The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1900-11-18
acknowledgements
MARION TO
UNION 5TREED |
pHoTo. ABoVT 1868. |

Discovery immense logs ana immense
quantities Of lumber were cut and sent
abroad. utsalady was also a place OF
Importance. At one time II had large
contracts for supplying France and Spain
with large spars, and the navies OF those
countries were among the first to utilize
our unrivaled FIR trees for that purpose.
Seattle had only small coastwise trade
and seldom moro than one vessel came at
time for lumber, and that only OF the
smaller craft engaged in the trade.
In those days good crops In California
and Chile meant good times on Puget
sound. The farmers there used their
wheat money to build houses. barns and
fences. and their prosperity was shared
by the loggers and millmen here, one
thousand to eight thousand miles to the
northward. and although we never expert
enced drought. we quickly felt the III
effects OF one In California and Chile.
In 1850 Olympia. Steilacoom. Port
Townsend and Whatcom had become
familiar names all over the United States.
The capital at olympia, the United States
garrison au0Steilacoom. the custom house
and marine hospital at Post Townsend,
and the coal mines and the Fraser river
mining excitement of 1883. for Whatcom
had given them all considerable popula-
ton and trade. At one time Whatcom
had a population OF not less than lo.ooo.
ocean steamers piled regularly between
her docks and San Francisco: brick and
other pretentions buildings sprang up al
most by magic, and that place then set
the example that was eagerly followed
twenty and thirty years later by many
other towns on both sides OF our inland
sea from Cape Flattery to the falls Of the
Deschut;es. OF plating all the adjacent
forest into city lots.
Olympia, Seattle. Port Townsend and
t..so ..tF
none OF them has ever rivaled Seattle.
Tacoma. Spokane and Everett have had
their birth since lS72 and spokane. like
Seattle, has owed all to her natural adj
yantages and the indomitable pluck and
enterprise OF her people. The others have
been the creations OF great corporations.
and TO the extent that the latters foster
those towns have grown, but they do not
rival Seattle.
That this place should have distanced
all these others in the race for wealth
aud population Is not the result OF an ac-
cdent or good luck. In the days OF her
infancy her people realized the future
that must come 10 her, and during all the
dark days that have interviewed they have
never lost faith nor heart. and have al
ways worked together for the common
good Geographical location, forests of
cedar and fr. coal mines, fisheries and
countless other minor advantages and re-
sources were hers, but the development OF
them was slow and difficult, for her peo-
pie had no money. Had the Northern
Pacific done for seattle what 1t has done
for Tacoma, Seattle would today have
been neck and neck with San Francisco
in the race for commercial supremacy
on the Pacific coast. and that corporation
would not have gone into bankruptcy.
The question Is often asked Why was
not the city planned ana plated to better
advantage? Why We're not the streets
made 10 conform to the topography OF