The High Stakes of 1878: A Seattle Sunday Outing
Before the city’s rapid industrialization, residents looked to the local race track for leisure, with the railroad offering half-fare tickets to draw crowds to the spectacle.
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 horse race will take place at the Seattle Race Track between Robert Abrarr’s horse 'Black Hawk' and Morgan O’Brien’s 'Hop Picker' on Saturday, August 10, 1878. The purse is one hundred dollars. Arrangements are being made for other sports, such as a baseball game and foot races between some of our fast men. Admission to the grounds is only 25 cents. The railroad will carry passengers at half-fare rates. Let all come and have a good time.
“The Railroad will carry passengers at half fare rates. Let all come and have a good time.”
In 1878, Seattle was a small, tight-knit town where a local horse race was a major civic event bolstered by early public transit incentives. Today, while the 'race track' has long since vanished under downtown concrete, the city continues to use transit incentives to manage the logistics of large gatherings.
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