The High-Stakes Duel on Jackson Street
Two prominent Seattle businessmen settled a long-standing rivalry with an elaborate, heavily trained, and well-wagered foot race across a city bridge.
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 rather interesting contest of speed took place on the Jackson street bridge yesterday afternoon between two well-known society sprinters. The race was arranged some two weeks ago, and the principals have been in active training ever since. The contestants were C. H. Kittinger, former member of the banking firm of B. Downing & Co., and Josiah Collins, secretary of the Spring Hill Water Company. Kittinger’s trainer, Mr. H. M. Hall, walked him five miles and ran him three miles every morning before daylight, followed by an intense regimen of specialized meals and massages. Mr. W. A. Peters trained Collins, whose routine included running to Lake Washington at sunrise, killing a brace of ducks at the Duwamish River, and adhering to a strict diet of canvasback duck and spring water. The distance was 100 yards, and the crowd, which numbered many of our smart young men, was quite large, and considerable money was staked on the result. After the usual preliminaries, the men got away to a flying start, and ran together neck and neck for a short distance. When the backer forged ahead, Kittinger stumbled but recovered. Collins made a desperate attempt to overtake his rival, but his strength failed. Kittinger crossed the line fifteen feet in advance and was declared the winner. It is stated that this contest settles an old rivalry which has existed between these two gentlemen for a long time.
“The winner of the race would not have cast a respectable shadow on a bright day, without an overcoat on.”
Today's Seattleites might settle petty feuds with passive-aggressive tweets, but in the 1880s, the local elite opted for public athletic duels. The Jackson Street bridge, once the stage for this eccentric drama, remains a central artery of the city, proving that while modes of transit and conflict evolve, the spectacle of civic rivalry is timeless.
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