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

Harbor and Waterway Improvements

During the early twentieth century, construction of the Panama Canal encouraged cities along the West Coast to plan for increased maritime traffic. Seattle promoters, including local newspapers and the Chamber of Commerce, advocated setting up a municipal corporation to own, expand, and manage Seattle's harbor. This enthusiasm inspired Virgil Bogue, a civil engineer, to draw up the city's first comprehensive plan for harbor improvement in 1910. Bogue had enjoyed an impressive career, designing Prospect Park in Brooklyn with Frederick Law Olmsted. He also constructed a trans-Andean railroad in Peru, and had identified Stampede Pass in the Cascade Mountains for the passage of the railroad. [23]

Bogue's plan for Seattle's harbor included two large marinas on the central waterfront, one for ferries and Alaska steamers and the other for Seattle's "mosquito fleet" (a fleet of small ships). He further envisioned 1,500-foot coal docks and the addition of piers and slips at Lake Union, which would be transformed into an industrial waterway. His plan also included a 3,000-foot waterway between Shilshole and Salmon Bays in Ballard -- a project for which Erastus Brainerd had lobbied in 1902. Bogue's most ambitious idea was to develop seven 1,400-foot piers at Harbor Island, which could increase Seattle's annual marine commerce by seven times. "Seattle's harbor is Seattle's opportunity," he wrote. "With cheap power in abundance, and an inexhaustible supply of coal at her very gates and the vast resources of its hinterland, all that remains to be done by Seattle, the gateway to Alaska and the Orient, is to adopt a comprehensive scheme for its development." [24]

In 1910, Congress authorized construction of the Lake Washington Canal connecting Lake Washington and Lake Union to Puget Sound. The following year, voters in King County created the Port of Seattle and passed Bogue's plan. [25] These improvements to navigation and harbor facilities helped Seattle become a major port, ensuring the city's continued connections to the Far North and Asia.

In general, the expansion of Seattle's infrastructure during the early twentieth century accommodated the population growth spurred by the Klondike stampede and subsequent gold rushes in Alaska. As historian Murray Morgan explained, "without Brainerd, Seattle might not have tripled its population in a decade; ... without Thomson, it could not have handled the newcomers." [26]

Next> Seattle Map, 1888