HARD DRIVE TO THE KLONDIKE:
PROMOTING SEATTLE DURING THE GOLD RUSH

A Historic Resource Study for the Seattle Unit of the
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park

Regrading

Fom the 1880s through 1910, the city limits grew dramatically, extending northward past Green Lake and southward to West Roxbury and Juniper streets. The commercial district expanded eastward away from the waterfront, as the shoreline became increasingly devoted to shipping and manufacturing. It also moved northward, toward Denny Hill. During the early twentieth century, Seattle's hills blocked further expansion of the city. In some places, the grades on streets over the hills measured 20 per cent, making transportation, as well as construction, difficult. [11]

[Source: V.V. Tarbill, "Mountain-Moving in Seattle," Harvard Business Review, July, 1930.]

City engineers addressed this problem with extensive regrading projects, radically altering the topography of the city. As historian Clarence B. Bagley pointed out, during the early twentieth century the business section of Seattle became "one vast reclamation project." As he defined it, this area extended from Denny Way and the foot of Queen Anne Hill on the north to the Duwamish River toward the south. [12] Two of the most noteworthy reclamation projects included the Denny and Jackson Street regrades.

Reginald H. Thomson supervised much of this work. He was a civic-minded visionary -- a leader reminiscent of Arthur Denny. Born in Indiana, Thomson arrived in Seattle in 1881 at the age of 26. He dreamed of building a large city on Puget Sound, and investigated a number of possibilities, including Bellingham, Everett, and Tacoma, before settling on Seattle. He became City Engineer in 1892, quickly developing a reputation for dedication. "Thompson is a man who loves work," noted one observer, who further characterized him as "the greatest influence in Seattle." [13] Within two years he garnered support for the project to level Denny Hill, which presented a considerable barrier to northward expansion of the city. [14]

This leveling -- called the Denny Regrade -- proceeded in two stages: 1902-1910 and 1929-1930. By 1905, engineers had removed the west side of the hill, leaving the Washington Hotel precariously perched 100 feet above Second Avenue. This massive amount of earth was moved by hydraulics. Engineers used sluicing techniques similar to those used in gold mining, drawing water from Lake Union by large electric pumps through woodstave pipes. The water sprayed from hoses that featured a pressure of approximately 125 pounds at the nozzle, washing clay and rocks down into flumes and a central tunnel. Heralded as a monumental engineering feat, the Denny Regrade created more than 30 blocks of level land for new construction. [15]

Between 1900 and 1914, Thomson also transformed the southern end of the city. Called the Jackson Street Regrade, this project resurfaced and cut down approximately fifty blocks between Main Street on the north and Judkins Street on the south, and Twelfth Avenue on the east and Fourth Avenue on the west. The Jackson Street Regrade resulted in the removal of approximately five million cubic yards of earth at a cost of $471,547.10. A smaller regrade at Dearborn Street also removed more than one million cubic yards of earth, leveling areas for new construction. These projects improved access to the waterfront, Rainier Valley, and Lake Washington. According to Bagley, the regrade projects were among Thomson's most notable achievements -- and they dramatically changed the look of the city. [16]

Engineers used much of the earth removed from the regrades to fill the tideflats, a process that changed the appearance of the waterfront. The filled tideflats encouraged further development of rail yards and terminals -- and this expansion forced the relocation of ethnic groups, including Japanese and Chinese, that had resided and worked around Washington and King streets. The growth of an industrial complex in this area pushed them east of Fifth Avenue, where they formed a new community, now called the International District. [17]

As a result of the regrades, the city was level enough by 1910 to accommodate automobiles, which greatly increased the volume and speed of land transportation. Most land traffic in the Puget Sound area flowed through Seattle, further securing its status as the metropolis of the region. [18]

Engineers used slucing methods drawn from placer mining to level the hills of Seattle.
Pictured here is the Denny Regrade, early twentieth century.
(Courtesy Special Collections Division, University of Washington)