The Clam-Bake Diplomacy of 1885
When a visiting excursion party arrived in Seattle, they were treated to a massive, industrial-scale clam bake at Port Blakely—and the spectacle of geoduck-sized clams that baffled the visitors.
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.
On the afternoon of June 13th, we took a North Pacific train for Tacoma and Seattle. Soon after crossing the Columbia River, we were in the midst of heavy growths of timber. We arrived at Tacoma late in the evening and were hurried aboard a steamer for Seattle. It was long past midnight when we cast anchor, but the entire city was illuminated in our honor. When morning came, we were given carriages to ride about the town. Seattle, however, lacks drives more than any one thing else. She is the largest city in the Territory, with 10,000 to 12,000 people, but her hills almost prohibit the use of wheeled vehicles.
One of the most unique entertainments given the party was a genuine seashore clam bake at Port Blakely, across the Sound. In a huge hole in the beach, 50 bushels of clams had been cooked by heated stones and smothered with seaweed. The clams which we ate were small, but this species of shellfish grows to the prodigious weight of 40 pounds on the Sound, and many specimens were showed us which weighed 8 or 10 pounds; when protruded from the shell, they looked like huge beef tongues. These shellfish are said to have a finer flavor than those of the Atlantic. When dinner was finished, we boarded the steamer and bid a sad farewell to the hospitable people of Seattle.
“When protruded from the shell, they looked like huge beef tongues.”
In 1885, Seattle was a booming town of 12,000 people struggling with topography that hampered carriage travel—a foreshadowing of the infrastructure challenges the city would face while growing into a tech hub of millions. The 'geoduck' (native to these waters) remains a source of local wonder today, just as it was to the 1885 visitors who were bewildered by their size.
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