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

36 Part Oneplatted.” As was true throughout the city, asone moved downhill, one would find less andless expensive homes: homes housing bluecollarand lower paid clerical workers andtheir families tended to lie near the bottom ofthe hills and on flatter terrain.When Seattle’s “first apartment hotel”, the Lincoln,was constructed in 1899 at the northwest corner ofFourth Avenue and Madison Street the once remotelocation was considered almost intimate. The Lincolnis the centerpiece for this scene. One block northat Spring Street is the “big barn” First PresbyterianChurch. That sanctuary could seat 1,500 and itusually did for the pastor Mark Matthews gave outfrom its pulpit what many thought was the best showin town. Less prophetic shows were featured at theThird Avenue Theatre just behind the Lincoln—herewith the tower to the left. All these early twentiethcentury popular addresses could be easily reachedon the Madison Street cable cars, the slotted linethat runs left-right through the scene. In 1907 thetheatre was razed during the Third Avenue Regradeand Matthews and his flock also moved three blocksup First Hill to bigger quarters at Seventh and Spring.The hotel held on until it was destroyed by fire in1920. Surveying the ruins, the fire marshal describedthe once distinguished Lincoln as “little else than alumber yard with four brick walls around it.”The poorest of Seattle’s new arrivals settled in the central city, in and around YeslerWay, between Sixth Avenue and the waterfront. But once their countrymen establishedenclaves elsewhere, subsequent newcomers tended to bypass this downtown area to jointhem. This pattern held true for Scandinavians in particular, although the poorer of theirnumber continued to predominate in Skid Road until 1940. Most Scandinavians who leftthis area migrated to Ballard, where familiar employment could be found in its lumber andshingle mills as well as with its fishing fleet. This classic mill town, in which the StimsonMill had operated since 1890, was annexed by Seattle in 1907, adding 17,000 people tothe city. A “city of smokestacks,” Ballard contributed twelve percent of the state’s shinglevolume. It became known popularly as “Swedetown,” though Norwegians outnumberedSwedes. Salmon Bay on Ballard’s southern border soon became the home of the city’sfishing fleet.As the city filled up, its residential districts became more clearly defined alongclass and occupational lines. Unskilled and transient workers were attracted to cheaphotels, boardinghouses, and rooming houses in the core of the older part of the city. Theupper stratum of organized labor and the lower middle class moved to the lower slopesof most hills, along the flatter land. Examples are Ballard, Wallingford, the Green Lakeneighborhood, the Central District,Cascade, lower Queen Anne, and RainierValley. They also moved to a hill that thewealthier classes shunned: Beacon Hill.The 1902 opening of Seattle High School at BroadwayAvenue and Pine Street was a sign of how rapidly thecity was expanding, especially to the north. The city’sfirst dedicated high school soon took on the name ofthe avenue it faced and in 1908 Broadway was madeofficial. Lincoln High had been added in 1907, QueenAnne would be in 1909 and Franklin in 1912.Courtesy, Seattle Public Library