PULLMAN – Key events and forces that shaped the man who shaped Seattle a century ago are explored in a book recently released by the WSU Press. “Shaper of Seattle: Reginald Heber Thomson’s Pacific Northwest,” is a comprehensive, critical examination by retired history professor and award-winning author William H. Wilson.
The book covers Thomson’s youth, career, personal life and waning years.
“William H. Wilson, writing about a man of controversy and large historical significance, gives us an impressively researched, forcefully argued and richly documented biography that places Thomson in his late nineteenth, early twentieth century context,” said Richard S. Kirkendall, the Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor Emeritus, University of Washington.
Young, ambitious, and college-educated, Thomson was eager to make a big impact, but when his steamer docked at Yesler’s Wharf in 1881, the view was dismal. Nondescript wood-framed buildings and plank sidewalks sprawled along muddy streets.
He may have smelled the Puget Sound metropolis before he saw it. Utilities were crude to nonexistent, pipes dumped the untreated contents of chamber pots and tin bathtubs straight into Elliott Bay, and a horde of rats scurried around the piers.
Recalling that earlier time, he wrote: “Looking at local surrounds, I felt that Seattle was in a pit, that to get anywhere we would be compelled to climb out of it if we could.”
Soon, Thomson was surveying for his cousin’s firm. He quickly rose to partner and mingled with Seattle’s elite. In 1884 he was appointed city surveyor, and in 1892, city engineer.
By then the booming population was in dire need of a workable sewage system and a clean, reliable water supply. Thomson delivered both and more, aided by his keen ability to select capable subordinates. He installed drain pipes and sewers where others had failed, and his gravity-powered Cedar River project replaced drinking water pumped from turbid Lake Washington.
To improve the ability of horses and carts to transport goods, he leveled several steep hills and filled the worst hollows. His hydroelectric power plant lit homes, businesses and streets.
In addition to sewers, water and regraded streets, the progressive, legendary engineer also straightened and dredged waterways, reclaimed tideflats and installed countless miles of tunnels, bridges and pavement.
He became a civic leader and was involved with the Port of Seattle and the Chittenden Locks. For decades, Thomson labored diligently on behalf of urban dwellers; he is responsible for much of the Emerald City’s infrastructure.
Both a workaholic and a devoted family man driven by his religious and political convictions, Thomson possessed extraordinary intelligence, energy, integrity and perseverance. Most of his projects were successful, despite a tenure filled with intense financial pressure, meticulous audits and political and public criticism.
Available in paperback, “Shaper of Seattle” is 240 pages, 8½” x 11″ in size, and retails for $29.95. It can be ordered through bookstores, by calling 800-354-7360, or online at wsupress.wsu.edu.
Associated with Washington State University in Pullman, WSU Press publishes scholarly books with a cultural or historical relationship to the Pacific Northwest.
