A Temporary Solution for Seattle's Growing Pains
Business leaders move to quickly construct a wooden hotel to address the city's urgent lack of lodging.
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.
There is a definite project to build a temporary hotel. It is proposed to erect, on a suitable and convenient site, a spacious wooden building two stories high, with accommodations for about 125 guests. The plan is to build a house somewhat after the general plan of a summer resort hotel, with wide verandas and other attractive features. It is estimated that $8,000 will build and furnish the house, and that the thing can be done within two months. The question now is to raise the money. It is to be done by subscription and the canvass will begin today. The proposition is one which needs neither explanation nor argument; it is in answer to a crying necessity which every citizen ought to be able to appreciate. To this object everybody ought to give and give at once so that the work of building may begin at once.
“The proposition is one which needs neither explanation nor argument; it is in answer to a crying necessity which every citizen ought to be able to appreciate.”
This 1889 call for a 'temporary' hotel highlights the perennial strain between Seattle's rapid economic growth and its housing capacity. Just as today's residents debate the necessity of rapid, high-density construction to solve a housing crisis, business leaders of the late 19th century were prepared to bypass permanence for speed to keep the city's economy moving.
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