Overview

"His achievements are woven into Seattle and the surrounding region so durably that they are taken for granted even as Puget Sound, Lake Washington, and Mount Rainier."" - Roy O. HadleyYoung, ambitious, and college-educated, Reginald Heber Thomson was eager to make a big impression. But when his steamer docked at Seattle's Yesler's Wharf in 1881, the view was dismal. Nondescript buildings and plank sidewalks sprawled along muddy streets. Utilities were crude to nonexistent. Pipes dumped untreated sewage straight into Elliott Bay. Rats scurried around the piers. Surveying for his cousin's firm, Thomson quickly rose to partner and mingled with Seattle's elite. In 1884 he was appointed city surveyor, and in 1892, city engineer. The booming population was in dire need of a workable sewage system and a clean, reliable water supply. He delivered both and more. He installed drain pipes and sewers where others had failed, and his gravity-powered Cedar River project replaced water pumped from turbid Lake Washington. To improve transportation of goods, he leveled several steep hills and filled the worst hollows. His municipal power plant lit homes, businesses, and streets. The progressive, legendary engineer also straightened and dredged waterways, reclaimed tideflats, and installed countless miles of tunnels, bridges, and pavement. Thomson became a civic leader and was involved with the Port of Seattle and the Chittenden locks. He is responsible for much of the Emerald City's existing infrastructure, succeeding despite a tenure filled with intense financial pressure, meticulous audits, and political and public controversy. A workaholic and a devoted family man driven by his religious and political convictions, he possessed extraordinary intelligence, energy, integrity, and perseverance. A comprehensive, critical examination, Shaper of Seattle explores the key events and forces that shaped his youth, career, personal life, and waning years."

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9780874223019

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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. -- Reginald Heber Thomson

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William H. Wilson is a professor emeritus of history in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Texas and an award-winning writer. He has served as president of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History, and also is a member of the Organization of American Historians, the Urban History Association, and the International Planning and History Society.

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