Seattle's Great Tent Crisis
After the Great Fire of 1889, the city struggled to regulate the makeshift shanties and board-and-canvas tents cluttering the city limits.
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.
Chairman Dane, of the fire and water committee, brought up the numerous violations of tent permits. Every day tents were being walled up with boards and converted into houses. The fire department had no authority on the premises, and he thought that someone should make it a special duty to look after the matter. On motion of Mr. Denny, this matter was placed exclusively in the hands of the committee on fire and water, with power to enforce the provisions of the permits. The chief of police will be given supervision of tents and temporary buildings within the fire limits. Councilman H. V. Phillips suggested that the building ordinance was lame in many respects, and the judiciary committee and city attorney were instructed to report any amendments to the ordinance by them deemed necessary.
“Every day tents were being walled up with boards and converted into houses.”
Post-fire 1889 Seattle was defined by a desperate, rapid-fire struggle for housing, mirroring today's debates over emergency shelter ordinances, ADUs, and the limits of municipal regulation during a housing crunch. The friction between 'tent permits' and permanent, safe housing remains a recurring theme in Seattle's civic history.
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