Seattle: 1900-1920 -From Boomtown, Through Urban Turbulence ...

16 Part OneCourtesy, The Rainier ClubErastus Brainerd from the RainierClub’s “mug book” of members.grain elevators, flour mills, steel plants, coal docks, toolmakingand machinery plants, and shipyards that locatedthere during the first two decades of the century.Topping off this revenue were the City’s landgrants to the GN and NP in exchange for their promises tobuild a union depot. These critically placed landholdings,adjacent to or near the railroad tracks, allowed the Hillinterests to negotiate tie-in contracts with shippers andwarehouse operators as a condition of sale of theseproperties. From its dominant position on the waterfront,the GN also controlled wharfage rates, threatening anycompetitor who charged or might charge rates lower thanthe GN did. The GN’s abuse of this power eventually ledeven the chamber of commerce in 1911 to join publicownership forces in opposing the railroad companies’domination of the waterfront by supporting legislationfor the establishment of port districts. It took the smell ofanticipated profits to be made from the opening of the Panama Canal to turn these railwaysupporters into opponents. How this conflict played out will be covered later in relation tothe Harbor Island–Bogue Plan controversy.It should be noted that it was common for railroads to demonstrate politicalpower during this period. In league with timber interests, railroad companies dominatedthe politics of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The GN and NP (both controlled by Hill) aloneheld power in the Dakotas, and they joined with the mining interests to control politics inMontana and Idaho. The Southern Pacific dominated California’s politics and directed itseconomy, especially in Southern California. In Oregon the locally owned Oregon SteamNavigation Company gained control of Columbia River traffic in the 1860s. And after thetransportation magnate Ben Holladay gained control of coastal traffic with his Pacific MailLine, he established the Oregon and California Railroad and dominated river traffic onIn 1898 the U.S. Assay Officemoved into a two-story cast-ironand masonry building on First Hill,built in 1886 by Post-Intelligencerowner Thomas Prosch for officesand a ballroom. It was the job of theAssay Office employees, posinghere, to determine a fair price forthe gold and silver brought throughSeattle by miners so that the U.S.Government might purchase it.After the Assay Office moved tothe new Immigration Building in1932 this, its first Seattle home at619 Ninth Avenue, was renovatedinto the German House.