The Real Estate Boom of 1890
A booster’s pitch for West Seattle highlights the city's turn-of-the-century obsession with land development and panoramic vistas.
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.
Our Seattle friends, we trust, will pardon a stranger within their gates offering this gratuitous tribute. We take an exceptional interest in the truly magnificent surroundings of this coming 'West End' and must run the risk of being considered 'gushing' in our praise by some, and 'cheeky' in our unsought advice by others. We must excuse ourselves by saying that we have inspected this coast from Alaska to the Mexican border. We have seen the sun rise on the Alps, and have revelled in the beauties of Lucerne from the summit of Rigi. We have felt the soft influence of the Mediterranean and delighted in the castle-fringed banks of the glorious Rhine. We have sought out and admired the finest scenery of the Old World and the New, but from no one spot have we been so impressed with the beauty of the landscape as with that viewed from the table-land of West Seattle. It is simply unique. On one side of you the majestic Rainier points his hoary crest into the very heavens. Through this property will pass the Seattle & Southern Railroad, which will at once be rapidly pushed to completion with a depot close to the ferry slip, and on either side will extend wharves and warehouses, offices, and stores.
“We have sought out and admired the finest scenery of the Old World and the New, but from no one spot have we been so impressed with the beauty of the landscape as with that viewed from the table-land of West Seattle.”
This 1890 advertisement reflects an era when West Seattle was marketed as a budding luxury 'West End,' a stark contrast to its later development as a quiet residential enclave. Today, the tension remains: the push for high-density transit-oriented development versus the preservation of the 'unique' panoramic views that defined the area's original sales pitch.
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