The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1889-08-31
A CITY OF TENTS.
How the Settlers Live In Their
Burned Out City.

"a city of tents" one exclaims at the first
glimpse of the new Seattle. Coming down
the sound you see next to nothing at this
season. Smoke from the forest fires OBJ
scures and conceals, writes correspondent
of the st. Louis Globe Democrat. The
steamer is within few hundred yards of
the docks before even indistinct outlines
can be traced. Then the revelation of the
innumerable tents is sudden and startling.
Favored by the smoke the canvas looks
white and clean. Later on the visitor dis
covers that 1t is dirty brown. At the docks
the canvas city begins and extends in all
directions. The tents are of all sizes, and
they have only one feature in common. They
are built close up to and open wide upon the
sidewalk. Usually business interests assert
themselves. The wholesale stores have
their locality. The retailers have their dis
trict. A cheap lodging house and music
store are mo- often found side by side. Res
taurants and churches rarely adjoin each
other But there is nothing ordinary about
Seattle. After the fire people pitched their
canvas roofs wherever they could obtain
frontage, and the result is seen in the con-
giomerate of interests. There is single
industry which has got together in one
locality. The character of that industry is
sufficiently explained by the statement that
the locality is known to the whole city as
"Whitecharel."
The tents front upon streets and open
upon the sidewalks. During business hours
the flaps are thrown back and the contents
and transactions are fully revealed to every-
body passing. Is it a barber shop? You
can SHAKEN your gate and hear the artist at
the further end of the tent telling his victim
the smoke is very bad this season. My lady
poses before the mirror and tries on the fall
bonnets, twisting her head first this way and
then that, appreciative of the fact that all
her friends out shopping can not fail to see
side Of the street, The grocer has only to
leave off the covers of his sugar barrels and
they will do their own sanding when the
wind is right and the dust drifts. The law
yer sits at his desk ready to draw the flaps
of his tent together and list ITO confidential
communications. The y i estate man is
particularly at home tent, and with his
feet on the table " two breaths talk of
the fire and sell : at so per cent advance
over the price q ilch prevailed before the
calves disp1srSheir charms on the stage of
a canva' pera house. The click Of the
billiar1sgalis and the cry of two beers" can
be- "a half block,
Then there are the lodging houses. More
men sleep under canvas than under shingles
penter pounds in every part of the city and
the cry of more mort is heard all day long.
1t will be months before the canvas hotels
pass out of use. There are dozens of these
places. Some even have partitions of cloth
and "a ROOM is given for SOC night. But
the general plan is an arrangement of hunks
in rows and tiers, with narrow passages. 1t
puzzles tipsy man to find his bed if he
leaves it during the night. These hunks are
called cots" They are all single and not
far from the regulation dimensions of the
omy of space is the rule. A cot costs 25c a
night, or if taken by the week, then 15c a
night. Somebody sits up all night to do
guard duty, and there is invariably notice
at the door which says