The Sugar Rush: Seattle's Pacific Ambitions in 1876
A century and a half ago, Seattle business leaders were banking on a trade treaty with Hawaii to turn the city into the West Coast’s sugar refining capital.
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.
Some of the provisions of the treaty recently concluded between the United States and the Sandwich Islands have aroused a storm of opposition in the Southern States. The proposal to admit sugar and other products free of duty stimulates the production of these articles in the Islands and excites the hostility of the growers of such in the United States. Next to San Francisco, Puget Sound is most deeply interested in the treaty. Honolulu has long been a customer for our lumber, and is beginning to lean upon us for coal and other produce. The consummation of the treaty will make our city one of the most feasible points on the coast for the establishment of a sugar refinery. The diminution of the cost of the raw material will increase the market, and our coal and lumber vessels plying there will return with sugar, rice and other products of those Islands for return cargoes.
“The consummation of the treaty will make our city one of the most feasible points on the coast for the establishment of a sugar refinery.”
Today, Seattle’s economy is defined by tech and logistics, but its historical identity was forged by resource extraction and its port’s connection to global trade. This 1876 editorial reflects the same ‘boomtown’ anxiety seen today: the constant, desperate search for the next industry—be it sugar, coal, or software—to cement the city’s relevance on the global stage.
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