The Tramp Economy of Early Seattle

Beyond the dumps, past the old Italian’s cabin, was to be seen the boarding place of the tramping clans. Here was the 'bummer' brigade—men who traveled from where the sun greets the dawn to the western world. Gathered in the tall, rank weeds that fringe the shores of Mission Bay—over whose waters, noisome smelling and dark, the winds waft the putrid odors of the dumps—was a crowd of that description. Among them, the reporter recognized a man he had met before near the saloons of Leidesdorff Street. He was dressed in a seedy suit of clothes that once was black, now greasy and torn from encounters with box, barrel, or gutter. His battered stovepipe hat rested on his crown like a wretched bark upon a coral reef. He had seen better days, perhaps as a heavy operator or an enterprising merchant, but ruin, spurred by drink, had left him a wreck. He survived by lounging in five-cent beer halls, waiting for a lucky soul to treat him to a drink. The reporter learned that this man, along with many others, preferred the squalid misery of the city to the life of a rancher. When asked about their travels, the man admitted they caught rides on freight trains, clinging to the brake bars, risking their lives in a 'lively tussle' with railroad brakemen. The reporter was left to wonder about the purpose of such a life, observing this wretched creature and questioning why he, or any man, had been brought into the world to be a wanderer, a houseless, homeless vagrant.