Seattle’s Short-Lived Ambition to Become a Whaling Hub
A newly formed San Francisco company eyes Seattle as the base for its North Pacific whaling operations.
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.
The Puget Sound Dispatch reported that a company had been organized in San Francisco to engage in whaling in the North Pacific and that it would have its headquarters at Seattle.
According to the report, the company would commence operations as soon as the spring opened.
“We are informed that a company has been organized in San Francisco to engage in whaling in the North Pacific, and that they will have their headquarters at Seattle.”
While Seattle eventually became a center for the Klondike Gold Rush and aerospace rather than commercial whaling, this 1872 brief captures the city's early, desperate scramble to secure any major industry that would grant it status as the primary commercial hub of the Pacific Northwest.
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