Port Townsend Doubled Its Population Without a Boom Campaign
In 1888, Port Townsend boosters promised their city would become the next San Francisco by monopolizing the region's rail and shipping trade.
No effort has ever been made to boom Port Townsend. While Seattle, Tacoma and other cities have been sending out thousands of dollars worth of advertising matter broadcast over the country, this port-of-entry has never expended a dime in this direction. Yet, within two years, it has doubled in population, grown from a conservative little town of about 1,500 to a prosperous city of nearly 4,000 people. It means that the natural and inherent advantages of our charming city have asserted themselves, broken through the crust of oblivion under the onerous load of lack of enterprise, and attracted to our midst a good share of the people and capital who are hieing them to the sun-kissed shores of Puget Sound. A syndicate of gentlemen got together a few months ago, put up $1,000 each, and sent surveyors out to examine the feasibility of a railroad connecting the Quimper Peninsula with the Columbia River. The Port Townsend Southern Railroad was then organized. To-day this subsidy is the largest ever offered a railroad—3,480 acres—speaking volumes for the generous spirit of the people, and exhibiting the enterprise and perspicuity that is bound to win in the race for greatness.
“The ring of the hammer and sounds of industry are heard on every side, the hymns of peace and plenty that are sweeter than the songs of triumph in war.”
Port Townsend's late 19th-century 'Key City' ambitions were famously derailed when the railroads ultimately chose to terminate in Seattle and Tacoma instead. Today, the town serves as a cautionary tale for regional real estate speculation, yet its Victorian architecture remains a permanent monument to that era of Gilded Age hype.
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