Pinch of the Past – A Taste of 1900 Seattle

When I told Darcy I was researching for the Pinch of the Past and kept getting lost down rabbit holes, she suggested I pull from one of my stories. I’m preparing to pitch my manuscripts at the American Christian Fiction Writers Conference this year, so I dove in to my notes. Here are a few things I found about Seattle Washington in 1900. One of Seattle’s Hospitals resided within a steamboat.

At the turn of the century few of Seattle’s destitute and homeless had proper medical care available to them, but on April 1, 1899 a group of Seattle citizens pitched together to open a hospital to help the downtrodden of Seattle. They purchased the de-commissioned side-wheel steamboat Idaho and placed it on pilings beside the Pacific Coast Steamship Co.’s, Pier C, right at the foot of Jackson St. and with the help of Doctor Alexander De Soto, was opened as the Ways Side Mission Hospital. Because it was on the port, it was easily accessible to seafarers, brothels, saloons, and poverty-stricken neighborhoods.

Seven years after opening, the Wayside Mission Hospital was moved ashore due to structural failure; however, it remained open another two years, finally closing when the city opened a 41-bed emergency hospital in the Public Safety Building. The Odaho sat abandoned for years. During the reconstruction of the sea wall along Seattle’s south waterfront, sometime between 1910 and 1920, it was moved and buried as fill. In 1960 on National Maritime Day, a historical marker was erected at the Idaho’s resting place near the foot of Washington St.

The Marker reads: “BENEATH YOUR FEET LIES THE WRECKAGE OF THE PIONEER SIDEWHEEL STEAMER “IDAHO”, WHICH SERVED FROM 1900 UNTIL 1909 AS DR. ALEXANDER DE SOTO’S FAMOUS WAYSIDE MISSION HOSPITAL. HERE DR. DE SOTO MINISTERED TO THE NEEDS OF SEAFARERS AND THE DESTITUTE, DONATING HIS TIME AND FUNDS TO THEIR CARE.”