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

38 Part OneSoon after the Seattle Lake Shore andEastern Railroad reached it in 1887 SalmonBay began to fill up with mills, and by the endof 1888 there were ten of them. The SeattleCedar Mill, largest on the bay, opened in 1902.The combination of its towers and dryingstacks gave Ballard, the “Shingle Capitol ofthe World,” its familiar skyline. Both theseviews of Seattle Cedar date from ca. 1917.The one looks across Salmon Bay from nearthe Port of Seattle’s Fisherman’s Terminaland the other from the then new BallardBridge on Fifteenh Avenue Northwest.population in need of remunerative employment, the Chinese floated in and out of the city,often working as contract laborers in fruit and fish canneries, coal mines, and farms. Realestateinvestments extended to the blocks east of Chinatown, becoming the foundationof a “second Chinatown” (a term used by Doug and Art Chin in their history of Seattle’sChinatown) in the area between Maynard and Eighth avenues and Jackson and Wellerstreets. Symbolizing this movement was the construction in 1909 of the Milwaukee Hotelat 668½ King Street, which was financed by the Chinese consul Goon Dip. When the PekinCafé opened, also in 1909, it drew attention from the Argus, which said that the restaurantwas “operated by a syndicate of wealthy Chinese.” One of Chinatown’s pioneers was ChinGee Hee, who worked as a contract laborer in the 1870s and later invested the Wa ChongStore, which became the Quong Tuck Company. His Canton Hotel was the first permanentbuilding constructed after the 1889 fire. Befriended by the railroad attorney Thomas Burke,he returned to China to build railroads and ordered most of his supplies from Seattle, whichearned him honorary membershipin the Seattle Chamber ofCommerce.Chinatown became thenucleus around which otherAsians gathered as apartmentresidents, sojourners, and migrantlaborers. Their increasingnumbers contributed to the steadyexpansion south toward BeaconHill, where Asians were notbarred by restrictive covenants.In Chinatown were found Asianfoodstuffs and groceries, cafesand restaurants, import houses,antique and curio shops, hotels,laundries, and tailor shops. Whiteseasonal workers also collected inthe district, because lodging andeating were cheap. RememberingFollowing the city’s Great Fire in 1889, a new Chinatown developedsouth of Yesler Way and in the same neighborhood from whichpopulist vigilantes in the mid-1880s had evicted the first Chinesesettlers. One of the first brick structures built following the firewas Chin Gee Hee’s brick block at the northeast corner of SecondAvenue and Washington Street. Much of the building was loppedaway for the 1928 Second Avenue Extension.