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Birds Eye View of Seattle And Environs. King County, Wash., 1891. Eighteen Months after the Great Fire
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| Title | Birds Eye View of Seattle And Environs. King County, Wash., 1891. Eighteen Months after the Great Fire |
| Alternative Title | Eighteen Months after the Great Fire. Birds Eye View of Seattle And Environs |
| Detailed view (zoom) | http://content.lib.washington.edu/mapsweb/images/Viewer/G4284_S4_A3_1891_K6.html |
| Cartographer | Koch, August, b. 1840
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| Century Published | 19th century
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| Publication Date | 1891 |
| Publisher | Hughes Litho. Co
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| Place of Publication | United States--Illinois--Chicago |
| Descriptive Notes | Color lithograph.
Mounted on linen.
North oriented to upper left.
Printed in center of bottom:
"Birds Eye View of Seattle And Environs. King County, Wash., 1891. Eighteen Months after the Great Fire. Drawn by Augustus Koch."
Printed in center of bottom edge:
"Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1891, by Augustus Koch, in the office of the Librarian of the Congress at Washington, D. C."
Printed next to title in bottom edge:
"Hughes Litho. Co. Chicago."
Depicts Seattle and the surrounding area in detail, showing individual buildings and features. Key to various businesses, buildings and landmarks printed at bottom border. Includes major bodies of water such as Elliott Bay, Lake Union, Green Lake, Salmon Bay, Union Bay, Smith's Cove, and Lake Washington. Also depicts major streets including Spring, Seneca, Union, Clay, Lenora, Blanchard, Depot, Mercer, Jackson, Wall and Vine. West Seattle is depicted showing the Seattle Terminal Railway and Elevator Co. operations. The Seattle Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad and the Great Northern Railroad tracks are shown along the waterfront west toward Smith's Cove. The Rainier Avenue Electric Railway runs east up Washington Street before turning south. Powerhouse for the Lake Washington Cable Railway Co. is show at the end of Yesler Ave. at Lake Washington. Beede's Madison Street Pavilion is shown at the end of Madison St. on Lake Washington. Kirkland is visible across Lake Washington at the far top of the map. The "Mouth of the Duwamish River" is shown at the bottom right edge. Steamers "Walla Walla", "Willamette" and battleship "Charleston" are shown in the Seattle harbor.
Not drawn to scale. |
| Contextual Notes | Augustus Koch was one of many itinerant cartographers who in the nineteenth century who made a living by drawing "birds-eye" views of various cities. Originally from Germany, Koch had served in the Union Army during the Civil War as a draughtsman. During the 1870s, he drew maps for cities in Texas, Utah, Wyoming and California.
This map was published in 1891.
Seattle was first officially settled in 1851 with the arrival of Arthur Denny and a small number of settlers. In 1852, businessman, Henry Yesler, chose Seattle as the site for a mill. Ten years later, Seattle was chosen as the site for the Territorial University. By 1870, the small village-like town numbered 1100 residents (Crowley). In 1880, Seattle's length was about 1.5 miles along Elliot Bay and about ¾ of a mile wide. By 1879, there were about 50 houses and 200 people living next to the railroad terminus between Lake Union and Seattle (Buerge, 97). During the 1880s, Seattle experienced incredible growth with a number of buildings rising up. In the first half of 1888, 800 new homes were built (Buerge, 107). By this time, Seattle could boast all manner of establishments including churches, schools, a hospital, saloons, brothels, dance halls, reading rooms, theaters and an orchestra. However, the city still had a poor sewage and drainage system, composed of wood and prone to flood at high tide. On June 6, 1889, the downtown area of Seattle changed forever when a bucket of boiling glue tipped over and caught fire in a pile of shavings in the basement of the Pontius Building at Madison and First Avenue. The fire spread quickly throughout the oldest part of downtown as most buildings were made of wood. The next day, new plans were made for building structures with brick and stone and raising the sidewalks in Pioneer Square. Streets were built wider and a new sewage system was laid. As a result of the fire, the real estate business took off at a rapid rate. Within two years of the fire, 3500 new buildings had been erected in the burnt area (Buerge, 107-113; Crowley). In 1891, Seattle's population numbered 50,000 (Anderson) and the city's economic boom did not slow until the Panic of 1893. In 1897 when the first news of gold in the Klondike arrived, the city again began to grow as the "Gateway" city for the Klondike Gold Rush (Crowley).
Source(s):
Anderson, Ross. "Pinpoints, Plots, Plats and Panoramas." The Seattle Times. 18 Sept. 2001. Accessed November 11, 2008.
Buerge, David. "Seattle in the 1880s." Seattle: Historical Society of Seattle and King County, 1986.
Crowley, Walt. "Seattle - Thumbnail History." 26 Sept. 2006. Historylink.org. Accessed 21 Nov. 2008.
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| Language | English |
| Category | Bird's Eye View
Pacific Northwest
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| Location Depicted | United States, Northwest
United States--Washington (State)--Seattle
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| Subjects (LCSH) | Seattle (Wash.)-Aerial views-Maps; Seattle (Wash.)-Pictorial works |
| Digital Collection | World and Regional Maps, 16th to the 19th centuries
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| Digital ID Number | MAP123 |
| Ordering Information | For information about digital reproductions, please email photos@u.washington.edu. Please cite the Digital ID number. |
| Negative number | UW1608 |
| Repository | University of Washington Libraries. Special Collections Division.
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| Repository Collection | Rare Map Collection. G4284 S4 A3 1891 K6 |
| Object Type | Map
Lithograph |
| Physical Description | 81 x 128 cm. |
| Condition | Brown spots of glue evident throughout. Call number written in pencil on verso on left edge. Original call number written in pencil in bottom right corner on verso. Written in pencil on verso on left edge: "UW neg. 1608." |
| Digital Reproduction Information | Scanned from original map at 600 dpi in TIFF format, resized and enhanced at 400 ppi using Adobe Photoshop, and imported as JPEG2000 using ContentDM's software JPEG2000 Extension. 2008. |
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