and miles away, thrusts himself upon your view. To the right and left of you the Olympic range forms a most majestic outline, ever-changing in their soft and beautiful tints. Through this property will pass the Seattle & West Seattle Railway, which will soon be pushed to completion to compete with the ferry at 4 p.m. Each side will add themselves to our progress, making the land more valuable.
“It is simply a miracle of nature. West Seattle points its finger toward the very heavens.”
This 1889 advertisement perfectly encapsulates the 'boosterism' that defined Seattle's early real estate market. The pitch mirrors the modern-day language of luxury real estate developers, turning a rugged coastline into a Mediterranean dream to inflate land value—a cycle of speculation that continues to shape Seattle's housing market today.
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