History of Seattle 1900-1940
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Leader of the Northwest: 1900–1915
The gold rush (see History of Seattle before 1900) led to massive immigration, with major arrivals of Japanese, and Filipinos; immigrant Europeans and European-Americans from back east included the city's first significant influx of Jews.
Many of Seattle's neighborhoods got their start around this time. At first, the city grew mainly along the water to the north and south of downtown to avoid steep grades. However, the new rich soon developed the land on First Hill that overlooks downtown "because it was close to downtown without being a part of it, and because it occupied a commanding position." [Roger Sale, Seattle: Past To Present, p.58]
Downtown Seattle was bustling with activity; as quickly as previous inhabitants moved out to newly created neighborhoods, new immigrants came in to take their place in the city core.
Construction on the Smith Tower was completed in 1914. It was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River from its completion in 1914 until the Space Needle overtook it in 1962. It remained the tallest office building west of the Mississippi River until the Humble Building (now Exxon Building) was built in 1963
A massive effort was made to level the extreme hills that rose south and north of the bustling city. From 1900 to 1914 the Denny Regrade to the north and the Jackson Regrade to the south leveled more than 120 feet of Denny Hill and parts of First and Beacon Hills. The Denny Regrade continued in spurts until 1930. Dirt from the Jackson Regrade filled in the swampy tidelands that are now occupied by the SoDo neighborhood as well as Safeco Field and Qwest Field. A seawall containing dirt from the Denny Regrade created the current waterfront. More dirt from the Denny Regrade went to build the industrial Harbor Island at the mouth of the Duwamish River, south of Downtown.
After the obvious geographical expansion from downtown, "other neighborhoods... [came]... into existence... [as]... the result of streetcar lines moving north and east from downtown and providing opportunities for settling that were obviously attractive to all but the poorest." [Roger Sale, Seattle: Past To Present, p.59] Several lines, running to most of central Seattle's modern neighborhoods, created the communities of Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, Madrona, Madison Park, and Leschi. All of the expansion was happening without zoning, leading to "different land uses and economic classes everywhere [being] mixed." [Roger Sale, Seattle: Past To Present, p.62]
At the same time as the city was expanding dramatically, the city planners began to put in parks. "Four million dollars worth of bonds were sold between 1905 and 1912 to develop the parks and build the boulevards designed by the Olmsteads to connect them." [Roger Sale, Seattle: Past To Present, p.82] Almost all of Seattle's large parks were constructed during this period: Woodland Park (which includes the Woodland Park Zoo), Volunteer Park, Green Lake, Washington Park (now the site of the University of Washington Arboretum), Ravenna Park, Leschi Park, Seward Park. The Olmstead plan for boulevards was carried out nearly in full. The form of the plan was "a winding parkway of about twenty miles which would link most of the existing and planned parks and greenbelts within the city limits." [Roger Sale, Seattle: Past To Present, p.83] Then, as now, no main park or particular area of Seattle that stood out above the rest. Much of the ambience of Seattle derives from the fact that whole of the city (with the notable exception of the industrial area in the center of the city, south of downtown, and extending to South Park and Boeing Field; and to a lesser extent, downtown itself) is filled with small parks, hills, and lakes.
World War I and the Bogue Plan: 1914–1920
In 1910, Seattle voters approved a referendum to create a development plan for the whole city. However, the result, known as the Bogue plan, was never to be implemented.
Virgil Bogue had worked for Olmstead, and was intimately familiar with the land in Seattle. The Bogue plan had at its heart a grand civic center in Belltown and the Denny Regrade connected to the rest of the city by a rapid transit rail system, with a huge expansion of the park system, crowned by the total conversion of 4,000-acre (16 km²) Mercer Island into parkland. Striking in Bogue's plan is his grasp of the consequences of growth; he foresaw that the city's residents would eventually number in the millions and that such a grand park or efficient transit system could put in place early in the development at much lower cost.
However, the Bogue plan was defeated by an alliance of fiscal conservatives who opposed such a grandiose plan on general principles and populists who argued that the plan would mainly benefit the rich: for example, the proposed massive Mercer Island park could, at that time, only be reached by boat. The Bogue plan sat on the shelf, never to be used. Ultimately, a few of the sites proposed for public parks were developed as such; more became private golf courses and such. The rail system was never built, and Mercer Island is now an upper middle class suburb, connected to the city by an Interstate Highway floating bridge.
At the same time as the government stopped investing for the future, private enterprise also began to stiffen. The war hid this, because it "boomed and expanded Seattle's economy phenomenally, but in false ways." [Roger Sale, Seattle: Past To Present, p.104] The growth in the size of the economy was unprecedented, increasing nearly tenfold. However, it was almost all in wartime shipbuilding and lumber, and there was very little growth in new industries.
Seattle between the Wars
When the war ended, so did Seattle's prosperity. Economic output crashed as the government stopped buying boats, and there were no new industries to pick up the slack. Seattle stopped being a place of explosive growth and opportunity. Of course, this was during the Great Depression, so times were rough all over the country, but Seattle was hit particularly hard because the manufacturing industries had been crowded out by the war.
During this period, Western Washington was a center of radical labor agitation. Most dramatically, a general strike occurred in 1919, fomented in large measure by members of the Industrial Workers of the World.
Roger Sale argues the Seattle between the wars was a pretty nice place to live, especially to grow up in. The city was still full of single-family wood houses and parks from the Olmstead development, but because of the crash they were affordable -- at least to those who still had jobs. "[Seattle between the wars] is what suburbs try to be, but never achieve because they cannot stand things so jammed together, all for a family whose income could be well under two thousand dollars a year." [Roger Sale, Seattle: Past To Present, p.141] Seattle settled down into a kind of stasis between the wars, as growth subsided while those who lived in the city stayed.
References
Much of the content of this page is from "Seattle: Booms and Busts", by Emmett Shear (http://pantheon.yale.edu/~eds25/DrizzlyCity.rtf), who has granted blanket permission for material from that paper to be reused in Wikipedia.
- Nard Jones, Seattle, Doubleday and Co., New York City, 1972
- Roger Sale, Seattle: Past To Present, University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 1976.
External links
http://www.historylink.org provides an unparallelled collection of articles on Seattle and Washington State history.