A Warm Haven in the Heart of the Skid Road
While Seattle’s winter chill drove men to the fringes, one mission at Second and Jackson offered a rare sanctuary of light and literature for the city's struggling laborers.
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.
A good work is going on at the northwest corner of Second and Jackson streets. On the second floor is a large, well-lighted, clean-kept hall that is used as the headquarters of mission work. Here, religious services are held every night for the benefit of the poorer classes who have no other access to the gospel. On Sunday, three services are held, at 11 a.m., 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., with Sunday-school at 2 p.m. The work is under the direction of Rev. T. Rees, who has labored for years as a missionary among sailors. The meetings are attended by a number of Christian men and women of the city, who aid and encourage the pastor in his labors. The work is supported by voluntary contributions, and when the collections at the meetings are not sufficient, the charitable persons who are supporting the cause go down into their own pockets. In the same hall is a well-conducted reading room, where an assortment of newspapers and periodicals is kept exposed, free to all who care to read. This reading room is carried on by the local branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
“A large, well-lighted, clean-kept hall... a reading room, where an assortment of newspapers and periodicals is kept exposed, free to all who care to read.”
This mission, located at Second and Jackson in 1891, sat in what would later be known as Pioneer Square—the historical heart of Seattle's Skid Road. Just as this site served the transient laborers of the 1890s through private charity, today's Pioneer Square remains the front line of Seattle's ongoing struggle to provide shelter and dignity to its unhoused population.
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