Henry Yesler
Encyclopedia
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
's first economic father and first millionaire. He arrived in Seattle in 1852 and built a steam-powered sawmill
Sawmill
A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.-Sawmill process:A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end....
, which provided numerous jobs for those early settlers and Duwamish
Duwamish (tribe)
The Duwamish are a Lushootseed Native American tribe in western Washington, and the indigenous people of metropolitan Seattle, where they have been living since the end of the last glacial period...
tribe members. The mill was located right on the Elliott Bay
Elliott Bay
Elliott Bay is the body of water on which Seattle, Washington, is located. A line drawn from Alki Point in the south to West Point in the north serves to mark the generally accepted division between the bay and the open sound...
waterfront, at the foot of what is now known as Yesler Way and was then known as Mill Road or the "Skid Road," for the way the logs "skidded" down the steep grade from the ever-receding timber line to the mill. The house where Henry and his wife Sarah lived, a wooden building that resembled a store, was located near the mill, at the corner of 1st Avenue and James Street. When Sarah died in 1887, Henry constructed a mansion on the block between 3rd and 4th Avenues at James Street, where he spent the final five years of his life.
In addition to running the mill, Yesler built the city's first water system, in 1854. The system was made up of a series of open-air, V-shaped flumes perched on stilts that started atop First Hill
First Hill, Seattle, Washington
First Hill is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, named for the hill on which it is located. The hill, in turn, is so named for being the first hill one encounters traveling east from downtown Seattle toward Lake Washington....
and ran down past Yesler's home and to the mill. Later on, after complaints of dirty water, Yesler developed a system made up of log pipes buried beneath the ground.
Henry Yesler also served in public office, at various times as a county auditor, county commissioner, and mayor.
On June 6, 1889, the Great Seattle Fire
Great Seattle Fire
The Great Seattle Fire was a fire that destroyed the entire central business district of Seattle, Washington, USA, on June 6, 1889.-Early Seattle:In the fall of 1851, the Denny Party arrived at Alki Point in what is now the state of Washington...
burned down the entire business district (which consisted mainly of wooden buildings), including the mill, as well as his Yesler Hall, located on the corner of and 1st Avenue and Yesler Way, and Yesler's Pavilion, at 1st and Cherry. They were never replaced. Yesler built the Pioneer Building on the same plot of land where his first home stood, now the heart of Seattle's Pioneer Square
Pioneer Square, Seattle, Washington
Pioneer Square is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of Downtown Seattle, Washington, USA. It was once the heart of the city: Seattle's founders settled there in 1852, following a brief six-month settlement at Alki Point on the far side of Elliott Bay. The early structures in the neighborhood...
.
Yesler died on December 16, 1892, at the age of 82. He is buried, along with his wife, in Lake View Cemetery
Lake View Cemetery (Seattle)
Lake View Cemetery is a cemetery located on Seattle, Washington, Capitol Hill just north of Volunteer Park. It is named for its view of Lake Washington to the east. It was founded in 1873 as the Seattle Masonic Cemetery.-Notable interments:...
. The mansion he lived in was turned into the first supposedly permanent home of the Seattle Public Library
Seattle Public Library
The Seattle Public Library is the public library system serving Seattle, Washington, USA. It was officially established by the city in 1890, though there had been efforts to start a Seattle library as early as 1868. There are 26 branches in the system, most of them named after the neighborhoods in...
, but burned down January 2, 1901. The King County Courthouse
King County Courthouse
The King County Courthouse is the administrative building housing the judicial branch of King County, Washington government. It is located in downtown Seattle, Washington, just north of Pioneer Square...
currently occupies that site.
Personality
In his informative and tongue-in-cheek book, Sons of the Profits, Seattle historian William C. Speidel pointed out some of Yesler's negative aspects. On numerous occasions, Yesler had lawsuits filed against him. On other occasions, it was Yesler himself doing the suing. "The City of Seattle made him a millionaire," wrote Speidel, "yet he sued it...fought it...plundered it...and on two occasions he brought it to the brink of bankruptcy." Speidel also recounts how, according to courthouse records, Yesler owed John McLain, an old friend from OhioOhio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, $30,000 for the loan that the latter set up for construction of the mill. Yesler would pay him $12,000 of it over time, and it wasn't until McLain sued him that he was able to collect on the rest.
Further reading
- James R. Warren, "Ten who shaped Seattle: Henry Yesler struck gold in lumber and real estate", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 25, 2001.
- Junius Rochester, Yesler, Henry L. (1810–1892) HistoryLink.org ("The Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History"), October 7, 1998, revised by Walt CrowleyWalt CrowleyWalter Charles Crowley was a Washington political celebrity. He first became a public figure in Seattle through his involvement with the social and political movements of the 1960s, especially the underground press...
on October 17, 2002.
Writings
Available online through the Washington State Library's Classics in Washington History collectionExternal links
- Finding aids from the Special Collections, Washington State Historical Society (WSHS). Includes a finding aid on Henry and Sarah Yesler, available as a PDF or a Word document.