The Industrial Boom of Van Asselt's Sewer Pipe
A newly discovered deposit of clay near the Green River births a factory, employing eighty men and shaping the city’s infrastructure.
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.
Within the last few months, an entirely new industry has sprung into existence near Seattle. Following the discovery of a mine of sewer pipe clay and fire clay near Black Diamond, a factory for the use of these products has been established at Van Asselt's. The mine and factory together are employing about eighty men. About a year and a half ago, Joseph Santa, formerly of New Brighton, Pa., discovered in a bluff on the bank of the Green River, two miles from Black Diamond, a body of fire clay and sewer pipe clay side-by-side with a deposit of semi-anthracite coal. Mr. Santa secured 300 acres of the mineral land and organized the Puget Sound Fire Clay Company. The mine cars are delivered to automatic dumps or bunkers from which railroad cars are loaded. From the mine, the clay is hauled to the works at Van Asselt's station. The works are equipped with a steam-powered press, forcing clay through dies to create pipes up to twenty-four inches in diameter. When the pipe is burned at high heat, the fire-holes are fed with salt to produce a glaze, making it impervious to sewer gases. The company has already supplied pipe for the Fairhaven sewer system and has even shipped fire-brick as far as San Diego.
“The fire-holes are fed with salt instead of coal, which produces a salt glaze on the pipe, making it impervious to sewer gases.”
This 1891 report describes the early industrialization of Van Asselt—a neighborhood now part of modern-day Seattle—where specialized manufacturing once thrived. Today, the intersection of infrastructure development and local manufacturing remains a core tension in Seattle's economy as the city grapples with the logistics of its own growth.
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