|
About SPU
>
Management
>
History & Overview
SPU History
The history of Seattle’s water and engineering utilities is the history of Seattle itself. For more than 100 years, Seattle has grown outward and upward on the roads, bridges, watersheds, seawalls, sewers, and drainage, garbage and electrical systems built by its water and engineering departments.
1865
Seattle was founded in 1865 as a frontier outpost of wooded hills, salmon-filled waters, and 350 hardy residents. The new community grew, and so did the problems already known to other 19th-century towns. The beautiful hills were an impediment to commerce. Water supplies were uncertain and unhealthy. Garbage piled up in streets and alleys.
1885
Between 1885 and 1889, Seattle’s population increased from 10,000 to 40,000. Without a public sewage system or reliable water supply, the problems increased too. Seattle had an unhappy reputation as one of the country’s most unhealthy towns.
Two crises in 1889 challenged public officials and pushed the fledgling city forward. Already hit by cholera epidemics, Seattle suffered a typhoid outbreak from sewage-polluted water in Lake Union.
Health, engineering, and water officials convinced Seattle’s city council of the need for separate systems for sewage and drinking water. They began to build sewers and storm drains and to remove the rotting wood-planked road system. And they began to develop a protected water supply high in the Cascade Mountains, with a system of pipelines and reservoirs owned and operated by the city.
The second crisis of 1889 changed Seattle’s skyline forever. The Great Fire of that summer eliminated the 64-acre business district. From the ashes, the city rebuilt itself with a new image. Seattle was no longer a makeshift frontier town, but a city of substance and permanence with beginnings of the infrastructure it still uses today.
1900's
Seattle was pushed and pulled into the 20th century by its water and engineering departments. When a new supply of power and water was needed for a growing population, city engineers delivered water from the Cedar River. By 1909, water and sewage systems were in place, and Seattle boasted of being the world’s healthiest city.
During these early days, Denny Hill and Jackson Street were regraded, and the city’s parks system was mapped out with the help of the Olmsted Brothers. City streets were paved, and garbage was collected. Rivers were straightened to prevent flooding, and swamplands were filled to add harbor and industrial areas. Between 1911 and 1922, more than a dozen viaducts and bridges were built, allowing maritime and commercial traffic to expand beyond Seattle’s natural borders.
Two more dams, the Diablo in 1930 and Tolt River in 1964, were built to accommodate a growing need for fresh water and electricity. After World War II, the Alaskan Way Viaduct and Battery Street Tunnel became the basis of Seattle’s inner-city highway system.
For 100 years, the Seattle Water Department and Seattle Engineering Department planned, designed, constructed, and maintained Seattle’s infrastructure and utility services. For a century they worked with pride, skill, and dedication to help Seattle grow from a frontier town of 350 into a world-class city of 535,000.
Related links
Water System History
Cedar River Watershed History
History of the Garbage System
Links to other sites
HistoryLink.org
|
|
