The Wild Horse Races and Baseball of 1873
Before skyscrapers and paved roads, Seattle residents gathered for half-mile horse heats and a historic first baseball game.
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.
At eleven o'clock yesterday, teams carried people out to the scene of the sports—the Seattle race track. By two o'clock, 200 to 300 people had assembled to witness the horse race, featuring Black Hawk, Hop Picker, and Billy Gilmore. The race consisted of two-out-of-three half-mile heats. In the second heat, the rider of the black horse gave him the steel, but the horse flew the track, running through an orchard and hurting his rider. After a series of thrilling heats, Hop Picker won the day, giving his owner, Mr. O'Brien of White River, the one-hundred-dollar purse. Following the races, a baseball game was held between the Junior Alkis and the Unions. Play was called by umpire Sam L. Crawford at three o'clock and concluded at five, resulting in a victory for the Junior Alkis. It is notable that this was the first game of base ball ever played in Washington Territory.
“It might be well to state, as the score which we append will show, that this was the first game of base ball ever played in Washington Territory.”
Long before Seattle became a tech hub, civic life revolved around seasonal spectacles and organized athletics. The transition from informal horse racing on local tracks to formal baseball clubs highlights the rapid professionalization of leisure in the Pacific Northwest’s early days.
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