Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
a guttural 'th' being made up of a hard 't' and an 'h' that's almost a lisp off the end of
the word), who was the friend of an early merchant.
Fremont, Ballard and Georgetown were once rival cities to Seattle. They were ab-
sorbed by their bigger rival in 1891, 1907 and 1910 respectively.
Birth of the City
The heart of the young city beat in the area now known as Pioneer Square. Although
there was a small but deep harbor at this point in Elliott Bay, much of the land immedi-
ately to the south was mudflats, ideal for oysters but not much else. The land to the
north and east was steep and forested. The early settlers (whose names now ring as a
compendium of street names and landmarks: Denny, Yesler, Bell, Boren) quickly
cleared the land and established a sawmill, schools, churches and other civic institu-
tions. From the start, the people who settled Seattle never doubted that they were
founding a great city. The original homesteads were quickly plaited into city streets,
and trade, not farming or lumbering, became the goal.
