The Boom on Front and Columbia
As Seattle grew in the summer of 1878, new tenements began rising on the waterfront, promising modern conveniences in the shadow of the bustling docks.
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.
The latest evidence of local enterprise is furnished by Samuel Kenny, who is now having placed on the ground lumber for three tenement residences to be erected on his lot, corner of Front and Columbia streets. These houses are to be each 21 by 40 feet, two stories high, to contain seven rooms; to be well finished and supplied with all modern conveniences.
“The latest evidence of local enterprise is furnished by Samuel Kenny, who is now having placed on the ground lumber for three tenement residences.”
In 1878, the intersection of Front (now First Avenue) and Columbia Street was the beating heart of a growing frontier city. Today, that same corner is surrounded by high-rise glass and steel, yet the struggle to provide 'modern conveniences' in dense tenement-style housing remains a central, unresolved theme in Seattle's urban development.
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