Snippets of: Seattle, Part 1

Seattle is doomed! But in order for you to understand this, you need some basic Seattle history. This story is actually something I wrote for something else some other time, so it may not sound quite the same as I normally write for this blog. Let's just say that by studying Seattle, we are studying a city built on folly

Underground Seattle is a complex maze of passageways and basements in downtown Seattle. In the mid-1800s, when Seattle was just beginning, Underground Seattle was really the ground level. The city was built on the tide flats of the Puget Sound and thus flooded frequently.
The original buildings of Seattle were made of wood, and as the University of Washington Library states, the floors of the buildings were made of “wood chips and turpentine.” (University of Washington Libraries) The streets were muddy, and the people were coarse lumberjacks who seldom took baths.
Seattle was founded on November 13, 1851. A party of settlers led by a man named Arthur Denny landed on Alki Beach in November. (I may do another story on Seattle some other time. If I do, there will be more about the folly of his early settlement.) A man who was interested in the Northwest since an early time in his life, Arthur Denny seized the chance to go west when it came. He was partly influenced by his wife Mary. The city was also founded by the Terry group, and the Hines group. Little is known about these groups, but it’s better not to give all the credit to Arthur Denny.
When the Denny party landed on Alki Beach, now in downtown Seattle they named the place New York and then added bye and bye. Bye and bye became the Washington state motto. Part of the reason that Seattle was once named New York may have been because the biggest city, New York City, New York, where most of the Denny party had come from, was a three month journey. The Denny party hoped that Seattle would be able to take New York’s place as a large social center. Later the city was named Seattle after explorers met the powerful local Indian chief, Chief Sealth, or, Seattle, as we Americans called him.
This story was intended to be mainly about why Seattle is doomed so, enough of Seattle’s background. Let us instead skip to one of Seattle’s first mistakes: the Great Fire of Seattle. It started on June 6th, 1889, at 2:15 p.m., just after a beautiful spring.
The Great Fire started in a carpenters shop when a pot of glue, which was put on the stove by John Back, boiled over onto the sawdust and turpentine floor. The floor, of course, caught fire. When it was noticed, it was already too late to stop it. The fire soon ignited the liquor store on the one side, and a hardware store on the other side. Because of the massive logging industry of the time, all of the hardware stores carried dynamite, while everyone knows that alcohol is highly combustible. You can well imagine the result.
An equally important contribution to the greatness of the fire is Skid Row. The term Skid Row started in Seattle. It was really called Skid Road at first. The lumberjacks would skid the logs down the steep hill behind Seattle to the Puget Sound. After the logs had been put into the Sound, the lumberjacks would enter the bars. Thus, Skid Row was born.
At the time of the fire, drunken teenagers and men set fire to other buildings thinking that it was all in fun. Amazingly, no lives were lost in the fire. An article titled the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889 tells us of the devastation caused by the fire. It says, and I quote, “Thousands of people were homeless, and 5,000 men were without jobs. The city estimated losses at more than $8 million, and that did not include personal property losses.” (U-S, comp.)
Where was the fire department all this time? Unfortunately, the fire Chief was out of town at a fire prevention conference! No one seemed to mind that. After all, they had two brand-new fire engines that would fix the problem in no time. However, they neglected to see if the fire engines were filled with water. Of course they weren't. No problem, said the city’s government, there’s the Sound just a hop, skip, and a jump away. So, they drove the fire engines over to the water. At least, they tried to. Un-happily, the tide was out causing the beach to be muddy. The engines got stuck and the people were forced to put out the fire in the old fashioned and unconventional way. A line of men passing buckets back and forth. The city of Tacoma, about half a day away, did send over their fire engines in time to help put out the fire, but it wasn’t enough to save Seattle.The fire destroyed almost the entire city. Thirty blocks were utterly demolished.

(It sounds like Seattle has already gone through its doom-edness. But this is only the beginning. Other, more terrible things are to come in Snippets of: Seattle, Part 2. However, Part 2 must wait it's turn. Next up is: Stories of My Life:__)