Wages of Sin Paid Well For City Fathers in Early-1880s Seattle

Preachers and philosophers may debate the1994 issue of "True West," for those of you
wages of sin, but sin paid well for early-1880sinterested in and able to track it down. I just
Seattle.happen to have eight or 10 copies of the
According to a paragraph in a fascinating article Imagazine from the early- to mid-1990s setting in
was reading recently about Seattle's famousa case near my faithful recliner, and I'm having a
"Underground," gambling and prostitution washeck of a lot of fun scanning through them to
prevalent in the fledgling Queen City of thepass along little tidbits of Old West tales and tall
Northwest and prompted a sort of "sin tax." Thetales. Great stuff!
article mentioned in passing that this tax on theI suppose the good news for Seattle and
fleshly vices furnished 87 percent of the municipalSeattleites (Do you call 'em that? I guess so.) is
Seattle budget in 1881-82.that the town prospered and grew into a mighty
Of course, other sources I found tell me the nowcenter of the good life that makes a positive
mighty city was only populated by some 3,500impact on the Pacific Northwest, our whole
people at the time, so that municipal income maycountry, and the entire world. The bad news, of
not have been all that large -- and the shady folkscourse, is that Seattle and all other respectable
who both used these services and supplied themvillages where you might choose to hang your hat
may not have represented a big crowd. But you'dhave lost a certain amount of the drama and the
have to think both the servers and the "servees"color of the "wild" West days.
of gambling establishments and houses of fleshlyBut that's all right, too. The drama and color part
delight must have done their tasks withof life in the Old West is just as well off without
enthusiasm.the mayhem and heartache surrounding the
I ran onto that tantalizing tax fact in another backactivities targeted by that 1880s Seattle sin tax
issue of that magazine I've been urging all of youbrought in, isn't it? We can surly enjoy a good
to get, "True West." (Folks there oughta give meyarn or two about the color and drama of the
a commission, but they don't. That's all right;past. But those hard times when gambling and
always glad to recommend a good resource towhoring were rampant, and the violence
you who are interested in the Old West.) In thisassociated with them, were not the best part of
case, the article was titled "Seattle Underfoot" bySeattle, nor of the Old West.
Karen McGeorge Sanders. It ran in the March