The Tale of the Dreamer and the Practical Planner
A satirical editorial sketches the divergent paths of two Seattle-area visionaries: one chasing a 'paradise' of industry and wealth, the other a dreamer building canals and libraries.
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.
Behold that gold-crazed, earnest projector of the day. He had no notions, prepared as he was to ‘capture the earth.’ He said, ‘Now we will have it all in store.’ He was of narrower mind than the most reaching reform of Plato. And that old dream-projector, who was out the other day, traversed the entire length of the Sierra Nevadas, with mules from Fort Hall to the summit, and who has explored Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, and Idaho. Through the merit of his mental stability, he has led its waters into a canal which in large part was traversed by the sun and has now become the greatest water-work in the world, and has made them a free city. A city free, he has built and equipped in the little Ohio town of nativity. And now he is only waiting for a railroad to furnish means and power when he will, not far from Seattle, open up mines of which the world has never seen. And then with that, an opera house, a free library, and water supply he is going to endow Seattle. What a world of enjoyment these ramblers get out of their fancies—they are always away from the gloom.
“What a world of enjoyment these ramblers get out of their fancies—they are always away from the gloom.”
This 1889 editorial captures the tension between the extraction-focused 'gold-crazed' industrialist and the visionary dreamer—a dynamic that continues to define Seattle's soul. Today, the debate over whether the city should be a engine of extraction or a center of public-good infrastructure (libraries, water, transit) remains just as contentious as it was in the territory’s final year of existence.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.