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A clump of ferns in Schmitz Park, such as you may find anywhere in a 
Western Washington woods. (Photo by Rognon.) 



The Seattle Spirit 

Overcoat Pocket Edition 

L. {Byrd 

vV 

# 

A Primer on Puget Sound 

A Bird’s-Eye View of Western Washington 
Past, Present, and Future 


WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED 



Seattle, Washington 


Copyright, 1911, by L. Byrd Moc£ 





SOME CRITICAL COMMENTS ON (e THE 
SEATTLE SPIRIT.” 


“One of the greatest stories of achievement yet printed, and 
one that ought to be read by every man and woman in the 
country.” —Progress Magazine. 

“It’s good stuff. You yourself mirror the Seattle Spirit.” 
—Elbert Hubbard. 

“I will never forget your kind attention when you brought 
to me this delightful gift, ‘The Maid of Pend d’Oreille,’ and the 
excellent article on ‘L’Esprit de Seattle.’ 

“I send to you this article of mine which will appear as a 
chapter of my book and as a token of my sincere gratitude and 
sympathy. Yours, D’Estournellf.s de Constant. 


Paris, July 5, 1911.” 


“It reads like a romance.”—J udge Thomas Burke. 

“Your ‘Seattle Spirit’ is a classic. It will not be many years 
before your name will be written high up on the tablets of fame. 


“Yours sincerely, 


S. H. Piles.” 


“The best story ever written on Seattle. It deals with the 
psychology of success.”— Alaska-Yukon Magazine. 

“The author is a charming writer. This article is the best 
on Seattle and its ambitions that has ever appeared in print. 
It should be preserved as an interesting bit of Northwest his¬ 
tory.”— The Argus. 

“I am translating your ‘Seattle Spirit’ into German. It will 
be published in an educational book-series called ‘Jugendschrif- 
tenbucherei.’* It will find it way to all libraries and remain there 
as your first German document for Ml time. 



“Paul O. Hentsch, Ph. D., 
“Leipzig, Germany.” 

// 


©CLA303157 


\A l 


“I never read a more fascinating description of a place in 
all my life.”— Col. William H. Stewart, Portsmouth, Va. 

“It is a masterpiece.”— Melcina Denny. 

“A wonderful story.”— Baba Bharati (Hindu Swami). 

“A prose poem.”—S t. Louis Republic. 

“Most interesting.”— Frederick Warde. 

“I have read it over several times, and each time I have read 
it I have found something bigger, broader, and better in it.”— 
W. F. Schramm, Managing Editor Progress Magazine. 

“The Maid of the Magic Touch.”— Alice Rollit Coe. 

“As a literary effort it is a gem, besides being the most ac¬ 
curate as well as the mo.st fascinating review of our Pacific 
Northwest country that I have ever read. 

“Roland Cotterill, 

“Secretary Board of Park Commissioners, Seattle.” 

The story has been translated into Hindu and German, and 
will soon appear in French, Danish, Swedish, and Servian. 

, -'.4 


Author's Note —The author will be glad to answer any ques¬ 
tions pertaining to subjects mentioned in this treatise on Seattle 
and Western Washington, if the reader will inclose stamped en¬ 
velope for reply. Address, The Sign of the Mocking Bird, Seat¬ 
tle, Washington. 




Moonlight on Elliott Bay revealing the landing place of the pioneers at 

Alki Point. 






“Adversis rerum immersabilis undis .”— Horace. 


* I 1 HE foundation of Seattle was laid in a woman’s 
A tears,” wrote Professor Edmond S. Meany, in his 
history of the state of Washington. 

And what woman would not have wept at the out¬ 
look on that dismal November morning in 1851, with 
thousands of Indians skulking around in an almost im¬ 
penetrable forest, while, with only a water-soaked log 
for a seat, she held in her arms an infant but a few weeks 
old? 

Thus weeping, Mrs. Arthur Denny was discovered 
by her husband, who sought at once to console her with 
encouraging words, saying, “This is no way to begin 



8 


THE SEA TTLE SPIRIT 



Two views of Pioneers’ Monument showiug birthplace of Seattle. 


pioneering.” Mr. Denny himself has inscribed in his 
book, “Pioneer Days on Puget Sound,” the following 
memorandum: “When we landed I went to look for the 
women, and found they were all in tears, for they had 
already discerned the gravity of the situation. I did not 
for some time discover that I had gone too far; in fact, 
it was not until I became aware that my wife and help¬ 
less children were exposed to the murderous attacks of 
the hostile savages that it dawned on me I had made a 
desperate venture.” 




THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


9 



Oldest settlement on the Sound, old Fort Nisqually, established by the 
Hudson’s Bay Company in 1833, surrendered to the United States Government 
in 1870. It is sixteen miles from Tacoma, on one of the most beautiful drives 

in the world. 


“Why did he do it?” was the next question. Answer 
is found in the vision of a sickly, delicate young man, 
named John Cornelius Holgate, who lived in Iowa. He 
had read of this marvelous country in the journal written 
by Sergeant Gass, who was in the Lewis and Clark ex¬ 
pedition. 



Springtime in the woods of Washington, where wild rhododendrons grow in 

riotous profusion. 







10 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



What pleased this 
young- invalid most 
was the fact that the 
climate of the North- 
West ~ Pacific Coast 
was shown to be so 
healthful from the ex¬ 
perience of all the 
men who had visited 
it. It seemed superior 
to any other climate 
of which he had heard 
or read. So, animated 
with a desire to see 
for himself this allur¬ 
ing but unknown 
country, in 1847 he 
set out across the 
plains with a party of 
Quakers commanded 
by Llewellyn, and 
reached the Willam¬ 
ette valley in Oregon, 
he himself driving the 
wagon that brought 
the first fruit trees to 
Oregon. With prudent 
precaution he had also 

A February rose, photographed on a bush bought a fir tree at 3 . 
growing outdoors, in Seattle. ® 

nursery in Salem, 
Iowa, thinking the climate would be suitable for the 

introduction of this valuable specimen of forestry. On 

his way across the plains he refused five dollars for the 







THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


II 


sapling, as he did not wish to part with his treasure. 
Imagine with what surprise and chagrin he threw his 
cherished shrub away when he beheld the giant firs of 
the Northwest, centuries old, looking down at him mock¬ 
ingly from their exalted heights. 

This dauntless young man continued to ask ques¬ 
tions about Puget Sound, and an old Hudson’s Bay 


trapper told him of the 
peerless beauty of this great 
inland sea, of its magnifi¬ 
cent harbors, its mountains, 
its rivers, its timber, its fer¬ 
tile valleys, its fish, its hid¬ 
den treasures of coal, iron, 
and other minerals, until 
the young man’s imagina¬ 
tion was fired with these 
heretofore unheard-of won¬ 
ders. He saw, as a result 
of all these advantages, a 
great city rising up in the 
wilderness. He confided his 
dream to the trapper, and, 
setting out alone in the 
summer of 1849, from Port¬ 
land, Oregon, he arrived at 
Tumwater, at the head of 
Puget Sound. From this 
point he hired an Indian to 
take him down the Sound 
in a canoe. 

After spending about two 
months cruising around 



Chief Seattle, for whom the city 
was named. An imposing statue of 
the old chief is to be erected at Fifth 
Avenue and Denny Way. The sculp¬ 
tor, James Wehn, a Seattle man, has 
wonderfully caught the local color 
in his design. 




12 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


and exploring the country, he staked a claim at the head 
of Elliott Bay, near the mouth of the Duwamish River. 
His original claim is now within the corporate limits of 
the city of Seattle. On his return to .the Willamette 
valley he gave such glowing descriptions of the country 
he had seen that a number of persons determined to go 
there before locating south of the Columbia River. This 
party included our lady of the tears. Thus was Seattle 
conceived; thus was she born. 

Soon hope and ambition took possession of this 
handful of pioneers, and they named their little colony 
New York; but as expansion seemed slow the Indian 
word “Alki,” meaning “by and by,” was added. Finally 
the “New York” was dropped and the town was named 
Seattle after a friendly Indian chief, though part of the 
early name is still preserved in the beautiful suburban 
residence district, Alki Point, the site of the first settle¬ 
ment. 

It was the writer’s privilege to meet the Mother of 
Seattle, and to have an extended talk with her about 
pioneer days, several months before she set out on the 
Last Long Trail. With the passing of the old year of 
1910 this saintly soul, to whom Seattle owes so much, 
passed silently out into the Unknown Sea, and on the 
first day of the New Year all Seattle mourned as the last 
tributes were paid to this noble-hearted woman, whose 
hand had helped to rock the cradle of our Western lib¬ 
erty. 

I shall never forget my visit with Mrs. Denny. I 
found her one of the most charming types of the pioneer 
woman, and although in her eighty-eighth year she en¬ 
tertained me with an enthusiasm almost youthful, telling 
thrilling stories of the early days in Seattle. 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


13 











14 


THE SEATTLE 


S PIRIT 


“I have heard that 
people in Seattle 
never grow old, and I 
am quite ready to be¬ 
lieve it since meeting 
you,” I remarked to 
Mrs. Denny. 

“No, we never grow 
old here,” she replied. 
“We have too much 
to think about to 
spend time getting old. 
Then, our delightful climate, which is never too hot or 
too cold, goes a long way toward preserving perfect 
health, which is the secret of youthful appearance. Nat¬ 
urally I am not strong, but since I crossed the plains and 
came out here to live my health has been excellent. Last 
year I had my first trip up Rainier Mountain, although 
I have been gazing at it in the distance for over half a 
century. Since the new government road has been com¬ 
pleted up as far as Paradise Park, it is easy to make the 
ascent in a machine. I enjoyed the trip immensely, and 
it did not tire me much. 

“The glaciers were wonderful, and the view the most 
glorious I ever hope to see this side of heaven.” 

“What kind of house did I live in when I first 
came here? Well, I will show you a picture of the first 
house in Seattle. You see it is a log house without any 
windows. We could not get any glass at that time. The 
door was cut in two sections, the lower half being fast¬ 
ened from the inside with leather straps to keep the In¬ 
dians out, the upper half of the door stood open summer 
and winter to admit light and air. 





THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


15 


“We did our shop¬ 
ping in Olympia, our 
capital, then a strug¬ 
gling little village, 
where we went in In¬ 
dian canoes for sup¬ 
plies, such as they 
had. Our pork and 
butter came around 
by Cape Horn, our 
flour from Chile, and 
our sugar from China. Once we were without bread 
for six weeks, until the ship arrived. 

“I have gone to Olympia by every mode of travel 
that has been in vogue, from an Indian canoe to an au¬ 
tomobile, by stage, by steamboat, and by rail. The last 
time I went I made the trip in our machine and the next 
time I go it may be in a flying machine.* 

“Our Eastern mail came by the way of the Isthmus 
of Panama,” continued Mrs. Denny, “and it took two 
months to get an answer from New York by return mail. 
This will give you an idea of the isolation we had to 
endure. 

“The first ocean mail line we had was Indian ca¬ 
noes, which plied between,Olympia and our post here in 
Seattle. The Indians went up once a week after the 
mail (talk paper, as they called it), and I would always 
know when they were coming by their singing as they 
paddled up the bay. It was delightful to listen to those 
plaintive Indian melodies. I can almost hear them yet.” 

Mrs. Denny was a brilliant example of the true Seat- 

♦Although in good health at the time of this interview, Mrs. Denny’s 
words now seem almost prophetic, since, borne aloft on a celestial aeroplane, 
propelled by angels’ wings, she has made her flight to that Higher Olympia, 
where dwells the God of the Ages. 






16 


THE SEATTLE SPIRI T 


tie spirit. “I remember 
well old Chief Seattle,” 
she said. “He was always 
friendly to us, and I have 
seen him making speeches 
to hostile Indians, and 
though I could not under¬ 
stand what he was saying 
he looked every inch an 
orator. He was b i g, 
strong, and noble looking, 
and made as graceful and 
effective gestures as any 
speaker I ever saw.” 
“How did you pioneer 
women manage for help to do your work?” I asked. 

“We had to do all our own work, and of course it 
was very hard on us. The Indian women were abso¬ 
lutely useless as servants, as they did not know the first 
thing about civilized ways of doing things. If we put 
an Indian woman to washing, she would put the white 
and colored clothes in a pot and boil them all together, 
and they could not learn to iron at all.” 

“Is it true that seven years ago you owned a cow 
pasture on Second Avenue, where those fine buildings 
stand?” I inquired. 

“Yes, it is true, and we still own the ground on 
which they stand, although previous to Seattle’s sudden 
leap forward many purchasers sought to buy this land, but 
realizing that my pet cow, Betsy, would have no place 
to graze, I refused to sell the lot. Now my cow pasture 
yields me a small fortune in annual rentals.” 



Princess Angeline. 




THE SEA TTLE SPIRIT 17 

Mrs. Denny made the following statement, which 
seems incredible to the Easterner, considering that Se¬ 
attle is eight degrees farther north than New York: 
“I have gone out into my garden in the winter and cut 
fresh cabbage for the table. We used always to raise 
two crops, so we had fresh cabbage the year round.” 

The most trying ordeal through which these pio¬ 
neers had to pass was the Indian uprising, culminating 
in the battle of Seattle, January 26, 1856, on which 
occasion men, women, and children were huddled to¬ 
gether in one of the old blockhouses, which was located 
near the corner of what is now known as First Avenue 
and Cherry Street, the spot on which the Starr-Boyd 
Building now stands. 

On account of the recent uprising, an attack from 
the Indians had been gravely feared by the pioneers, in 


First picture ever made of Mount Rainier, from a sketch taken on the spot, by 
J. Sykes. Published in London. England, in Vancouver’s book, May 1, 1798. 





18 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


The Battle of Seattle. 1856. 

spite of the treaties that had been concluded by Gov¬ 
ernor Stevens. 

At the urgent importunity of the pioneers, the sloop- 
of-war Decatur was sent into the Seattle harbor for their 
protection. Friendly Indians informed the settlers of the 
gathering of the tribes for the attack, pointing out their 
location. Captain Gansevoort, of the Decatur, was in¬ 
formed of this, and he ordered a howitzer fired in the 
direction indicated by the friendly Indians. With a wild 
yell the attacking Indians opened fire, which was kept up 
all day, but only two white men were killed. One was Rob¬ 
ert Wilson and the other Milton* G. Holgate, a nephew of 
our young dreamer that saw Seattle in his mind’s eye long 
before he reached Puget Sound. 

Mrs. Denny vividly recalled Secretary Seward’s 
visit to Seattle in 1869, which event was truly an epoch 
in the annals of the little village. Harper’s Nen> Monthly 
Magazine, of September, 1870, gives a glowing account 





THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


19 


of Seward’s Puget Sound trip, 
in an illustrated article entitled, 
“The Mediterranean of the Pa¬ 
cific.” “The winter,” the author 
of the story states, “is as mild 
as an Eastern spring. Snow sel¬ 
dom visits and never lies long 
on the ground. The rosebuds 
may be plucked in the open air 
at Christmas and geraniums 
gathered at New Year’s. A 
singularly healthful and de¬ 
lightful climate has been re¬ 
served for the outlying corner 
of our land. No sweltering 
heats of summer cause sleep¬ 
less nights. No savage winter 
frosts cramp and pinch the 
feeble frame. Never anywhere 
have we seen children so 
healthy or beautiful as within 
the limits of Washington Ter¬ 
ritory.” 

Speaking of Mount Rainier, 
he says: “We may wander to 
the farthest corner of the earth, 
but the image, the look of that 
mountain in the moonlight will 
not wear away.” 

Continuing, he said: “The 
Northern Pacific is spoken of 
as a rival of the Central 
Pacific, and the land hold- 





20 THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



Seattle’s water front at the time of Secretary Seward’s visit. 
(Courtesy Harper’s Magazine.) 


ers and lot holders of the Puget Sound country are 
discussing the location of the great terminal city. The 
eyes of all are turned to a spot which is destined to play 
no mean part in the history of our national progress 
and civilization. Let any one take a look at the position 
and contour of our country and he will be convinced of 
its importance and foresee its manifest destiny.” 

He quotes Secretary Seward as predicting a mar¬ 
velous future for this region, and the governor of British 
Columbia as saying to Seward: “We feel the shadow 
of the great future that is coming along to our people 
out here.” Secretary Seward was on his way to Alaska 
to look at his recent “ice purchase,” as he called it, when 
he took this occasion to make a tour of the Sound. 

“Yours will be a valuable property when the North¬ 
ern Pacific is built,” Seward said to an old settler. The 
old settler doubted if he would ever live to see “that 
crazy road through the wilderness.” The engrossing 
question all along the Sound was, “Which place will be 
chosen as a terminus?” 

So impressed was Secretary Seward with the topog¬ 
raphy of this region that in his report he said: “Europe 





THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


21 



A winter woods in Washington. 


“Every pine and fir and hemlock 
Wore ermine too dear for an earl, 
And the poorest twig on the elm tree 
Was edged inch-deep with pearl.” 







22 


THE SEATTLE SPIRI T 


and Asia are soon to 
become largely depend¬ 
ent upon the forests 
and mines of the Pa¬ 
cific. The entire region 
of Oregon, Washing¬ 
ton Territory, British 
Columbia, and Alaska 
seems destined to be¬ 
come the shipyard sup¬ 
ply of all nations/’ 
Seattle at that time 
was nothing more than 
a landing with only a 
thousand inhabitants, 
but it boasted a univer¬ 
sity, with only “one 
professor and a limited 
number of pupils.” The 
building was a two- 
story frame structure, 
which is described as 
“a pretentious edifice, 
the most prominent 
building in Seattle.” I 



should say the building 
is a two-story struc¬ 
ture, for it still stands, 
though its days are 
numbered. 

In a few weeks it 
will be laid low to 
make way for the lofty 
sky-scrapers that are 
closing in upon it from 
a 11 sides. Deserted, 
blackened with age, 
strangely out of date, 
in the very heart of the 
civic center of Seattle, 
the old university pre¬ 
sents a pathetic picture 
in the contrast she of¬ 
fers to her surround¬ 
ings. She has served 
out her time, fulfilled 
her mission, given to 
the state a “greater 
Washington,” nurtured 
some of the brainiest 


The famous Seattle Totem Pole iu Pioneer Place. It once stood before the 
hut of a Chilcat chieftain in Alaska. 




THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 23 



First Avenue, Seattle, in 1865, showing Yesler’s old sawmill at the end of 

the street. 


men in Seattle, and now she must go into the scrap heap, 
for she is no longer useful.* 

Asa S. Mercer was the first president of this terri¬ 
torial university, where all the classes sat and recited 
in one room. Mr. Mercer is still alive,—very much alive, 
considering what he has passed through. He writes from 
Chicago, where he is promoting some real estate enter¬ 
prise, the following: 

“Like all great institutions, the University of Wash¬ 
ington had a very small beginning. Its early life was 
strenuous and seemingly without much promise. In the 
fall of 1862 Rev. Daniel Bagley and I talked over the 
situation, and I was appointed president, without salary, 
without means of advertising, with nothing but my hands 
and head to work with. At that time there were not 
to exceed one hundred and fifty people in the town of 
Seattle. 

“The other villages on the Sound were small, and 
young men and young women, especially the latter, were 
scarcely to be found. 

♦Since the above was written the old university has, “like some unsub¬ 
stantial pageant, faded and left not a wrack behind.” 





24 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


“In order to make any show at all, I contracted 
with the village school for all the children ranging from 
four years up, which was the school age at that time. 
Previous to opening the school in September I spent 
three weeks, hiring two Indians with a canoe, and 
traveled about four hundred miles, visiting every logging 
camp on the east side of Puget Sound, from Bellingham 
Bay to Olympia, trying to induce any young man whom 
I might find engaged in the logging camps to come to 
Seattle and enter school. I succeeded in getting about 
one dozen, varying in age from twenty to twenty-five 
years. 

“In order to secure them I agreed to pay them a 
dollar and fifty cents a cord for chopping wood from 
the down timber in front of the university grounds, which 
had been donated to me for that purpose by Arthur A. 
Denny.” 

The Rev. Daniel Bagley referred to was the origi¬ 
nator of the “University of Washington” idea, and to 
him is due the credit for the erection of the building that 
served the state so nobly and that formed the nucleus for 
“more stately mansions.” 

His son, Mr. Clarence B. Bagley, who might well be 
called a “frater emeritus” of the university, still lives in 
Seattle. “Fifty years ago now,” he said, “a friend named 
James J. Crow and I were engaged in clearing the actual 
site of the old university building. So far as I can now 
recall, Asa S. Mercer and David Graham are the only 
others left of the men who cleared the university site.” 

Mr. Clarence B. Bagley was one of the pioneers of 
the woman suffrage movement in Washington Territory, 
and one of the promoters of the first successful coal com¬ 
pany in the state. Just here the writer wishes to give 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


25 



credit to Mr. Bagley for au¬ 
thentic records of pioneers 
and many events furnished 
as a basis for this story. He 
has the true historian’s pas¬ 
sion for truth, and I beg the 
reader to remember that, if 
some of my statements sound 
like the fabrication of a writ- 


Rev. Daniel Bagley, founder 
of the university. 

Asa S. Mercer, first pres¬ 
ident of the university and 
importer of wives for Seattle 


Old Territorial university. 

er of fiction, the facts rest on 
the highest authority obtain¬ 
able. 

Mr. Bagley has the largest 
collection of Northwest his¬ 
torical data, public or private, 
to be found in the state. He 
has lived most of this his¬ 
tory ; the rest he has collected 
from records the world over. 
In the patient compilation 
and jealous preservation of 

























26 THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



Denny Hall, University of Washington. 


these records he has performed a monumental service to 
the state of Washington, and though he writes but little 
posterity will be as much indebted to him for the knowl¬ 
edge of the Westward movement that he will hand down 
as we are indebted to Herodotus for the record of the 
early migrations of the Greeks. 

It is not so much because of Asa Mercer’s connection 
with the first university that he is known to fame. His 
immortality rests on the fact that he furnished wives for 
the wifeless young men of Seattle in days when better 
halves were not available to the average young West¬ 
erner. Lands were not cash, there were no railroads in 
the West, and the voyage around the continent involved 
a greater expenditure than any young man could afford. 

Attracted by the success of the early colony, these 
young men had come to Seattle by the score, but there 
were no young women in the Northwest. The scarcity 
of women on Puget Sound became a serious matter, 
socially, industrially, and morally, for the white men be- 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


27 



A “Yard of Girls” at the University of Washington, where twenty feet make 

one yard. 


gan marrying Indian squaws, whose progeny were weak 
physically and mentally, and as a rule short-lived. 

Asa Mercer, who was quite a public-spirited man, 
took the situation very much to heart, and finally evolved 
a scheme that only the most heroic man in the whole 
world would have attempted. He decided that if 
“Mahomet could not go to the mountain he would bring 
the mountain to Mahomet.” 



Forestry Building, University of Washington, built from the state’s big trees. 







28 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


It was the last year of the war between the States, 
and Mercer figured that many young girls and women 
in the East had been orphaned and left without means 
of support. His idea was to go to Boston and New 
York and to make a thorough canvass^ with a view of 
inducing as many young women as possible to return 
with him. He applied to the territorial Legislature for 
financial aid in fitting out a ship for his unique expedi¬ 
tion, but though the plan was approved by both governor 
and Legislature the treasury was empty. 

The dauntle&s Mercer then set about raising the 
necessary funds by private subscription. He succeeded 
in getting enough money to carry out his project, and 
as a result twelve young women came to find homes in 
Seattle. 

Chagrined and disappointed, but not discouraged, 
he returned home by way of the Isthmus of Panama 
with his precious cargo, arriving in Seattle at midnight 
on May 16, 1864. Two years later he made another 
expedition of the same nature, again encountering many 
serious obstacles. The fate of the first party of young 
women had proved so felicitous that Mercer had no 
difficulty in securing the consent of nearly a thousand 
damsels to return with him this time, promising all of 
them remunerative work as teachers, seamstresses, etc. 

A grave difficulty arose,—transportation was lack¬ 
ing. Mercer went to Washington and enlisted the in¬ 
terest of General Grant, who was familiar with condi¬ 
tions in the West. General Grant promised to use his 
influence in securing a government ship for Mercer’s use. 
Mercer had hoped to appeal to President Lincoln, whom 
he knew well, for aid in his expedition, only to pick up a 
newspaper upon his arrival in New York giving in glar¬ 
ing headlines the account of Lincoln’s assassination. 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


29 



First enrollment book of the old territorial university, showing the names and 
grades of the pioneer spelling class. 



Hydraulics at work on Jackson Street regrade. 
SEATTLE GRADES AND REGRADES. 

























3C 


THE SEA TT LE SPIRIT 



Thus he was cut off 
from his strongest ally, 
who would doubtless 
have rendered valiant 
service - in this unusual 
enterprise. To add fur¬ 
ther to Mercer’s embar¬ 
rassment, The New York 
Herald attacked his 
character and strongly 
appealed to the young 
women to remain at 
home. 

Edward Everett Hale 
lent his assistance to 
Mercer in forwarding his 
plans. The matter was 
brought up before the 
cabinet and permission 
granted for use of the 
desired ship. But after the unwinding of much red tape, 
exasperating delays, and the refusal to embark of all 
but fifty-six of the party, they left New York on 
January 6, 1866, making the voyage by way of Cape 
Horn, in the good ship Continental. The voyage was 
uneventful, except that upon the arrival of the ship 
there was one more damsel than Mercer had started with. 
The wife of one of the ship’s crew had given birth to a 
baby girl. This happy family afterward settled at Port 
Madison. 

It is said that no shipload of people ever attracted 
more attention from the press of the United States than 
did this unique party. The New York Tribune, of Janu- 


Lovers’ Lane, on the University of 
Washington campus. 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



The end of the lane, on Lake Washington. 

ary 18, 1866, after a lengthy harangue on the subject 
says: “The adventuresses are now on their way. 
What awaits them in Seattle will be developed only by 
time.” Time has done its work and the second genera¬ 
tion has risen up to call them blessed. 

The “Mercer girls,” as Seattle still refers to them, 
were selected with rare discretion. Mr. Mercer says of 
them: “Never in the history of the world was an equal 
number of women thrown together with a higher aver¬ 
age of intelligence, modesty, and virtue.” Mercer him¬ 
self fell a victim to the charms of one of his fair pas¬ 
sengers and married her. So it appears that the chival¬ 
rous Mercer was not ruled by an altogether altruistic 
spirit in this expedition, for he took what he considered 
first choice of the fair cargo. But all honor to the man 
that, in making himself happy, forgets not his fellow 
man. So, true to the alleged “Seattle Spirit” of “Get all 
you can while you are getting,” he induced as many 





32 


THE SEATTLE SPIRI T 


maidens as possible to charm the vision and gladden 
the hearts of his comrades in loneliness on Puget Sound. 
In spite of the fact that Seattle has been twice “Mercer¬ 
ized” the young men at the present time far outnumber 
the young women in a population of more than a quar- 



The Seattle Spirit, “To Give and to' Take.” This picture suggests 
Seattle’s generosity to aliens. Some wag has hinted that it meant, “Get 
all you can while you’re getting.” 


ter of a million, and there are here collected the largest 
proportion of young people of any city in the world, the 
term young people referring to age, not to condition in 
respect to matrimony. 







THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


33 



Copyright, 1908, by the Kennedy Co. Bird’s-eye view of Seattle, looking 
eastward, showing relation of the city, Puget Sound, Lakes Union and Wash¬ 
ington, and other bodies of water, and the Cascade Mountains in the back¬ 
ground. Work is now in progress on ship canal connecting the Sound with 
the lakes, via Salmon Bay, the narrow inlet near the boundary of the city. 
Duwamish River to the right. 

The birth rate in Seattle is exceedingly low, for 
reasons shown above, and also largely on account of 
its vast nomadic population. But Seattle’s death rate is 
the lowest of any city in the world, which fact should 
somewhat make amends for her low birth rate. 

“The history of Seattle is a romance,” said a vi¬ 
vacious-looking old lady, as she plied her needle indus¬ 
triously at a meeting of the Trinity Church sewing guild 
one afternoon. 

“I have lived here forty years, and have always 
been so glad that fate brought me here to participate in 
this interesting drama,” she continued. 

“What brought you here in the first place?” I asked. 

“A chance sentence in a letter. My husband and 1 
lived in Illinois, and on the first day of January, 1869, 
the thermometer registered thirty degrees below zero 



34 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



The newly completed Oregon-Washington station in Seattle, the greatest 
architectural achievement on the Harriman lines and the finest railway 
station in the West. The building completed cost $1,351,000. It is built 
of reinforced concrete with trimmings in stone effect and is absolutely fire¬ 
proof. It is 237 feet in length by 146 feet in width. One of its showiest 
features is the magnificent rotunda which serves as a general waiting room— 
159 feet long by 72 feet wide, the vaulted ceiling extending to a height of 
55 feet. The white and gold frescoed dome with the cool green wainscoting 
of the wall produces a most restful and pleasing effect. The entire structure 
is a modern adaptation of classic designs, for the most part Doric. 


in Chicago. A letter dated from Seattle came from my 
brother, who said: ‘I am writing by an open window/ 
Think of that! When Seattle is six degrees farther 
north than Chicago. Well, that settled it. We began 
to make plans at once to come to Seattle. My hus¬ 
band, who had been a great friend of President Lincoln, 
secured the appointment of surveyor-general of Wash¬ 
ington Territory. So we came, and it proved to be the 
turning point in our fortune. My husband, Elisha Ferry, 





THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


35 


was appointed territorial governor, and was afterward 
elected the first governor of the state.” 

“Did you know President Lincoln?” I asked. 

“Yes; he spent the night at my house in Waukegan 
just before his nomination in Chicago. I have been told 
that a bronze plate, stating this fact, has been placed 
on the front of my old home there. I was present at 
Lincoln’s nomination, and I shall never forget that day. 
There was no church or hall in Chicago large enough 



King Street Station, modeled after St. Mark’s in Venice. 






36 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



Lowman Building, at First Avenue and Cherry Street, one of the most 
pleasing, from an architectural standpoint, of the big business buildings in 
the city. 















THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


to hold the crowd 
that came to the 
nomination, so it 
was held in the 
'Wigwam,’ tempo¬ 
rarily erected for 
the purpose. I was 
given a choice seat 
near the platform 
on a piece of siding 
that had been nailed 
there to keep the 
crowd back. There 
I sat, high up in the 
air, my feet dan¬ 
gling, while I wit¬ 
nessed that great 
epoch - making 
event.” 

Mrs. Ferry was a 
pioneer of Chicago, 
having witnessed 
the coming of the 
first railroad train 
into the city of Chi- 


The L. 0. Smith Build¬ 
ing, forty-two stories 
high, to be erected in Se¬ 
attle, at Second Avenue 
and Yesler Way, at a 
cost of o.ie and a half 
million. It will be the 
tallest building in the 
United States, outside of 
New York, and the third 
highest mercantile build¬ 
ing in the world. 



CP- u-u zz-r rrr xn ~~ - 


EEIHEE 

EEEEEE 


EE 

EEEEEE 

HEBE FEE FEE 
E FI HE FEE 


E13HE23 

bum 

Mm 

231112 . 

las 


21 


2 



I 

1 


u 

H 




































38 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



The New Hoge Building, property and home of the Union Savings and Trust 
Company, northwest corner of Second Avenue and Cherry Street, Seattle. 











THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


39 ' 





Water front of Seattle. 


cago, and that, too, 
some years after 
she was married. 
Her daughter, Mrs. 
Eliza Leary, with 
whom she now lives 
in Seattle, was an 
infant in arms at 
that time. 

Though having 
eighty-five years to 
her credit, Mrs. 
Ferry is the em¬ 
bodiment of eternal 
youth, a type of 
which this Sound 
country affords 
numerous exam- 
pies. She was des¬ 
tined to see the first 
railroad come into, 



Steamship Minnesota, the largest freight and 
passenger ship afloat, leaving the Great North¬ 
ern Docks at Seattle. 

















40 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



A street scene in Seattle. “Living Anachronisms.”—0. B. Bagley. 

or rather go out from, another embryo world city, for the 
people of Seattle built their own first railroad. 

There is much pathos in the story of how the early 
citizens of Seattle waited and hoped for ten years or 
more for the Northern Pacific to enter the city, after hav¬ 
ing offered that company money and land valued at 
$717,000, only to have their hopes dashed to pieces by 
its builders selecting Tacoma, on Commencement Bay, 
as their terminus. That action of the company was the 
blow that brought into being the Seattle Spirit. It then 
became a question of the survival of the fittest. It seemed 
that the railroad company had planned to wipe Seattle 
off the map at one fell blow. One only hope remaining 
was to get a road through to Walla Walla. So the sturdy 
citizens of Seattle got together, organized the Seattle and 
Walla Walla Railroad Company, and on the first day of 
May, 1874, the men, women, and children engaged in 
clearing the way for the first mile of their railroad. The 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


41 




Cedar Lake, chief source of Seattle’s water supply. 


Margie Newman, one source of Seattle’s milk supply. (Photo by O. J, Rognonj 









42 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


men did the work and the women furnished the dinner 
and the inspiration, while the children made mud-pies. 

The Northern Pacific had tracks laid from Tacoma 
to Seattle, but for years the company would not give 
service over the road. This drove the citizens of Seattle 
almost to desperation, and, lacking capital and labor, 
they actually went to work on the railroad with their own 
hands, working men donating their labor on Sundays. 
In four years thirteen miles of road was completed, 
reaching as far as the coal mines. In 1880 a little pas¬ 
senger station was built, and the Seattle and Walla Walla 
Railroad was sold to the Oregon Improvement Company, 
the latter name being afterward changed to the Columbia 
and Puget Sound, all of which eventually fell into the 



City power house at Electron, thirty miles from Mount Rainier, showing flumes 
carrying down the water of the mountain streams. 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


43 



hands of the Northern Pacific. The road begun by the 
citizens was never completed farther than Newcastle. Not 
until 1886 did the Northern Pacific operate a regular 
passenger train into Seattle, and until ten years ago there 
were only two railroads for the traffic of this city. Since 
that time the snorting engines of half a dozen transcon¬ 
tinental roads have run mad races to beat the time of 
the others into Seattle, with the result that Seattle is now 
the largest railroad terminus on the Pacific Coast, the 
last line to enter being one of the Harriman system and 
one of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul. They 
came in almost, 
neck and neck, 
and together they 
will occupy the 
magnificent new 
depot that was 
built by the Har¬ 
riman road, which 
is said to be the 
finest railway sta¬ 
tion in the entire 
West, and the 
most expensive 
ever erected on 
the Harriman sys¬ 
tem, which ex¬ 
tends over ten 
thousand miles of 
track. This com¬ 
pany alone is 
spending $75,000,- 
000 on this end of 

.. .. .i Second Avenue in Seattle, showing parade dur- 

lts lines and tia,S ing visit of the American fleet. 



44 


THE SEATTLE S PIRI T 


already made arrangements to double-track every part of 
the road west of the Missouri River. This latest great rail¬ 
road improvement in the Northwest demonstrates the 
faith that the railroad kings have in the future of the 
Puget Sound country. 

To the Napoleonic energy and prophetic vision of 
James J. Hill, the pioneer chief of the Great Northern 
Railway system, is due . much of the present advance¬ 
ment of this section of the country. He foresaw its 
needs and its possibilities, and he built accordingly. Mar¬ 
velously his dreams have come true; from a small be¬ 
ginning, he now operates one of the greatest railway sys¬ 
tems on the continent, having spent $400,000,000 on his 
Western lines during their thirty-two years’ operation. 

Mr. Hill believes in the Puget Sound country from 
the standpoint of both its cities and its soil. He declares 
that the cultivation of a strip of land thirty miles wide 
around Puget Sound would produce more wealth in 
time than all the gold mines of Alaska. Mr. Hill is still 
sounding his slogan, “Back to the soil,” and for city- 
wearied souls and those who have found an unequal 
struggle for existence elsewhere, it has a pleasant sound. 
A small farm in Western Washington, well tilled, will 
afford abundant competence to its owner. 

Seattle’s internal railway system is as good as her 
external system, and that means that there is none better. 
In 1883 Mr. F. FI. Osgood built and financed the first 
street railway. Seattle was the fifth city in the United 
States to install an electric street railway. This impor¬ 
tant municipal improvement was made in 1889, several 
years before New York, Chicago, dr Philadelphia had 
electric lines. The street railway system of Seattle has 
reached its present peerless state of efficiency through 





THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 45 


Snoqualmie Falls, forty miles from Seattle, one source of the city’s light and 
power. This fall is a hundred feet higher than Niagara. 







46 


THE SEA T T LE SPI RI T 



The Seattle Spirit,—“After the dough.” Raised iu Seattle, near Pleasant 
Beach, three hundred of these hens average two hundred eggs a day. 



the efforts and the capital of Mr. Jacob Furth. In the 
early 90’s Mr. Furth was instrumental in consolidating 
the several street car lines already existing. These he 
reorganized, interested additional capital, projected the 
system far into the wilderness surrounding Seattle, where 
no population existed. This was considered, to say the 


Peaches grown in Seattle. 






47 



least, a rash act on Mr. Furth’s 
part ; but soon the people fol¬ 
lowed the lines, because homes 
could be bought in the coun¬ 
try at the price of a year’s rent 
in the city. Seventy-five per 
cent, of the working people 
(this does not include those 
who merely pretend to work) 
moved out where in a short 
time they could pay for a 
home. 

On account of Mr. Furth’s 
far-sightedness Seattle’s work¬ 
ing people today own a larger 
proportion of their homes than 
those of any other city in the 
United States. 

Mr. Furth’s faith in Seattle 
is unbounded, and he bases it 
chiefly on the inevitable result 
of, our future trade relations 
with the Orient, especially 
with China, which country he 
recently visited. He says that 
China is newly awakened, and 
needs us. And, truly, with a 
million more square miles than 
are possessed by the United 
States, with a population ten 
to one, China presents com¬ 
mercial possibilities that may 
well stagger the imagination. 


A bunch of gooseberries from Mrs. 
Paasch’s Garden. 



S48 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



“Better be jocund with the fruitful grape (in Washington) 

Than sorrow after none or bitter fruit’’ (elsewhere). 

Japan also is making commercial overtures to Puget 
Sound, and she has found the business men of the North¬ 
west more than responsive. As a result of an invitation 
from the Associated Chambers of Commerce of the Pa¬ 
cific Coast, a party of distinguished Japanese commis¬ 
sioners were personally conducted on a recent tour of 
the United States,—an event of more than usual com¬ 
mercial significance. 

Siberia, long locked against the Yankee invader, 
must eventually yield to the surging westward tide ot 
civilization. Here wealth untold is waiting to be captured 
from stream and soil, when the demand for it becomes 
urgent. Siberia seems remote from us until we remem¬ 
ber that from Alaska we can go there and back in a day 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


49 


on a dog sled if we happen to find Bering Strait frozen 
over. The discovery of Alaska is due to Peter the Great 
of Russia, who sent Bering on a voyage of investigation 
to the northeastern portion of his domains. 

The trade of Alaska alone ought to make Seattle a 
great world city. It is inevitable that the mastery of the 
Pacific must ultimately pass to Seattle. This vast body 
of water, covering an area as great as that covered by 
all the land on the globe, has for four hundred years 
served as an ocean highway, but it is only in the last fifty 
years that its commerce has amounted to anything. With 
the opening of the Panama Canal, it is certain that an 
intensely interesting commercial contest will be enacted 
on this Pacific arena, and, in this, Seattle, accustomed 
to winning, is preparing to take her part. 



“Knee deep in June,” in a Seattle strawberry patch. 



50 


THE SEATTLE SPIRI T 


Almost by superhuman effort Seattle has fought her 
way inch by inch in the face of overwhelming adversity. 
No American city has ever-been visited by a more devas¬ 
tating fire than that which swept over Seattle on June 
6, 1889. The entire commercial and business district 
was utterly destroyed. Not a bank, business block, hotel, 
or newspaper office was left standing. Although the fiery 



Autumn in Yakima, when the fragrant tlowers of the springtime are turned 
into showers of gold. 


demon had eaten the heart out of the city, leaving only 
a scattering fringe on its outskirts, yet, with the uncon¬ 
trollable flames still raging, with huge columns of smoke 
ascending, the citizens of Seattle held a mass meeting 
and planned a Greater Seattle. 

There is truly something inspiriting about the way 
Seattle people do things. Frances Willard recognized 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


51 



Oats harvesting in LaConner Flats, Skagit County, Washington, where 
they raise from ninety to one hundred and fifty bushels to the acre and never 
have a failure in crops. 


this fact when, forty years ago, she said of the infant 
city, “The men here walk with such confidence,—they 



Wheat from the Big Bend country ready for shipment. 


/ 






52 THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 

put their feet down differently from men in other places/’ 
They have to walk differently from men in other places 
on account of the precipitous grades of the streets, but 
the idea which Miss Willard meant to convey is just the 
impression th^t strikes every stranger,—that there is 
something in the very air which seems to say, “We are 
going to win out.” 



A rhubarb patch on the Sound will make a man a snug living. The stalks 
grow as large as a mau’s wrist, while the leaves spread out like a Cleo¬ 
patra fan. 


This dominant characteristic of Seattle people has 
given rise to the concrete term, “Seattle Spirit,” an ex¬ 
pression coined nearly twenty years ago, to portray that 
tremendous psychic force that seems to exist, carrying 
everything before it, a transforming agent that molds 
things to the heart’s desire. It is a combination of energy, 





THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


53 


determination, and optimism,—a trait that has made Se¬ 
attle famous. Many definitions of this potent force have 
been given, one of the best being that of Hon. Richard 
A. Ballinger, former secretary of the interior, who says: 
“The Seattle Spirit is the expression of the high tide of 
American genius and enterprise in the social and com¬ 
mercial activities of the day.” 



Indians gathering hops in Puyallup Valley. 


Elbert Hubbard, that most interesting exponent of 
American sagedom, says: “The Seattle Spirit is the 
spirit of noble discontent, where nothing is good enough, 
but must be made better.” 

Frederick Warde, the great actor, having spent a 
third of a century behind the footlights, recently played 
in Seattle. He was profoundly struck with the kaleido- 




54 


THE SEA TT LE SPIRIT 


scopic changes that had taken place since his last appear¬ 
ance here. He felt almost as if he were a real Rip Van 
Winkle. “I have played in' Seattle/’ he said, when peo¬ 
ple lived in tents on Second Avenue, and the place where 
the Moore Theater now stands was almost an unexplored 
territory. I have played my little part in the Seattle 
drama, having come across the plains on the first 


A thousand Washington sheep ready for shipment. 

passenger train and played in every kind of contrivance 
for a theater, from the first crude structures to the pres¬ 
ent magnificent playhouses.” 

“I remember,” said Mr. Warde, “when the Indians 
used to be camped thickly along the lake shores of this 
city. I knew Princess Angeline by sight, but was not on 
speaking terms with her. I did not speak Chinook.” 





THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


55 



Lifting halibut from the dories to the scow. 








56 


THE SEATTLE SPIRI T 


Mr. Warde owns property in Seattle, and he has 
induced many of his friends to come to this city to live 
Baron d’Estournelles de Constant, the famous French 
founder and president of the International Conciliation 
Association, and a winner of the Nobel prize, recently 
made a visit to Seattle, on which occasion he expressed 
unaffected admiration for the city. Recognizing the 
power underlying it, he said: “Seattle is the product of 
the extraordinary initiative of many men of many minds. 
The baron was right; it is through her big, brainy men 
and women, who are unafraid to make experiments for 

the betterment o f 
things as they are, 
that Seattle is sound¬ 
ing a hopeful note for 
humanity. 

The Queen City is 
the place of big 
things; a man ought 
to lose all the little¬ 
ness in his soul when 
he comes to Seattle. 
Nothing is too great, 
too arduous for its 
people to attempt, and 
they work together 
as a unit in the ac¬ 
complishment of feats 
that are astonishing 
the world. Seattle is 

Cliff one hundred and five feet high, upper a brilliant example 
twenty-five feet of which is solid white - . . . r 

onyx marble, in Chelan County, Washington, Ot the triumph of 
belonging to the Onyx Marble* Company, , 1 

Seattle. Experts say no finer marble was mincl Over matter. A 
ever found. 




THE SEATTLE SPIRI T 


57 


brief review of some of the recent achievements of 
the city will convince the reader that after all there 
IS something- in the Seattle Spirit, which is the spirit 
of progress in the highest sense of the word. Visitors 
to the city have stood in awe as they watched Seattle’s 
gigantic regrade work, the reshaping to her needs of 
the naturally 'adverse conditions of her location. 



Regrade work on Third Avenue, showing how the street car tracks were grad¬ 
ually lowered witheut interrupting traffic. 


Buildings may be seen poised aloft like airships, as 
their foundations are being washed from under them 
by giant hydraulic machinery working day and night; 
in watching the process one is reminded of the prophecy 
in the Scriptures, “The earth shall melt away and the 
hills shall be carried into the midst of the sea,” for the 
wash from the hills is sluiced into the bay. 





58 


THE SEATTLE SPIRI T 



Western steel plant, at Irondale. 

Already there has been removed an amount of earth 
nearly equal to three-fourths of that taken out of the 
Panama Canal up to the present time, and when both 
tasks have been completed Seattle will have handled one- 
fourth as much as the total amount of earth removed in 
Panama. Thirty million gallons of water was daily ap¬ 
plied to this work. The regrades when completed will 
have cost the city more than eighteen million dollars. 

Seattle believes not only in reshaping destiny accord¬ 
ing to her highest ideals, but in using economy in the 
process; but little of the offending hills has been lost, 
since the earth from the regrades has been utilized in 
filling heretofore useless tide flats, transforming them 
into valuable land available for factory sites. 

Seattle is destined to become prominent as a manu¬ 
facturing city; for, with her rapidly growing population, 
which has more than quadrupled in the last twelve years, 
with the finest transportation facilities both by rail and 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


59 


sail, and with a state behind her that contains greater 
natural wealth than any other state in the Union, her 
future is assured. The greatest opportunities for manu¬ 
facturing in the United States are to be found in Seat¬ 
tle. Already she has the largest clay products plant, the 
largest shoe factory, the largest jewelry manufacturing 
plant, and the largest flouring mills on the Pacific Coast, 
and the largest condensed milk establishment in the West. 

But Seattle’s greatest present industrial project is 
the establishment of a large iron and steel plant, which 
expects to rival the great steel industries of the East. 
The Western Steel Corporation claims to possess the 
finest natural advantages of any steel works in the world, 
with large deposits of iron ore almost at its door, to say 
nothing of the cheap and easy access to China’s iron 
beds, with an extensive supply of coal, lumber, limestone, 
and iron ore, all owned by the company, which recently 
purchased a hundred acres of a newly discovered mag- 



First bar of steel made on the Pacific Coast, red hot from the Irondale furnace. 




60 


THE SEATTLE SP1R1 T 


netite deposit in British Columbia,—one of the rarest 
possessions on the continent. 

The first steel turned out from this plant with full 
modern equipment at Irondale on the Sound was pro¬ 
nounced the equal of the best Pittsburg* steel. Already 
more than three million dollars has been expended on 
this plant, and plans are now virtually completed for the 
investment of ten million dollars for the enlargement and 
development of the plant. This plant is only thirty-eight 
miles from Seattle and is located on one of the finest 
harbors in the world. Irondale is fast becoming* one of 
the show places of the Sound. Thousands of tourists 
visit its flaming furnaces and marvel at this matchless 
example of Western enterprise. Another thing that 
strikes one with wonder is that, in this Northern latitude, 
the men at the steel plant can work outdoors all winter, 
in perfect comfort. The trip by boat from Seattle to 
Irondale affords one of the most enchanting excursions 
imaginable, one never to be forgotten. * 

It was the genius of James A. Moore, the founder 
of the Western Steel Corporation, that put Irondale on 
the map. To him Seattle owes much besides the estab¬ 
lishment of this .great industry. It was he that first con¬ 
ceived the idea and executed the plan of leveling Seat¬ 
tle’s hills and molding them to the requirements of busi¬ 
ness, although he was advised that it was practically im¬ 
possible,—bankers and lawyers warning him that it was 
a ruinous undertaking. 

His idea is now being carried into execution all over 
the city, with the result that Seattle is gradually over¬ 
coming her one natural disadvantage. This movement 
alone is worth many millions to the city. Through his 
many successfully executed plans for the development of 


THE SEATTLE S PIRI T 


61 


the city he has become known as “Seattle’s Empire 
Builder.” 

During the last four years the city has grown two 
solid miles to the northwest, sweeping the tall red firs 
before it like a forest fire. Each year an average of 
fifteen thousand inhabitants, or the equivalent of the 
population of a young city, is added to Seattle, her census 
figures having tripled in the last ten years. She holds 



Big ship unloading pig-iron for the Western Steel Corporation’s plant at 
Irondale. 


the highest record, thirty-nine per cent., of average 
annual growth of any city in America, perhaps in the 
whole world. Contrast this with the growth rate of 
some of our leading Eastern cities, which show as low 
as nine-tenths of one per cent, increase per annum, and 
then see if you do not think that Something is Happen¬ 
ing in the Pacific Northwest. 





62 


THE SEATTLE SPIR1T 



Battleship Nebraska, built in Seattle, on trial run, making nineteen knots 
an hour. 

Seattle has already built one of the first-class battle¬ 
ships of the United States Navy, the Nebraska, and this, 
too, when facilities were not of the best. This gigantic 
task was accomplished by Robert Moran, who in four¬ 
teen years’ time established an immense ship-building 
business out of nothing to start with. Having made a 
fortune by honest labor, he has retired early in life to 
enjoy his palatial home in the San Juan Islands. Here, 
on his four-thousand-acre estate, where Unspoiled Nature 
reigns supreme, he has built for himself a concrete castle, 
good for a thousand years, which covers a space larger 
than a city block. The location commands some of the 
most enchanting views on Puget Sound. He has in¬ 
stalled a magnificent pipe-organ in his spacious music- 
room, and spends much of his time rendering, by means 
of his organ-player, the works of the great masters, 
both for his own pleasure and that of his friends. 

The house, which was planned in every detail by 
Mr. Moran, is one of the most wonderful and attractive 
structures in the world. It is built as compactly as a 
battleship, not an inch of space being lost. The concrete 
walls, reinforced with steel framing, are eight inches 




THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


63 



thick, while all the windows—and it is mostly windows— 
are of plate glass an inch in thickness. 

His concrete billiard tables in the basement room 
have their foundations in the bottom of the sea, since 
they are concreted right into the solid rock of the island. 
It is a house that really breathes the personality of its 
builder and is one of the most ideal American homes it 
is possible to find; thus, the great ship-builder has be¬ 
come a greater home-builder. 

‘‘When I first reached Seattle,” said Mr. Moran, 
“I did not have money enough to buy my breakfast. The 
first job I got was tri tnminor 1 in o ctiin ” 

The new iron 


and steel factory 
will give a great 
impetus, to ship¬ 
building, since 
steel close at hand 
was the one thing 
lacking to make 
this industry 
highly profitable 
i n Washington. 
The state contains 
over two hundred 
billion feet of 
standing timber, a 
harbor that could 
shelter the com¬ 
bined fleets of the 
world, andaPacif- 
ic trade beckoning 
that offers almost 


View from Orcas Island, showing a glimpse 
of Mr. Robert Moran’s home on Cascade 
Point. 



64 


THE SEATTLE SP1RI T 



boundless opportunities. 

'One of the most re- 
markable undertak¬ 
ings of the kind ever 
attempted by any people 
in any city in the his¬ 
tory of the world, is 
the building of the Du- 
wamish River Canal by 
the citizens of South Se¬ 
attle through the direct 
and voluntary taxation 
of their property with¬ 
out even asking govern¬ 
ment aid. This canal 
will be four and one-half 
miles long and will give 
to the city thirty-two miles 
of fresh water harbor, by 
using bends of the crooked 
Duwamish as slips for 
the dockage of smaller 
vessels. The main channel will accommodate the larg¬ 
est sea-going vessels, while the fall of the river 
causes a backing-up of the fresh water which elimi¬ 
nates the necessity for a lock. This project will cost 
$1,500,000. 


Rock Frame, showing a glimpse of 
Deception Pass, with JLopez Island 
in the distance. 


This, with the opening of the Lake Washington 
Canal, giving Seattle seventy-five miles of fresh-water 
harbor line, will make this city the finest maritime port on 
the globe. This is one of Seattle’s early dreams, which is 
now about to be consummated; but the project is no more 
local than new. It had its beginning in 1854, when Gen- 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


65 



eral George B. McClellan, of Civil War fame, then a 
Western military engineer, made the report to Jefferson 
Davis, secretary of war, that after examining the lakes 
and Puget Sound, such a canal would create the finest 
naval basin in the world. Captain Thomas Perry, U. S. 
N*., said it was a grand and daring scheme, while Lieuten- 


Billiard tables whose foundations lie in the bottom of the sea. 

ant Commander Drake pronounced it the finest ideal 
spot on the globe.” 

The people of Seattle raised sufficient funds to se¬ 
cure the right of way and have advanced the work to a 
considerable extent. The secretary of war, urged by 
Theodore Roosevelt, then acting secretary of the navy, 
made the following report to the President in 1907 : “I 
cannot too strongly recommend the construction of this 



66 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



canal; Lake Washington is a large sheet of fresh water 
with excellent banks. It is very deep and, of course, 
free from tides. The necessity on that coast for fresh 
water, where sea-going vessels can be repaired and freed 
from barnacles, is most apparent.” 

Lake Washington is one of the most beautiful bodies 
of water on the continent. It is twenty-eight miles long 


A scene from Seattle’s Yacht Club House. 

and from one to six miles wide. It never freezes and 
is quiet enough to afford canoeing the year round. On 
the completion of the canal it will be used as a naval 
base: The federal appropriation of $2,275,000 has just 
been released, and the work will be rapidly hastened to 
completion. The Lake Washington canal will give Se¬ 
attle the most favorable and economical harbor in the 






THE SEATTLE S PIRI T 


67 



A fleet of sail boats, from the Lake Union Yacht Club. 


whole world. It will mean much in a commercial way, 
for the cit)' and for ship-owners, when the largest liners 
afloat can glide into a magnificent fresh-water harbor and 
get rid of their barnacles without the expense of going 
into drydock. 

The only drawback to the canal plan is a purely 



Finish of a yacht race near Seattle, between the Spirit and Alexander. The 
Spirit, built by a Seattle boy, won the cup from the Canadians. 
















68 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


esthetic one. The nature lover cannot but be filled with 
regret to see his ferny dells supplanted by hissing en¬ 
gines. 



There is no other city that possesses three large 
fresh-water lakes within its corporate limits, while, at 
the same time, almost surrounded with salt water. For 
beauty, sport, and commerce its topography is not equaled 

in the world. In 
what other city 
can you go to a 
park and enjoy 
trout fishing, or 
to a lake in the 
center of the city 
and make a catch 
of black bass 
for break tast t 
Had Izaak Wal¬ 
ton lived in Seat¬ 
tle, with its mul¬ 
titudinous oppor¬ 
tunities for catch¬ 
ing every conceiv¬ 
able kind of fish, 
from minnows an 
inch long to a fif¬ 
ty-pound salmon, 
he would have to 
write a new chap¬ 
ter in “The Com- 
pleat Angler,” 
and, inspired 

A morning catch of black bass in Lake Union, in , , r 

the heart of Seattle. (Photo by O. J. Rognon.) by the Scenery 





THE SEA T T LE SPIRI T 


69 


and climate, he would 
have had no trouble in 
convincing his readers 
that “it is not all of fish¬ 
ing to fish.” 

Seattle is the heart of 
an earthly paradise so far 
as natural beauty, whole¬ 
some and invigorating at¬ 
mosphere, and oppor¬ 
tunities for sport and 
pleasure are concerned. 

Here you do not have to 
pack your trunk and make 
a long, expensive journey 
for your vacation, as do 
people that live in other 
parts of the country. All 
you have to do is to invest 
ten cents in carfare, i n the San Juan islands, 

get a canoe at Lake 

Washington for a trifle, or better still own one, 
and you can have a twenty-five-mile boat trip within the 
city limits, catch all the trout and black bass you want, 
and while threading your way through reedy marshes, 
or stopping for lunch under a sequestered cluster of giant 
firs, you will think you are far from the haunts of men; 
but you have only to paddle around the corner again 
to see the busy, bustling city. 

If you are not able or not in the mood to “paddle 
your own canoe,” get aboard one of the steamers con¬ 
stantly plying Lake Washington from one end to the 
other, and you can ride all day for a bagatelle, visiting 




70 


THE SEA TT LE SPIRIT 



tempting- haunts, enjoying 
the full view of snow¬ 
capped mountains, catch- 
ing glimpses of ferny 
glens, while the lake 
breezes fan you into a 
state of utter noncha¬ 
lance. 

If you are ambitious to 
scale dizzy heights, and 
have a longer time and 
a little more money for a 
vacation, join the Moun¬ 
taineers’ Club and go for a 
jaunt into places before 
untrodden by the foot of 
man. 

If you wish an outing of 
only a week or ten days, 
take a boat trip through the San Juan Islands, and you 
will not blame Ulysses for having remained away from 
his beautiful wife for ten years, if the Aegean isles pre¬ 
sented half the charm of these Dream Islands of the 
Pacific. There is something about this trip that induces 
contentment and gives a certain rest and peace of mind 
scarcely to be found elsewhere. Here a man can even 
feel “that once he loved, though love is at an end.” 

Nowhere does the moon shine so gloriously as on 
Puget Sound. Sitting on the deck of one of the boats, 
watching the moonbeams pour their shower of gold on 
the shifting waters, one feels a calm deep as eternity, a 
genuine exaltation of spirit, as if moved by the sound 
of sweet music. 


Washington Rock, San Juan Isl¬ 
ands. Here centuries ago nature 
chiseled out the prototype of “The 
Father of his Country.” 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


71 



The San Juan group numbers one hundred and 
seventy-one islands, and truly they are worth going thou¬ 
sands of miles to see. For picturesque beauty and cli¬ 
matic charm they surpass the famous Thousand Islands 
of the St. Lawrence River. They are also interesting 
historically, as the largest of the group marked the last 
occupation of the British on American soil. , The final 
fierce contest for absolute American supremacy was pre¬ 
cipitated by a pig belonging to an English officer on San 
Juan Island. This obstreperous pig got into a good 
American’s garden and ate his cabbage, whereupon the 
American shot the pig. An arrest followed. The ques¬ 
tion as to the right of 
trial was raised. Captain 
Pickett, afterward known 
to fame as the hero of 
Gettysburg, was s u m- 
moned from Fort Steila- 
coom with all his forces. 

This quarrel led later to a 
dispute as to the exact lo¬ 
cation of the boundary 
line, followed by arbitra¬ 
tion on the part of the 
Emperor of Germany, the 
grandfather of Kaiser 
Wilhelm III. This wor¬ 
thy potentate rendered 
the United States an in¬ 
estimable service in his 
generous division of these 
treasure islands. 


Monument marking the last scene 
of the British occupation of north 
end of San Juan Island. 



72 THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 

At the end of this Puget Sound water trip, occupy¬ 
ing, if you so choose it, but a single day, you will find 
yourself in the midst of one of the quaintest, most beau- 


A sheltered harbor at Islandale on Lopez Island In the San Juan Group. 

tiful, and most picturesque cities imaginable, Victoria, 
genuinely British, charmingly hospitable. This city pos- 










THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 73 

sesses one of the show places of the great Northwest 
in her magnificent Parliament building, which looks truly 
like a glimpse of old England. The whole of Vancouver 
Island is famous for its beauty, and as the government 
is spending millions for good roads in British Columbia, 
motoring has become one of the chief diversions in and 
around this section. 


Harbor at Victoria, B. C., showing Parliament House. 

In a few hours you can reach Vancouver, on the 
mainland, and here also modern wonders await you at 
every turn. This city has the largest natural park in 
the world. An auto trip through Stanley Park among 
its massive trees will be always pleasurably remembered. 
Then, the building activity of Vancouver, since this city 





74 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



Government bulb farm near Bellingham, showing millions of blooms. 

has adopted the single tax system, is something to give 
one pause. Four transcontinental railways have entered 
its boundaries. 

This rapidly growing city of one hundred and fifty 
thousand inhabitants offers a salutary example, both in 
this and in many other respects, for cities anxious to get 
ahead. These cities form the western termini for the 
greatest railway system in the world, the only system 
that actually belts the globe,—the Canadian Pacific. This 
great system also reaches Seattle by a line of magnificent¬ 
ly equipped steamers, on which it is a luxury to travel. 

There are so many interesting places to visit on the 
Sound that the mere selection seems bewildering. 
Bellingham is one of the most beautifully located cities 
on the Sound, seated at the entrance of one of the finest 
timber districts in the state. This city boasts the largest 
sawmills and the greatest salmon canneries in the world. 







THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


75 



Beautiful Lake Whatcom skirts the city, offering 
ideal haunts for summer camping and fishing. The rich 
soil surrounding Bellingham is particularly adapted to 
bulb culture, the government bulb farm in this vicinity 
being one of the springtime attractions of the city. A 
noted floriculturist of the government agricultural de¬ 
partment declares that the success of the Bellingham 
gardens furnishes abundant proof of his theory that the 
soil of Whatcom County is the equal, if not the superior, 
of that of Holland for bulb culture, and that the only 
thing necessary to make this section world-famous, as 
well as a fortune-producer in this line, is to apply the 
expert knowledge of the Dutch to the productive soil of 
Whatcom County. 


A morning’s catch of salmon at Bellingham, Washington, where are located 
the largest salmon canneries in the world. 



76 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



Lying almost 
midway between 
Seattle and Bell¬ 
ingham is the city 
of Everett, which 
is especially noted 
as the site of the 
only paper mills 
on the Sound. It 
is well situated 
for a manufac¬ 
turing center and 
has a rapidly 
growing popula¬ 
tion. Its people 
are devoting 
much time to rose 
culture, having 
discovered that 
conditions there 
are ideal for this 
pursuit, which yields rich returns in money as well as in 
pleasure. 

Port Angeles (Port of Angels) offers a charm all 
its own,—a historic as well as intrinsic interest. Here 
was located a handsome United States customs-house. 
Just at present Port Angeles has come very much 
into the limelight owing to a big civic move¬ 
ment for the development of her vast untouched timber 
and mineral regions, which have lain cradled for ages in 
the Olympics. This section, lying between Puget Sound 
and the Pacific Ocean, is in reality a young empire, 
covering as much territory as Delaware, Rhode Island, 
and Connecticut combined. 


View of Mount Rainier from Hood Canal, on the 
Olympic Peninsula. (Photo by O. J. Rognon.) 




THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


77 



This region has been strangely overlooked by for¬ 
tune-hunters, the chief reason, perhaps, being lack of 
transportation facilities. But the railroads are now plan¬ 
ning to girdle this peninsula, which contains vaster un¬ 
developed wealth than any portion of the United States. 
Its stand of timber alone is estimated at over one hun¬ 
dred billion feet, the great bulk of which is fir of su¬ 
perior quality, though the finest ced^r, spruce, and hem¬ 
lock form a part of these matchless forests. Yet timber 
is by no means its only asset. Its minerals and fisheries, 
as well as its possi¬ 
bilities for dairying 
and sheep-raising, as 
well as agricultural 
pursuits on the 
logged-off lands, offer 
an enticing field alike 
to the capitalist and 
the day laborer. Wa¬ 
ter power in over¬ 
whelming units is 
waiting here to be 
harnessed to the 
wheels of commerce. 

The Elwha River, 
a wild mountain 
stream at the foot of 
Mount Seattle, 
plunges through solid 
rock canyons, a hun¬ 
dred feet deep, where 
the stream con- 

„ wi’rl+ii The " 0ia Man °* the Mountains” enjoying a 
tracts tO a Wiatn climb in the Olympics. 



78 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


of thirty feet, then 
suddenly expands to 
a width of three hun¬ 
dred feet where it 
empties into Puget 
Sound at Port An¬ 
geles. 

About sixteen miles 
from Port Angeles, 
beautiful Lake Cres¬ 
cent lies like a silver 
moon among the 
cloud-capped peaks. 
But its shimmering 
surface is ever chang¬ 
ing color, often deep¬ 
ening to pure indigo. 
Its vivid colors cling 

A giant cedar of the Olympics. In felling f Inner 

it these men will cause the fall of cen- lO me eyeMglll iOIl^ 

turies - after one has left the 

lake. In this it rivals the famous Geneva of Switzerland. 
Here the angler finds his heaven. It is the finest trout lake 
in the world. One species, the Beardslee, is found nowhere 
else; but besides this delicious variety, you may hook a 
Dolly Varden, a Rainbow, Cut-Throat, Half-Breed, Tully, 
or Crescent any time you make a cast. 

Bear and deer hunting in these mountains offers un¬ 
paralleled enticements to the lover of big game. A trip 
by boat down Hood Canal, which in scenic beauty is a 
miniature of the famous inside passage to Alaska, will 
bring you into the vicinity of the last stand of our Ameri¬ 
can elk. Here five thousand of these noble animals 
roam over the jagged Olympics in a government reserve. 





THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 79 

Further up Puget Sound Seattle has a rival in 
Tacoma. ‘The City of Destiny” is her prophetic cog'- 
nomen. In 1910 alone her manufactories produced an 
output valued at over fifty-one million dollars. This city 


Mount Rainier at sunset. View taken by Messrs. Ball & Smith, at 7:30 p. m 
from the top of the Cobb Building, Seattle. 

is steadily forging ahead, apparently with little effort, 
and she enjoys an enviable place in the industrial and 
commercial life of Puget Sound. The largest wheat 





8C 


THE SEAT TIE SPIRIT 


warehouses in the world are located on Tacoma’s water¬ 
front. Here the largest smelter in the United States 
receives its glittering tributes from Alaska and other im¬ 
portant mineral districts. 

As a residence city—a place for real homes—Tacoma 
is noted. Back of the city and partially surrounding it, 
lies Puyallup valley, fertile as the valley of the Nile, 
yearly yielding fortunes to the truck farmer and market 



Old Episcopal Church in Tacoma with ivy-covered belfry tower three thousand 
years old. It is the stump of a Washington fir. 

gardener. Its yield of fruit and vegetables seems little 
short of fabulous. One could easily imagine that here 
might have been the Garden of Eden, did not our 
geographies show a different location. 

Here the writer cannot refrain from relating the 
story of a German, named Anton Brix, who came to 
Tacoma several years ago, with a wife as unlettered as 
himself, and both poor as church mice. He commenced 




THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


81 



Morning mist on Lake Chelan. No lake in Europe can compare with this 
in scenic beauty. It is sixty miles long and two thousand feet deep, the 
mountains at the upper end rising to a height of seven thousand feet. 


to work in a logging camp while his wife commenced to 
save. To make a long story short, he still lives in Ta¬ 
coma and owns the sawmill where he used to work. 
After having laid by a million he hungered after knowl¬ 
edge, as did also his good wife, so they were enrolled in 
the public schools of Tacoma together with their children, 
entering the classes with them. Hired nurses cared for 
the little ones too small to attend school. 

This year, having sent their automobile ahead of 
them, Anton Brix and his wife returned to Germany, 
where they entered the University of Heidelberg. Here 
they expect to remain until they have been honored with 
degrees from this ancient and honorable institution of 
learning. 

Germany today has almost forty times the popula- 



82 


THE SEATTLE S PIRI T 


tion of Washington, although it has only twice the area 
of the Evergreen State. While it is doubtful if any part 
of the United States will , ever become as crowded as 
the Kaiser’s realm, it is certain that Washington can offer 
homes to twenty times its present population. It has 
room and work for all,—where hundreds of thousands in 
the crowded centers of Europe, who have never known 



The famous “Rose Walk” in Point Defiance Park, Tacoma. 


the luxury of even a two-room home or an income of 
more than five dollars a week, could, if they but knew 
it, enter and take possession of a paradise on earth com¬ 
pared with their former state. 

In the southeastern part of the state logged-off lands, 
that is, large tracts from which the maVketable timber 
has been taken, can be purchased cheaply and on easy 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 83 



Tacoma’s high school stadium, showing United States Cavalry tournament by night. This stadium could be made 
to seat seventy-five thousand people. It is one of the master works of man and nature in the Northwest. 












84 


THE SEATTLE SPIRI T 


terms of payment. With industry and economy, fortunes 
can be carved from the logged-off lands of Washington. 
If the problem of stump : removing staggers the settler, 
he may go farther east into the irrigated district, where 
the quickening kiss of the water on the desert’s dusty 
face has wrought a greater miracle than that of the 
Loaves and the Fishes, with this difference, the modern 
Miracle of Irrigation will continue to “feed the multi¬ 
tude” of generations yet unborn. 

In the suburbs of Seattle is an army post, Fort Law- 
ton, the site of which was donated to the government 
by the people of Seattle. Just across the bay from Se¬ 
attle are the navy yards at Bremerton, where is one of 
the largest drydocks in the world. 

In the year 1851 Albert Edward, prince consort, 
opened at the Crystal Palace in London the first world- 
famous exposition that was ever given, called “The Grand 
Exhibition,” and it was in this same year the first white 
man reached Seattle; the last world exposition was held 
in Seattle and firmly placed her among the cities of first 
importance, and second to none in advanced methods of 
conducting an exposition. The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific 
Exposition was different in plan and setting from any 
ever held. In natural setting acknowledged as the 
world’s most beautiful exposition, it was the cleanest 
morally and the greatest financial success of any yet 
given. It was just what it claimed to be,—something 
more, nothing less. It opened on time, sold no intoxi¬ 
cating liquors on the ground, received no aid from the 
government except as an exhibitor, and closed out of 
debt, with a balance for its stockholders,—a record with¬ 
out precedent. 

The Seattle exposition, from first to last, was a 


THE SEATT LE SPIRI T 


85 


brilliant demonstration of the Seattle Spirit. In a single 
day the necessary funds were raised, by private subscrip¬ 
tion, to finance the fair,—another world record. To have 
seen this exposition is to have gained a peep into the 
wonderful future of the great Northwest, and especially 
of Alaska, the chief raison d’etre of the show. 



An echo of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Mr. J. E. Chilberg, presi¬ 
dent of the exposition, can be seen in the foreground. 


Alaska is Seattle’s crown of gold, and right proudly 
did she display her dazzling coronet. It is a fact that 
more of Alaska’s money has been spent in Seattle than 
in any other city. Her sky-scrapers have been built 
largely with Alaskan capital. Seattle has shown to the 
world that this wonderland of the North is a fit place 







86 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



Bird’s-eye view of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, taken from a balloon. 

(Copyright, 1909, by 0. J. Rognon.) 

for civilized beings to inhabit, and that the possibilities 
of her development are at present beyond the calculation 
of the human mind. “Alaska is a prize package the full 
value of which no man can estimate now,” aptly remarked 
the Hon. Richard A. Ballinger, former secretary of the 
interior. 

Neither did Secretary Seward guess its present 
wealth when he purchased it. The gold output alone has 
been over fifteen times the amount of the original pur¬ 
chase price, while that of the fisheries and furs has been 
twenty-five times as much. Russia took a hundred mil¬ 
lion dollars’ worth of furs out of Alaska before it was 
purchased by the United States. Since that time it has 
yielded more than a hundred and fifty million dollars’ 
worth of fish, its annual yield for its fisheries being from 
eight million to ten million dollars, a larger sum than 
the government paid for the whole territory. Yet Alas¬ 
kan fisheries are still in their infancy. 

A most impressive event of the fair was the unveil¬ 
ing of the Seward monument, a bronze statue made in 
Paris by Richard E. Brooks, the creator of the marvel- 




THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


87 


ous statue of 
Charles Carroll of 
Carrollton, in the 
Capitol at Wash¬ 
ington. As a gen¬ 
uine work of art 
the Seward statue 
will add something 
of permanent value 
to the city, for it 
now occupies a 
prominent position 
in Volunteer Park. 
The cost was fifteen 
thousand dollars, 
the money having 
been donated by 
public-spirited citi¬ 
zens. It is to be 
moved to Seward 
Park, formerly 
known as Bailey 
Peninsula, on Lake 
Washington. This 
statue of Seward is 
the only one west 
of the state of New 
York, where one 
stands in Madison 
Square, New York 
City, and another 
at Auburn, Sew¬ 
ard’s old home. 



Seward monument in Volunteer Park. 





88 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



Lanehurst, the suburban estate of James F. Lane, on Mercer Island, Lake 
Washington. Here a man can be sole monarch of a principality. 


The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition has yielded 
more definite, tangible, concrete benefits than any fair 
in history. While other expositions have been retro¬ 
spective, demonstrating things done in the past, this was 
a prophetic fair, giving glimpses of things to come. 

The greatest direct result of the fair was the enrich¬ 
ment of the State University by property aggregating 
about two million dollars, a legacy of beautiful and sub¬ 
stantial buildings, besides many other improvements on 
its matchless campus, covering over three hundred acres, 
part of it still remaining “a forest primeval/’ 

Few cities in the United States have exceeded Seat¬ 
tle in the expenditures made for building purposes dur¬ 
ing recent years. Of course, she owes her debt to the 
East, for that is where her citizens for the most part 
come from; but they are a picked lot, men with initiative, 
red blood, genius, bringing with them the best ideas of 
city-building, and adding the zest and freshness of the 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


89 



West with all its alluring possibilities. They are men of 
big visions, boundless ambitions, and indefatigable 
energy. 

Again, this Northwestern country must not forget 
the debt it owes to the Swedes and Norwegians, whose 
big, brawny bodies have plowed their way through the 
wilds of Washington and helped to lead the vanguard 
of our present civilization. Great are the Northmen! 
So says Elbert Hubbard, and so say I. Why, “they 
discovered America five hundred years before Columbus 
turned the trick,” as the sage of East Aurora puts it. It 
was with distinct surprise that the writer learned that in 
the State of Wash¬ 
ington alone there 
are fifteen thou- 
sand Finlanders, 
four thousand of 
whom live in th? 
city of Seattle. 

Here one can 
feel the heart 
beat of the world. 

Truly, Seattle is 
the melting-pot, 
the meeting place 
of all nations, the 
clearing-house o f 
all creeds. She is 
like a young genius 
that is just awak- 

• ~ 4 -/-v o cpncp f The Lane children at Lanehurst. An ideal spot in 

mg to a seribe U 1 Which to play and to grow. 





Home of Mrs. Eliza Leary and her mother, Mrs. Elisha Ferry, wife of the 
first territorial governor of Washington. 


power, but as yet with only a vague conception of her 
inherent potentialities. 

“For the West hath room lor women to bloom, 

And for men to w r ork aright. 

She is young as Youth, she is true as Truth, 

She is crowned with Creative Light. 

Let her great winds cry unto every sky. 

She hath welcome for every guest; 

Let the song go forth, East, South, and North,— 

Ho, for the breezy West!” 

The geographical location of Seattle will make her 
a great metropolis. Consider Alaska alone, which is her 
treasure house and playground, covering an area as large 
as the whole of the United States east of the Mississippi 
River. Next, the Orient, which commercially extends 
from Vladivostok on the north to Calcutta on the south, 
covering an area many times greater than the United 
States and containing a population ten times as great, 
which is seeking more and more every year the products 
of American farms and factories. Again, weigh the 
fact that the Northwest is the terminus of the last great 





THE SEATTLE SPIRI T 


91 


“trek” of the American people, who are just beginning 
to wake up to its marvelous advantages. Here you have 
a situation the result of which is apparent when you con¬ 
sider it from an economic standpoint, for this is an age 
of economics, a science that holds the secret of the 
triumphs of the future. 



How sweet is old age among the roses. A Vashon Island paradise. 


The many waterfalls of the Cascade Mountains, in 
the vicinity of Seattle, furnish cheap electric power that 
can scarcely be duplicated in any city. Three big plants, 
one owned by the city, already transform the leaping 
waters of the Cascades into light and power. 

On account of the curvature of the earth Seattle is 
nearer to Yokohama by seven hundred miles than is San 




92 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



A three-year-old peach orchard, at Kennewick, on the Columbia River, in the 
irrigated district of Washington. 

Francisco. It is also nearer to the Mississippi Valley 
and is reached by much better railroad facilities. It has 
the best natural harbor in the world. Added to these, it 
has the climate of Italy, the scenery of Switzerland, the 
contour of Venice, and the commerce of a young - Lon¬ 
don. The imagination can scarcely picture to what 
degree of greatness these conditions will bring the North¬ 
west. The Pacific Coast is the front door of America, 
and Seattle is its key. It is not too much to expect that 
fifty years hence Seattle will have five million inhabi¬ 
tants, and in time, like Rome of old, she will hold the 
commercial supremacy of the world. 

Already the city is planning to build additional 
watermains to the Cascades, to bring a water supply for 
millions, although the present capacity is sixty million 
gallons a day. It is claimed that Seattle has the purest 
water of any city in the world, the analysis showing that 
it has the same amount of bacteria as snow, hence, it is 




THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


93 


pure as snow and cold the year around, as its source is 
fed by melting- glaciers. 

The annual mean temperature ranges from forty 
degrees in January to sixty-four degrees in August, the 
summer temperature seldom rising above seventy-six 
degrees. The street cars are never heated,—it is not 



Mrs. Paasch and “Her German Garden,” in the suburbs of Seattle. 


necessary. Never warm enough to be enervating, never 
cold enough to give discomfort, our equable latitudes will 
one day attract the attention of the world from a cli¬ 
matic standpoint. The rainfall is gentle, coming mostly 
at night, and at the end of the year showing an average 
of ten inches less than New York or Boston. Last win¬ 
ter the Santa Clara Valley, in California, had fifty inches 





94 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


of rainfall, which is more than Seattle has in one and a 
half years. 

Susceptibility to nature’s charms is one of the most 
potent factors in the uplift of humanity. The spell of 
the mountains is upon all who come to the Sound coun¬ 
try. Ask any Seattleite what he loves most about the 
city. “Our mountains,” will be his prompt reply, and 
truly they are worth a trip around the world to see. 
After seeing the majestic grandeur of the Washington 
mountains, you will wonder why you ever cared to visit 
Swiss Alps. To the east lie the dreamy Cascades with 
Mount Baker in the distance; to the west the snowy 
Olympics crowned by Mount Olympus, while to the south 
rises Mount Rainier, the monarch of American moun- 



A Washington cherry tree, which was not cut flown, in the heart of Seattle. 




THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


95 



The world’s fruit basket. That is what the Northwest country has become. 

tains, its summit wrapped in eternal snow, while down 
its sides course a dozen glaciers. This mountain is the 
highest in the United States, outside of Alaska, being 
nearly a thousand feet higher than the Jungfrau. Euro¬ 
pean tourists have declared with enthusiasm that nowhere 
in the old world is to be found such scenery, unless it be in 
the Himalayas. If Mount Rainier were in Europe it 
would have been capitalized years and years ago, while 
billions would have been reaped from the pockets of awe¬ 
stricken Americans. 

Behold the “Great White Watcher,” as the Indians 
loved to call Mount Rainier, as it sits majestic as the 
Sphinx and equally inscrutable. It stands like a great 
marble cathedral down whose nave and choir echoes the 
silent processional of the centuries. 



96 THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 

Watch the mountain on a June evening from the 
summit of Mount Baker Park. See the moon rise full 
behind it, mantling the peaks in robes of silver; the 
rosy tints of the sunset glow shining through, the com¬ 
bined effect of sunlight intermingling with moonlight 
producing an effect that an artist would live a lifetime to 



Springtime in Yakima. These trees are worth more than their weight in gold. 

This five-acre tract sold for thirty thousand dollars last year. 

portray, and perhaps die unsatisfied in his attempt to 
reproduce its colors. 

On the Fourth of July I sat on an upper veranda 
watching the sunset on the mountains. The whole of 
the hilly city was spread out before me like a map, while 
the snowy ranges on either side presented a magnificent 
panorama, with beautiful Lake Washington at my feet, 
the great mountain towering over all. I can see it yet 



THE SEA T T LE S PIRI T 


97 



(though in attempting to describe it I realize the futility 
of words and the audacity of my attempt), rising like a 
shaft of purest Parian marble from a floating mass of 
rose-colored clouds. It might be a phantom ship drift¬ 
ing in mid-air, so ethereal it seems. Now the sunset glow' 


A lone man driving ou Seattle’s Interlaken Boulevard. In such a spot as this 
it is a shame for a man to be alone. 


gives up its color to the mountain, changing to shades 
of lavender and blue. It is no wonder that the Indians 
worshiped it as a god, thinking it was the Great Spirit 
changing his robe, for now, even, the color is creeping 
down from the summit, leaving it cold, stern, and livid 
in appearance. 



98 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


But nature is jealous of her beauty lest it become 
too common, and she does not always place her moun¬ 
tains on exhibition, but only now and then she lifts the 
veil just to let mortals see what heaven is like. I remem¬ 
ber especially on a Sunday morning, the 26th of last 
February, this revelation was vouchsafed to mortals. 
From any one of Seattle’s numerous hills, looking east 
you could see the snowy Cascades gleaming like a mirage 
in the sky, while to the west rose the lofty Olympics, 
towering like marble castles swung in mid-air, and to 
the south you could see Mount Rainier sharply outlined 
against the cloudless blue of the sky, like some rare pearl 
in a setting of lapis-lazuli incrusted about with a crescent 
of opals and amethysts. Toward evening the spectacular 
effect of the changing light on the mountain reminded 
one of some rare radium dance, so swiftly the lights 
shifted. On this metnorable day ; every inhabitant thanked 
God in his heart that he lived in Seattle and so close to 
heaven. . 

A veritable wonderland, recently purchased by the 
city and within the corporate limits of Seattle, is Ravenna 
Park, covering sixty acres of ground and containing 
trees measuring from twenty-five to sixty feet in circum¬ 
ference and three hundred feet in height. Its trout 
streams, edged with bracken ferns, afford a haunt not 
found in any other city. Here still linger the reluctant 
footsteps of the untouched wild. 

But Schmitz Park is perhaps even more wonderful 
than famed Ravenna, although it has not been exploited 
so extensively and few people, even in Seattle, know of 
its existence. It covers about forty acres of Alki Point, 
near the birthplace of Seattle. This is a park fresh from 
the hand of nature, generously donated to the city by a 


******‘< 


THE 


SPIRIT 


99 


SEA T T L E 



summer afternoon in Denny-Blaine Park. 





100 


THE SEA T T LE SPIRIT 



Millions of gayly-colored wild flowers growing at the edge of a glacier in 
Rainier National Park. 

wealthy German citizen, Ferdinand Schmitz. As it looks 
now it might have looked a thousand years ago. Though 
within the city limits, as soon as you plunge into its leafy 
depths you are lost to the world and its troubles. For 
miles you can follow the winding trails that were made 
by deer and Indians, through ferny haunts, over hills, 
and around waterfalls, while the giant firs keep watch 
above you. 

Woodland Park, containing two hundred acres, is 
fitted out as a playground and contains a large zoo. By 
nothing is the spirit and progress of a modern city so 
keenly gauged as by its system of parks and playgrounds. 
In this Seattle is showing her characteristic spirit, and 
in this particular she has nature on her side. Already 
there are thirty parks in the city, covering an area of 
eleven hundred acres, valued at millions. There are 
eighteen playgrounds, soon there will be at least twenty- 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


101 



one. Seattle spent more on her playgrounds last year 
than any city in America except Chicago, the fourth city 
in size in the world, and in the matter of magnificent 
driveways Seattle is to surpass them all. There is now 
under construction a boulevard system fifty miles in 
length, which is to connect all the parks and skirt all the 
lakes, winding back and forth through stately groves and 
surprising one at every turn with enchanting glimpses 
of the lakes and mountains. It will be equaled in beauty 
only by the famous Paseo of Rio Janeiro, and surpassed 
in length by none. 

A sunrise in Seattle is something never to be for¬ 
gotten. These matutinal pyrotechnics are worth going 
across a continent to see. On a morning recently the 


A view of Schmitz Park, near Alki Point. 





102 


THE SEA TTLE SPIRIT 



(Copyright 1909, L. G. Liukletter.) Ice Cave, Paradise Glacier, iu Rainier 
National Park. It looks as if it might be the entrance to the fiery furnace 
instead. 

Cascades were dimly visible. The sun could not be seen; 
the only evidence that it was there was found in the sea 
of gold into which Lake Washington had been turned by 
fiery rays that seemed to issue from a bell-shaped cloud 
reflector suspended above the water. A passing boat, 
with its black curling smoke, appeared to be floating in 
molten gold, presenting a scene of indescribable charm. 
Soon the golden waters were changed to amethyst as 
the clouds lifted, leaving the snow-capped Cascades 
sharply silhouetted against the sky, while the morning 
searchlight was turned on towering Rainier, transform¬ 
ing its snowy blanket to a golden fleece. A marvelous 
variety of display is afforded the devotee of the sunrise. 

On another occasion, the sun had not yet appeared; 
only a band of chrome yellow, extending the length of 
the eastern horizon, brought the blue Cascades into chis- 




THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


103 



eled relief; above this band, the turquoise blue of the sky 
deepened into darker shades of ultramarine; high up in 
the heavens were seen lavish streaks of bright scarlet 
clouds laid on the vivid blue background as if by the 


Drinking from the Fountain of Youth in Srsjttle. 

hand of some spectacular wielder of the paint brush, the 
effect produced being that of a mammoth rainbow rest¬ 
ing above the snow-crowned mountains. This brilliant 
morning color-scheme was reflected in the violet-tinted 
waters of the lake, while Rainier was changed to a glow¬ 
ing rose. 




104 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


If you miss the sunrise you have unspeakable glories 
awaiting you in the sunset, for nowhere in the world 
are the sunsets of this region surpassed. From the top 
of one of the buildings in the civic center of the city 
the writer saw the most marvelous sunset imaginable. A 
flaming cross of clouds was thrown across the sky, half 
concealing the ball of fire behind it; under the shadow 
of this cloudy crucifix the diverse rays of the sun were 
deflected into the water. Suddenly it looked as if the 
gates of Paradise had opened and all the glory was shin¬ 
ing through; slowly the cross grew dark, and was lifted 
as if by unseen hands, leaving the sun poised at the top¬ 
most peak of the Olympics, where quivering for a 
moment it flung out a bloody arm across the bay in a 
farewell embrace, then dropped suddenly behind the 
mountains. 

The pure water, perfect climate, and matchless 
scenery of Seattle may in no small degree account for 
that peculiar buoyancy of spirit which cannot be baffled. 
A young college graduate, who holds a responsible posi¬ 
tion with a leading firm in the city, echoed the character¬ 
istic Seattle sentiment when he declared, “I would not 
go back East if you took half my salary from me.” 

The woman movement in Washington is one of 
deepest significance. Here, above all, women are inter¬ 
esting themselves in affairs of state and are studying 
questions of government, especially municipal govern¬ 
ment. Having been granted the franchise they are tak¬ 
ing their citizenship seriously. The great contest for 
suffrage began in Washington while it was still a terri¬ 
tory, as far back as 1853. 

Miss Susan B. Anthony visited this state in August, 
1871, and gave a great impetus to the movement. For a 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


105 



A. trout stream in Ravenna Park, 




106 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



time the territorial women enjoyed the voting privilege, 
but after statehood things changed and not until Novem¬ 
ber, 1910, was the franchise again extended to them. 
The victory for the women was due largely to the efforts 
of a Seattle woman, who possessed a weekly journal and 
the “Seattle Spirit.” Through her able editorials in 
Votes for Women , then the only suffrage journal on 
the Coast, Mrs. M. T. B. Hanna wielded a great influ¬ 
ence for the cause; and now, her primary object attained, 
she has aptly changed the name of her journal to The 
New Citizen. 

Truly, the women qf Seattle are making themselves 
felt in all fields of endeavor. 

The Women’s Commercial Club is unique, being the 
only one in the world composed entirely of women, 




THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 





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SBJSI 

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11 


107 


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The turning point in Seattle’s history* Scene of the gold rush to Klondike at the summit of Chilkoot Pass in the 

spring of ’98. 














108 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



A view on Limestone Inlet, Alaska, showing a mountain of solid marble in the 
background, the property of the Onyx Marble Company, of Seattle. 


admitting only one woman representative from a par¬ 
ticular line or profession. It is modeled somewhat after 
the men’s Rotary Club, which organization also has a 
large and enthusiastic membership in Seattle. 

Location, transportation; these are the two magic 
keys that are to unlock Seattle’s future in the com¬ 
mercial supremacy of the world. She has both in her 
possession and she is just beginning to learn how to 
turn them. But whatever outside sources contribute to 
her upbuilding, Alaska will ever remain the big back¬ 
ground of the pleasing picture Seattle makes on the 
map, although up to the time the first shipload of gold 
from the ice-bound region of the Arctics sailed into the 
harbor of Seattle on July 17, 1897, Seattle was virtu¬ 
ally unknown and Alaska almost unheard of. Much pub¬ 
licity was given to Alaska by the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific 
Exposition, together with the new discoveries at Iditarod 
and Tanana, from which districts have been brought 
“pokes” of gold containing nuggets as large as potatoes; 
the revelation of boundless opportunities for the acquisi- 





THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


109 


tion of wealth in Alaska, brought to light by the recent 
investigation of Congress in the Ballinger-Pinchot con¬ 
troversy, has made senators and statesmen generally sit 
up and take notice, while the reading public has a much 
clearer idea of the resources of Alaska than if this con¬ 
gressional inquiry had never been made. 

“Alaska, the ice-box,” has become known as “Alaska, 
the treasure-house,” but through a false idea of con¬ 
servation the United States Government has locked the 
doors of this treasure-house, thereby stifling develop¬ 
ment and preventing progress, by withdrawing from 



Waterfall on Inside Passage to Alaska. 



10 


THE SEA T T LE S PIRI T 



Steel bridge over Copper River, Alaska, near the famous Childs Glacier on the 
Copper River and Northwestern Railroad. , 


entry the colossal coal claims discovered by Alaska pio¬ 
neers. 

Waiting- and importuning until patience ceased to be a 
virtue, all'sense of justice being outraged, a number of 
citizens of Cordova held an indignation meeting, and on 
May 4, 1911, threw into the sea a quantity of foreign 
coal that had been shipped to that port and upon which 
they had been compelled to pay«duty, while at the same 
time the government prevented them from using the 
coal in their own vicinity which could be had merely for 
the cost of lifting it from the ground, the foreign coal 
costing them about twenty dollars a ton. The above date 
will become a memorable one in the history of Alaska. 

“The Cordova Coal Party” has been aptly compared 
to “The Boston Tea Party,” which latter event precipi¬ 
tated hostilities with George III. and hastened the day of 
American independence. The Alaskans felt that their 
God-given rights as American citizens had been trampled 
on, and so, they struck a blow that, it is hoped, will 
take effect. As an evidence of the intense sympathy 







THE SEA T T LE SPIRI T 


111 



existing - between the citizens of Alaska and those of 
Seattle, a mass meeting of the city's leading citizens was 
called immediately after the news of the coal demonstra¬ 
tion came to hand, and never has the Seattle Spirit been 
more manifest than on that occasion. Wild cheers greeted 
the speakers that demanded self-government for Alaska 
and the immediate opening of that territory for develop¬ 
ment. 

Resolutions favoring these measures, and also 
approving the sentiment that impelled the citizens of 
Cordova to action, were passed without a dissenting vote, 
and these resolutions, together with a petition for the 
cancellation of the executive order withdrawing the coal 
lands from entry, were wired to President Taft. 


View on Copper River and Northwestern Railroad, Alaska. 



112 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


The Rt. Rev. 
Peter Trimble 
Rowe, Bishop of 
Alaska, speaks in 
no uncertain 
terms on condi¬ 
tions up there 
when he says: 

“The inactivity 
of the executive 
department in de¬ 
laying the open- 

Some one has evidently found “the hollows where ^8" ^ COal claims, 
the violets grow” in Alaska. which takes bread 

and butter out of the mouths and fuel off the hearths of 
hundreds of suffering Alaskans, is simply outrageous 
and ought to come to an end. 

“Alaska,” he continues, “is one of the greatest assets 
that the United States possesses, and it is only awaiting 
men, capital, and sane legislation to make it a most 
desirable place in which to live. Her agricultural possi¬ 
bilities are enormous.” 

Having presided for fifteen years over the largest 
and coldest diocese in the world, Bishop Rowe is pre¬ 
pared to speak with authority on this vital issue. He is 
pretty close to the hearts of Alaskans and has been 
designated “the most human of all bishops.” Certain it 
is there is not a sourdough north of fifty-four degrees 
that does not swear by him. 

When Bishop Rowe was asked to give his definition 
of the “Seattle Spirit,” he solemnly chanted the words, 





THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


113 


“I was a stranger and ye took me inbut the good 
bishop is Irish, you know. 

Of more than ordinary interest is an article from 
the pen of Baron d’Estournelles de Constant, the famous 
.French senator and leader of the world’s peace move¬ 
ment, who recently paid a visit to Seattle. Writing for 
Le Temps, a leading newspaper of Paris, the distin¬ 
guished baron says of Seattle: 

“Every one knows that Seattle, born yesterday 
(sixty years ago to be exact), is already a very great city 
of immense propor¬ 


tions,—like others, 
only greater than 
others. Here 
American audacity 
has built for the fu¬ 
ture without limit. 
To speak truly, nat¬ 
ure herself seems to 
have dictated to cit¬ 
ies their propor¬ 
tions. The Greek 
land Roman acrop- 
olises have a 
grandeur of set¬ 
ting all their own. 
In this harmony 
lies their beauty. 
American cities of 
the twentieth cen¬ 
tury cannot be of 
like proportions; 



Alaska vegetables raised near Skagway. They 
raise other things than trouble in Alaska. 








114 THE SEATTLE SPIRI T 

they are gigantic, like the country, the mountains, the 
trees, the gulfs, and the rivers;—it is astonishing that 
American men are no larger. 

“The famous trees, the Douglas firs, which have 
begun to disappear before civilization, are many meters 
in diameter and several thousand years old (six thousand 
five hundred they assure us) ; at the forestry exposition 
of the University of Seattle they constructed a temple 
of wood, which still stands, and whose columns are made 
of the trunks of enormous trees, all identical, all one 
piece. These surpass our monoliths, our obelisks. 

“From San Francisco to .Portland, from Portland to 
Alaska and to the Rocky Mountains, everything is grand! 
How could Seattle be small? How much money, and 


View of the notable “Cordova Coal Party.” 





THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


115 



Bishop Rowe, of Alaska (in center of picture), and his dog-team, with 
which he traveled four thousand miles last year. The bishop covers the largest 
and coldest diocese in the world. 


still more, what confidence, what assurance it must take 
for such an enterprise! Here the forest disappears ; there 
a mountain is leveled. 

“From the thirteenth story of my hotel I see chains 
of hills set in between lakes and gulfs; these hills half 
denuded of their forest growth are already dotted over 
with residences. One sees buildings ‘going up in squares 
of new streets already mapped out, paved and bordered 
with sidewalks, on the most abrupt declivities. In a few 
months these streets will be filled with dwellings. Already 
the snorting and rapid street cars, with their astonishing 
scorn of high hills and desert places, serve them. These 
streets are illuminated—as one is enlightened by Seattle 
—with a luxury of candelabra of five globes, worthy of 
our own avenue de 1’Opera. 

“About certain points, near the new Washington 
Hotel, for example, the declivity seemed excessive, but 
they did not hesitate at this; they beheaded the hills. 
It looks like an immense cake from which the upper 
layers have been removed. They thus obtain a compara¬ 
tive level, while banishing an abutment nearly a hundred 
meters high. But this daring operation was unforeseen; 




116 


THE SEA TTLE SPIRIT 



This is not Santa Claus, but W. T. Lopp, the chief of the Alaska School 
Division, on an inspection tour of the government schools. 

people had established dwellings on their crest, over¬ 
looking the bay and the lakes, while enjoying a panorama 
without equal. But nothing is stationary here. They 
are bringing their houses down the hill! I, a second 
Macbeth, have seen with my own eyes these houses 
descending the hill! I went to assure myself that I was 
not the victim of a hallucination.” 

In fascinating French the baron describes the 
modus operandi of the removal of these houses, which 
process he evidently investigated with great care. 
“Everything counts here,” he goes on to say. “They 
level a hill and carry into the valleys the earth and the 
houses that rest thereon; this they call here ‘regrading,’ 
a term little understood save in Seattle, where the extraor¬ 
dinary is the rule, the impossible the goal. Here they 
talk about Tesprit de Seattle,’ da volonte de Seattle,’ da 
demarche de Seattle.’ It is true. I have seen Americans 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


117 



whom I know, and who have related to me their under¬ 
takings, walk as they talk,—with the certainty of suc¬ 
cess.”* 

A fine demonstration of the Seattle Spirit was shown 
in the raising of the largest relief fund offered to the 
famine-stricken sufferers of China last spring. This idea 
of helping the starving Chinese originated in the big 
heart and the keen brain of a Seattle man, Mr. William 
Pigott, who had visited China and sympathized with her 
people in their distress. No sooner had the idea flashed 
into his mind than it took root in action. The Seattle 
Commercial Club took hold of the idea, and working day 
and night, the secretary and his assistants wrote ten thou¬ 
sand personally signed letters, besides sending numerous 
telegrams, and requests to every large city in the United 

* In the translation the French idiom has been closely adhered to, in order 
to convey as nearly as possible the baron’s fine shades of thought. 


A bird winging its way down the “Inside Passage” to Alaska. 





118 


THE SEATTLE 


SPIRIT 



States, with the re¬ 
sult that in a few 
weeks fifty thousand 
dollars was raised and 
an immense cargo of 
choice food supplies 
was sent to relieve 
the Chinese sufferers. 

The year 1911 
marked the first mile- 
stone in Seattle’s 
carnival spirit. The city is finding time to play. She 
had a Golden Potlatch lasting a week, from July 17th to 
22d, which event commemorated the arrival of the first 
gold-bearing ship from the Klondike. 

It was called a “Potlatch” because of the intimate 
connection of the Indian with the history of the North- 


Reindeer Mary (in center of group) at 
Unalakleet, Alaska. She owns three hun¬ 
dred reindeer. Emma Isanitok (to extreme 
right), who played in the “Squaw Man” in 
tour of the States. 



Lynn Canal and Skagway, near the end of the famous “Inside Passage.” 







THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


119 



Potlatch” means “a giving feast,” an occasion on 
the chief is wont to call together his tribe 


west, 
which 
and dispense lar¬ 
gesses of blankets, 
food, and furs. So 
the Potlatch has be¬ 
come to Seattle a 
symbol of her “giv¬ 
ing spirit” to the 
multitudinous tribes 
that gather round 
her wigwams in the 
mountains. 

The first Potlatch 
was one of the 
greatest spectacular 
historical events ev¬ 
er seen in this part 
of the country. With 
its unique floats, un¬ 
surpassed water 
pageants, and daz- 
z 1 i n g aerial per- 
formances, it 
eclipsed anything of 
the kind ever at- 
tempted on the 
Coast, and that, too, 
in an incredibly 
short space of time 
and in an absolutely 
new field. 


Copy of the famous painting of the Virgin 
and Child, in the old Greek Church at Sitka. 
Mr. Harriman, the great railroad magnate, of¬ 
fered twenty-five thousand dollars for this pic¬ 
ture and was refused. 








120 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



The Buford leaving Seattle o 
her mission of mercy to China. 


That it will become a per¬ 
manent annual festival is now 
assured, for with her natural 
beauty and grandeur of set¬ 
ting, her dramatic history, 
her romances and Indian lore 
(to say nothing of her living 
Indians), all Seattle has to do 
is to declare, “The show is 
on.” It requires no prophet 
to predict that Seattle’s Pot¬ 
latch will become one of the 
world’s most famous carnivals. 

Having conclusively demonstrated her ability to pre¬ 
sent so gorgeous a pageant in such a brief space of 
time, Seattle’s next festive undertaking will be to demon¬ 
strate to the world that it can present the greatest Rose 
Show ever given in the world, and that too, with home¬ 
grown roses. If you have never seen Seattle’s roses you 
have missed a show already. 

With her peculiarly balmy and salt-saturated atmos¬ 
phere, Seattle could become facile princeps as a rose 
city, for here can be grown the most wonderful roses in 
endless variety and bewildering profusion. With a little 
attention to the Queen of Flowers the Queen City could 
give a Feast of Roses that would surpass any ever given 
this side of the Vale of Cashmere,—one that would charm 
the senses even of the fastidious Fadladeen of Lalla 
Rookh fame. 


This Seattle Rose movement was originated and 
promoted by a noted German biologist and author, Dr. 
Louis Dechmann, who is director-general of the Rose 
Show. It is not surprising that the country that gave 






THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


121 


us the beautiful thought, “If you love a rose you must 
carry it in your heart,” should have furnished Seattle 
with its rose leader. 



(Copyright, 1911. Nowell & Rognon.) Hydro-aeroplane and aeroplane 
circling the battleship West Virginia, during Seattle’s Potlatch, 1911. Flight 
made by Ely and Robinson. 









122 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


Dr. Dechmann loves roses with all his heart, and to 
stimulate interest in their cultufe he has imported a 
thousand slips of the famops Frau Karl Druschki rose 
from Trier, Germany, and these he will donate as a per¬ 
sonal gift to the purchasers of the first thousand season 
tickets to the first Rose Show. 

This wonderful German rose is considered the great¬ 
est triumph in the rose grower’s art. It was produced 
by Peter Lambert, of Trier, Germany, and has won over 
eighty prizes in Europe, besides having captured, last 
year, the American cup for the best white rose grown 
in the last ten years. 

A country that can boast one rose-bush six hundred 
years old, as is the case at Hildesheim, Germany, is 
surely fitted to take the lead in rose propagation. Dr. 
Dechmann enthusiastically declares that the climate of 
Puget Sound is better adapted for roses than is any part 
of Germany or even than Southern England, famous for 
its roses. He is now working on a new species of rose, 
hoping to produce something that will rival in beauty, 
fragrance, and lasting qualities any rose yet produced. 
“The name of this new rose,” he says, “will be The 
Seattle Spirit.’ ” He-also declares that in a short time 
this city should become the center of export for roses in 
the United States. 

It is a hopeful sign when people or nations begin 
to devote time to floriculture. In Seattle flowers of all 
kinds grow almost without effort. In fact, they spring 
up as volunteers all about one’s feet. The writer knows 
a place where self-planted nasturtiums form the most 
alluring border to a green velvety terraced lawn, the 
scarlet flowers reflected in the smooth surface of the 
sidewalk polished by recent rains, giving the effect of 
the mirrored margin of a lake. 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


123 



The churches of all nations and denominations are 
to be found in Seattle, but one thing is noticeable, the 
spirit of unity which exists between them. Seattle is a 
place where the men go to church, often in excess of the 
women. In the magnificent array of church structures, 
numbering more than two hundred, St. James’s Cathe¬ 
dral stands easily first. It was built by the Roman 


Dr. Douis Deehmann’s Seattle rose-garden, fourteen months after planting. 

Catholics at an expense of nearly a million dollars, its 
imposing towers from the bay being the most prominent 
object in the city skyline. Trinity is the largest and 
wealthiest of the Episcopal churches of the Northwest; 
in its equipment and in its worshipful atmosphere it 
reminds one of an old-world church. It has been twice 
destroyed by fire, but was quickly rebuilt each time. 









124 


THE SEA T T LE S PIRI T 


The Rev. H. H. Gowen, one of the most erudite men 
in America, is in charge of Trinity Parish. An English¬ 
man by birth, he is considered the most distinguished 
Britisher on the Coast, and truly he is a man of kaleido¬ 
scopic attributes. His mind is like a mighty ocean from 
which are continually washed ashore pearls of purest 
thought. 

Besides ably ministering to one of the largest par¬ 
ishes in the West, he occupies the chair of Oriental lan¬ 
guages at the University of Washington, and writes 
many books on a great variety of subjects. His capacity 
for work is nothing short of marvelous; young yet, he is 
destined to make a noble contribution to the world’s 
thought. 

Retiring, modest, shrinking from the limelight of 
publicity, Mr. Gowen has accomplished his wonderful 
achievements so unobtrusively as almost to escape notice. 
His life is typical of the most sublime aspect of the true 
Seattle Spirit, that is, the altruistic spirit. 

The First Presbyterian Church claims the largest 
congregation of all the churches of its denomination, and 
is justly celebrated for its music, both choir and organ 
being under the able leadership of Dr. Frank Wilbur 
Chace, a pupil of the famous Lemare and a member of 
the American Guild of Organists. 

As an educational center Seattle is in the vanguard 
of American cities. With her seventy public schools, 
including six high schools, many of which offer evening 
instruction, to say nothing of private and parochial 
schools, she is able to offer the very best. In addition to 
this, the University of Washington, located on the shores 
of beautiful Lake Washington, possesses the greatest 
natural advantages of all of the state universities. 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


125 



A bride’s bouquet of the famous Frau Karl Pruschki. grown in Seattle by 

Dr. Louis Dechmann. 






126 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


With its exquisite set¬ 
ting, its vast wealth in its 
own right, its faculty of a 
hundred and twenty effi¬ 
cient men, a state behind 
it that leads every state in 
the Union in the money 
paid for school purposes 
and shows only one per 
cent, illiteracy in its popu¬ 
lation, the future of this 
institution looks rosy. It 
is keeping pace with the 
city in the matter of 
matter of growth, in attempting bold things and in 
accomplishing them. The new school of journalism at the 
University of Washington, planned on most original 
lines, is now one of the leading schools of college jour¬ 
nalism in America. An entire building is devoted to this 
department, the students issuing a daily paper along met¬ 
ropolitan ideas, having telegraph and United Press serv¬ 
ice. The paper is a marvel of modern journalistic excel¬ 
lence, and it is becoming one of the strongest factors in 
the development of the university. 

The University of Washington School of Forestry 
is one of the best equipped and the most advantageously 
located of all similar schools in America. 

The old university building was deserted in 1895 
for the spacious new quarters on the enchanting shores 
of Lake Washington, its present site. But the old uni¬ 
versity tract, the gift of A. A. Denny, is destined to 







THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


127 



become the greatest financial asset ever attached to a 
state university. The land has been leased to a building 
company, which pays a large and ever-increasing rental, 
with the stipulation that the buildings themselves will 
eventually revert to the university. 

The Seattle Public Library pays for eight hundred 


Interior of Trinity Church. 

subscriptions to magazines, which are read by a number 
ranging from eighteen to twenty thousand persons 
monthly. The periodical department serves half a mil¬ 
lion yearly. 

Seattle is destined to become a great literary center. 
It claims already over a hundred well-known writers, 
who produced last year thirty-six new books, not to 




128 


THE SEA T T LE SPIRIT 



Telling the children a story on one of Seattle’s playgrounds. 


mention the very large number of magazine articles 
that came from their facile pens. Nearly every publica¬ 
tion of recognized standing has been invaded by Seattle 
writers during the last year. 

There is a reason for this marvelous literary activ¬ 
ity. The inspiration of the natural surroundings, the 
widely varied activities of life, the vast extent of 
untouched material, the dramatic interest attending the 
evolution of a great world city, must attract literary 
aspirants. Why, every-day life in Seattle is more replete 
with romance and sensation than is half the modern 
fiction. Eastern editors are clamoring for virile, original 
matter. If their wants are to be satisfied they must 
look toward the West. 

While art is in its incipiency in Seattle, it will soon 
come into its own. The Washington State Art Asso¬ 
ciation is preparing to build a Museum of Arts and 
Sciences based on the most advanced ideas gathered 
from the great art institutions of the world. Standing 
at the gateway of the Orient and on the threshold of 



THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 129 

Alaska, it will receive a distinctive touch from these 
countries. 

The director of the Association recently made -a trip 
to Alaska for the purpose of securing specimens of native 
art and to arrange for the painting of the wonderful 
scenery of the Northland, as well as to obtain a collection 
from the flora and fauna, minerals, and antiquities of 



Lincoln Park Playground, showing wading pool to the rear. 


Alaska. He expects to make this museum the finest re¬ 
pository of Indian art and relics to be found in the world, 
realizing as he does that no greater ethnological work can 
be done at the present time than the preservation of the 
history, art, and traditions of our vanishing race, and that 
no place in the world is more admirably adapted for this 
work than is Seattle, a city bathed from infancy in Indian 
romance, the great metropolis of our last frontier. 






130 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


The Indian has fled before civilization as wolves be¬ 
fore a prairie fire. This is the last stand of the red man, 
and here will be written his latest epitaph. The Wash¬ 
ington State Art Association has undertaken a noble 
and prophetic work, but the Indian collection is only 
a phase'of it. Many valuable collections of Roman and 
Egyptian pottery, many rare paintings and specimens 
of sculpture have already been acquired. 

With the opening of the Panama Canal close art 
relations will be established between this institution and 
the Latin-American countries, closer relations with which 
our government has of late years taken such pains to 
cultivate. The ideas behind this Museum of Arts and 
Sciences are more far-reaching than any one imagines 



Seattle Public Library. 



THE SEATTLE SPIRI T 


131 



Seattle Art Museum, to be built of solid marble from the Alaskan and Wash¬ 
ington quarries of the Onyx Marble Company. 


at present, in spite of the fact that it will represent a 
commercial asset of two and a half millions. It will 
be to Seattle what the Acropolis was to Athens, and more. 
It will instruct the mind as well as please and charm 
the eye. 

This art palace is to be built of solid marble from 
the combined native products of the state of Washington 
and of Alaska. The marble was the gift of the stock¬ 
holders of the Onyx Marble Company, who will furnish 
the material from their Lake Chelan and their Alaskan 
quarries. 

Centuries hence pilgrims to this shrine will gaze in 
wonderment on this monument to art .and music. For 
not alone will it shelter the devotees of the brush and 
chisel, but it will be the abiding place of the Seattle 
Symphony Orchestra, the meeting ground of distin¬ 
guished musicians from all over the world. 

One of the most remarkable demonstrations of the 
Seattle Spirit is to be found in the musical progress of 
the city. The products of its composers are becoming 



132 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



Interior of the New Orpheum Theatre, one of Seattle’s fine playhouses. 
Its foyer alone, which is of solid marble and onyx, cost one hundred thousand 
dollars. It is said to be the handsomest foyer in the world. (Photo by 
Rognon.) 


well known, and the artistic excellence of its performers 
commands the unbounded approval of the critics. Louis 
Dimond, a distinguished pupil of Joseffy, after having 
lived in New York and in many of the musical centers 
of Europe, frankly declares that there is more piano 
talent among Seattle’s rising generation than in any 
city of the world. 

The crowning glory of Seattle’s artistic achievements 
lies in the establishment of a superb symphony orchestra 
of more than sixty players, composed for the most part 
of Seattle talent. Though the orchestra is only three 
years old, visiting artists from abroad declare it the equal 
if not the superior of some of the best orchestras in 
the East and in Europe. 

Henry Hadley, for some time the brilliant con¬ 
ductor of this orchestra, is the well-known composer of 
the “The Four Seasons,” a symphony which won the 
Paderewski prize. This composition, as also his “Sa- 
















THE SEATTLE SPIRI T 


133 


lome,” and his latest symphony, “North, South, East, 
and West,” have been rendered by some of the leading 
orchestras of the world. Mr. Hadley has personally 
conducted the performance of these and other composi¬ 
tions, with the Thomas Orchestra of Chicago, the Boston 
Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, and the Phila¬ 
delphia Orchestra, as well as with the London Philhar¬ 
monic. 

Mr. Hadley is now working on a grand opera, which 
gives promise of being a choice addition to America's 
musical library. He is a firm believer in “music made 
in America,” as he expresses it, and he thinks that time 
will bring us to the front in music. As a conductor Mr. 
Hadley is superb. When he makes one of his musical 



The Kenney Home for Old Ladies, near Fauntleroy Park. 








134 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 



Interior of the Seattle Commercial Club, showing dining-room in the rear. 


touch-downs he thrills his audience as few conductors 
have power to do. 



Rainier Club, at Fourth Avenue and Marion Street. One of the oldest and 

most exclusive clubs in the city. 



















THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 135 

Theresa Carreno, the world’s most famous woman 
pianist, recently played with Mr. Hadley’s orchestra in 
Seattle. After having performed with them the difficult 
Tschaikowsky concerto in B flat minor, Madame Carreno 
declared that Mr. Hadley had his men under better con¬ 
trol than did Colonne, the great orchestra leader of Paris, 
“It’s marvelous,—simply wonderful! I never saw any¬ 
thing like it for its age. Ah, you Western people! In a 
few years you build a big city,—in a few weeks you have 
a great symphony orchestra!” 



Seattle Symphony Orchestra. 








136 


THE SEATTLE SPIRIT 


‘‘Queen of the West! Fair city of our hope! 

Seated like Rome, upon her seven hills, 

With majesty of mountain girt about, 

And at thy feet the sea. Mist-swathed at dawn; 
Banded with jewels, like the sky, at night. 

The soft Pacific wave that laps thy feet 
Urges thy freighted ships to distant shores, 

Bringing the treasures of the East again. 

Here is thy throne of beauty; here we see 
The last great monument that man has set 
To mark his slow and painful westward way. 

Mother of giants yet to be, all hail! 

Pulsing with joyous life in all thy veins, 

Rich, warm and young! 

“How beautiful thou art! 

Stretching thine arms to greet the Orient; 

Gazing with eyes of mystery, to pierce 
The far sea-spaces; dreaming, mother-like; 

The boundaries of thy power still unset, 

The wonder of thy destiny unknown.” * 

*The above poem was selected from "‘Lyrics of Fir and Foam,” a volume 
of verse from the pen of a Seattle author, Mrs. Alice Rollit Coe. 

































































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This map shows the route through the San Juan Islands and the famous “Inside Passage” to Alaska, with its myriads of beautiful islands fringing the skirts of a vast 
new empire rivaling in scenic grandeur Switzerland and Italy. The trip can be made at practically no more expense than it would be for you to stop at an ordinary hotel 
at a summer resort, while the untold charm to the senses and advantage to your health of a voyage through these quiet salt waters in Nature’s Own Wonderland'cannot 
be estimated. It is more like a voyage on a great salt river than an ocean trip, the waters being so quiet that seasickness is unknown. On either side, abruptly rising 
from the peaceful brine, stand row after row of steep promontories, now green, now snow-capped, now blue as the Alsatian Alps—all reflected in the water like chiseled 
cameos, with hundreds of waterfalls leaping from the mountain sides, and numerous glaciers glittering in the sun. 

There is not a trip in all the world comparable to this for scenic beauty, infinite variety, and little cost. See Europe if you must. America if you will, but whatever 
you do, see Alaska! 



































































































One copy del. to Cat. Div. 


Nov 28 19!j 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS