Because the shorter water route through the canal would not increase train cargo indeed, it meant competition for the transcontinental lines , the rail corporations that owned Seattle's waterfront had little incentive to prepare for more intercoastal shipping.
Seattle leaders feared the city would fall behind rival Western ports that were already investing in docks and wharves to attract the expected new shipping. Even Tacoma, which had long lagged behind its neighbor in maritime trade, was catching up, and in began building Washington's first municipally owned dock. The Seattle Times , despite its general opposition to municipal ownership, editorialized that Seattle should also "determine this question of city-owned docks in the affirmative" Woodward.
With railroads in control of the central waterfront, proponents of new public facilities looked to the undeveloped land along the Duwamish River. In , the legislature, even as it rejected public port legislation, authorized King County voters to establish separate local improvement districts that could issue bonds and levy taxes to build the Lake Washington Ship Canal and develop the lower Duwamish into a waterway for large oceangoing ships. Remsberg, a Fremont banker, attorney, and real-estate speculator -- headed the campaign for the bond issue, which won easily in the November election.
Railroad attorneys immediately sued to invalidate the local improvement districts and managed to block work on the Duwamish Waterway for a time, but this latest attempt to obstruct projects that much of Seattle's commercial and business establishment considered essential was the last straw. When the legislative session opened, a broad consensus favored creating public port districts in Washington, as Governor Marion E.
Hay recognized:. Drafted by Cotterill, Thomson, and Seattle Corporation Counsel Scott Calhoun, the Port District Act authorized Washington voters to create public port districts that could acquire, construct, and operate waterways, docks, wharves, and other harbor improvements; rail and water transfer and terminal facilities; and ferry systems. A port district would be a government body, run by three elected commissioners, independent of any existing county, city, or other government, with the power to levy taxes and issue bonds.
Recognizing that a public port would be of little use if the railroads and private dock owners dominated the Port Commission, Calhoun's committee also screened potential candidates for the three commissioner positions, endorsing three at a July 28 meeting. For the central district, the committee selected Hiram Chittenden, the well-respected former Army Corps of Engineers officer. The committee's choice for the south district was the combative former state Lands Commissioner Robert Bridges.
Charles Remsberg, the Republican banker from Fremont chosen for the north district, was supposed to balance the Populist Bridges on the ticket, but he was as committed to municipal ownership as his fellow nominees.
With support from the press, civic organizations, politicians, and most of the business community, the proposition to create the Port of Seattle passed on September 5, , by a wide margin, 13, votes to 4, Chittenden more than doubled his opponent's votes, while Bridges and Remsberg won by lesser but still substantial margins.
One week later on September 12, , the new commissioners met for the first time and began planning and developing Seattle's first public harbor facilities, which would include Fishermen's Terminal on Salmon Bay, two huge piers at Smith Cove, and the original Bell Street Pier.
Over the next years, they and their successors built the Port into a leading container terminal; developed and operated Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the region's largest; and created the many other facilities that make the Port of Seattle a major contributor to economic growth. Boardman, Public Printer, , Note: This essay replaces a previous essay on the same topic.
Building into the Bay The problems facing the waterfront that inspired calls for a public port were rooted in both the natural history of Elliott Bay and the human history of the young city on the bay's eastern shore. Railroad Avenue In response, a new local railroad effort was organized the following year by Judge Thomas Burke , a lawyer and real-estate speculator who was one of Seattle's wealthiest and most influential citizens.
Growing Pains The Great Northern reached Seattle in , and by there were four transcontinental rail lines jostling for position on the waterfront. Citing successful ports elsewhere, Bogue asserted: "The greatest commercial success has resulted where there has been, either in part or in whole, municipal or other public ownership and control of dock frontage" Post-Intelligencer.
Progressive Engineers In Seattle, civil engineers were among the leading Progressives. They held their first meeting just a week later, on September 12, , in an office in the Central Building in downtown Seattle Third Avenue borrowed from the Municipal Plans Commission. They chose Chittenden as Port Commission chairman and Bridges as secretary. The Port District Act required that a "comprehensive scheme of harbor improvement" be prepared and approved by voters Rising Tides With the next election set for March , the commissioners had to work rapidly.
They met several times a week to begin with, and then at least weekly. The commissioners, who were working without pay only years later would the Port District Act be amended to provide compensation for commissioners , hired C. The selection of a chief engineer triggered some dissension. Thomson , who built the city's first water and power systems and reshaped Seattle through massive regrading projects, winning acclaim but also detractors, among them The Seattle Times.
Bridges preferred George F. Despite Bridges's financial concerns and editorial objections from the Times , Thomson got the job, while Cotterill entered and won the race for mayor of Seattle. With Thomson's assistance, the commissioners prepared the comprehensive plan required by the act. It included a large deep-sea terminal at Smith Cove; another large pier and slip on the East Waterway; a small public wharf, and warehouse on the central waterfront at the foot of Bell Street; general moorage on Salmon Bay which would soon become Fishermen's Terminal ; and new ferry service on Lake Washington.
Even as the commissioners developed their plans, much of the downtown establishment promoted a very different view of the Port's role. Railroads and private dock owners saw public docks as unwanted competition, while the city's leading newspapers and other downtown businesses, which had supported a public port only to overcome the railroad monopoly, did not want a public body actually operating commercial harbor facilities.
In January , this opposition crystallized around a newly announced plan by a group of private investors to build a "Bush Terminal on Harbor Island" Rising Tides Many civic leaders called for the Port, rather than building its own facilities, to aid the Pacific Terminal Company in replicating New York City's Bush Terminal, the nation's largest and most modern, on the recently created Harbor Island at the mouth of the Duwamish.
In their view, the role of a public port was to use its authority to acquire lands and issue bonds to fund development of projects but then turn the management over to private enterprise.
The press and downtown businesses argued that a massive "Bush Terminal" would prepare Seattle for the trade anticipated from the opening of the Panama Canal in Unsaid but also important to many was that if the Port confined itself to Harbor Island, it would not own and operate other docks in competition with private enterprise. All three commissioners considered the plan flawed.
No one died in the fire, but the property damage ran into millions of dollars. Enthusiasm for Seattle was little dampened by the fire. In fact, it provided the opportunity for extensive municipal improvements, including widened and regraded streets, a professional fire department, reconstructed wharves, and municipal water works. New construction in the burned district was required to be of brick or steel, and it was by choice on a grander and more imposing scale.
Explore documents in the Archives relating to the Great Fire here. The s were not so prosperous, despite the arrival of another transcontinental railroad, the Great Northern, in A nationwide business depression did not spare Seattle, but the discovery of gold along and near the Klondike River in Canada's Yukon Territory and in Alaska once again made Seattle an instant boom town. The city exploited its nearness to the Klondike and its already established shipping lines to become the premier outfitting point for prospectors.
The link became so strong that Alaska was long considered to be the personal property of Seattle and Seattleites. During the early s, Seattle, now having discovered the rewards of advertising, continued to experience strong growth. Two more transcontinental railroads, the Union Pacific and Milwaukee Road systems, reached Seattle and reinforced the city's position as a trade and shipping center, particularly with Asia and the North Pacific. The city's population became increasingly diversified.
Scandinavians came to work in fishing and lumbering, African Americans to work as railroad porters and waiters, and Japanese to operate truck gardens and hotels. There were significant communities of Italians, Chinese, Jews, and Filipinos.
The International District, home to several Asian ethnic groups, was largely developed during this period. With its population now approaching ,, Seattle announced its achievements by sponsoring an international fair in The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition celebrated the economic and cultural links Seattle had forged along what is now known as the North Pacific Rim; you can read more about Seattle's role in its success here. The forty-two story L. Smith building was completed in For more than four decades it was the tallest building in the American west and a symbol of Seattle's booster spirit and metropolitan aspirations.
World War I transformed the city's shipbuilding industry, which turned out 20 percent of the nation's wartime ship tonnage. Now they set their sights on Bringhurst. The flap with Kellogg had ended with the creation of a City Charter in that prevented a Fire Chief from being fired without just cause.
Therefore, Gill concocted his own "just cause," and fired Bringhurst because he wore civilian clothes to work. Gill replaced him with John Boyle, an able firefighter who also happened to be one of Gill"s card-playing buddies. Gill supported an "open-town" policy where "vice" carried on in brothels, gambling parlors, and saloons went unsuppressed.
Within a year, the city became a cesspool of crime, and Gill was recalled. On April 11, , Boyle was asked to resign after complaints came in that he had used foul language during a fire at Lincoln High School. While under investigation, it was uncovered that Boyle also played favorites when it came to discipline, was involved in political activity, and frequented saloons too many times.
He was fired on April 24,
0コメント