Where are the old houses in Seattle?
First, what were the populations
How many people were living in Seattle?
4568| Year | Seattle | Ballard | King County |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | 188 | 302 | |
| 1870 | 1151 | 2120 | |
| 1880 | 3533 | 6910 | |
| 1890 | 42837 | 1636 | 63989 |
| 1900 | 80671 | 4568 | 110053 |
| 1910 | 237194 | 284638 | |
| 1920 | 315312 | 389273 |
The tricky part is understanding what the population represents. The Annexation map shows a steady increase in size of the city. The one below shows early annexations (up to 1938). A huge chunk of north Seattle (up to 130th) was annexed later.
For the purpose of old houses, there were 80,671 people living in Seattle in 1900. However, the city limits then were much smaller than they are now. The US Census has populations of individual precincts in King County in 1890 and 1900. What are those precincts? A census site links some together. I'll just guess and say there were about 50,000 people living in the modern Seattle city limits in 1890.
To make things interesting, there was the Seattle Fire in 1889. This destroyed much of the central business district. It also led to a rapid increase in population as the city was rebuilt. I'll guess that a great deal of the pre-1889 buildings were destroyed. There was probably a lot of "get things done quickly" mentality for housing immediately after the fire. I doubt there would be much of that housing that would last. However, I would expect to find a few bits of 1890s housing still around. The areas that were later annexed would probably have some housing.
By 1900, Seattle had 80,671 residents. Ballard had 4.568 at the time. Add in other areas, and a population of 90,000 for the area of modern Seattle seems quite conservative.
Now what about finding the old buildings? The King County Assesor has data that includes the address and year of construction of property in Seattle. I grabbed the residential file. (This does miss out on a few older houses that have been converted to commercial.) It includes the entire county. To narrow down to Seattle, a little bit of grep magic by zip code:
cat EXTR_ResBldg.csv|grep -e '98177\|98133\|9810\|98112\|98115\|98116\|98117\|98118\|98119\|98121\|98122\|98125\|98126\|98133\|98134\|98136\|98144\|98154\|98164\|98174\|98195\|98199' >seattle100YearHouses.csv
That may grab a few bits on the periphery where the zip code spans the city limits, but should be close enough for our purposes. I sorted by year built and then removed everything more than 100 years old.
Interestingly, there was nothing before 1900.
The breakdown by year:
Something seems a little suspicious there. There were more 1900 constructions than 1901 and 1902 combined. Were some houses backdated? Or is there some weird Y2K thing going on?
I loaded those into a Google map and:
I tried pulling all of King County:
| Year | houses | Change vs. previous |
|---|---|---|
| 1894 | 1 | |
| 1900 | 2112 | |
| 1901 | 708 | -66% |
| 1902 | 710 | 0% |
| 1903 | 872 | 23% |
| 1904 | 1261 | 45% |
| 1905 | 1478 | 17% |
| 1906 | 2232 | 51% |
| 1907 | 1740 | -22% |
| 1908 | 2496 | 43% |
| 1909 | 2301 | -8% |
| 1910 | 3277 | 42% |
| 1911 | 1811 | -45% |
| 1912 | 1952 | 8% |
| 1913 | 1521 | -22% |
| 1914 | 1713 | 13% |
| 1915 | 1493 | -13% |
| 1916 | 2001 | 34% |
| 1917 | 989 | -51% |
| 1918 | 3138 | 217% |
| 1919 | 2140 | -32% |
| 1920 | 2766 | 29% |
| 1921 | 1778 | -36% |
| 1922 | 2112 | 19% |
| 1923 | 2118 | 0% |
| 1924 | 3153 | 49% |
| 1925 | 3743 | 19% |
| 1926 | 4278 | 14% |
| 1927 | 2955 | -31% |
| 1928 | 3669 | 24% |
| 1929 | 2327 | -37% |
| 1930 | 2616 | 12% |
| 1931 | 1345 | -49% |
| 1932 | 900 | -33% |
| 1933 | 616 | -32% |
| 1934 | 623 | 1% |
| 1935 | 727 | 17% |
| 1936 | 1244 | 71% |
| 1937 | 1685 | 35% |
| 1938 | 1674 | -1% |
| 1939 | 2294 | 37% |
| 1940 | 3766 | 64% |
| 1941 | 4457 | 18% |
| 1942 | 6032 | 35% |
| 1943 | 3509 | -42% |
| 1944 | 3450 | -2% |
| 1945 | 2211 | -36% |
| 1946 | 3091 | 40% |
| 1947 | 6068 | 96% |
| 1948 | 5651 | -7% |
| 1949 | 4581 | -19% |
| 1950 | 6134 | 34% |
| 1951 | 5239 | -15% |
| 1952 | 5559 | 6% |
| 1953 | 5694 | 2% |
| 1954 | 7183 | 26% |
| 1955 | 7331 | 2% |
| 1956 | 4821 | -34% |
| 1957 | 4651 | -4% |
| 1958 | 6144 | 32% |
| 1959 | 7806 | 27% |
| 1960 | 5624 | -28% |
| 1961 | 6223 | 11% |
| 1962 | 8129 | 31% |
| 1963 | 6798 | -16% |
| 1964 | 4176 | -39% |
| 1965 | 4969 | 19% |
| 1966 | 6738 | 36% |
| 1967 | 8929 | 33% |
| 1968 | 9619 | 8% |
| 1969 | 6368 | -34% |
| 1970 | 3357 | -47% |
| 1971 | 2339 | -30% |
| 1972 | 3743 | 60% |
| 1973 | 3530 | -6% |
| 1974 | 3932 | 11% |
| 1975 | 4857 | 24% |
| 1976 | 6509 | 34% |
| 1977 | 9876 | 52% |
| 1978 | 9393 | -5% |
| 1979 | 7569 | -19% |
| 1980 | 5774 | -24% |
| 1981 | 5238 | -9% |
| 1982 | 2727 | -48% |
| 1983 | 5231 | 92% |
| 1984 | 5780 | 10% |
| 1985 | 5148 | -11% |
| 1986 | 5616 | 9% |
| 1987 | 7018 | 25% |
| 1988 | 6425 | -8% |
| 1989 | 7178 | 12% |
| 1990 | 7571 | 5% |
| 1991 | 4756 | -37% |
| 1992 | 4929 | 4% |
| 1993 | 4531 | -8% |
| 1994 | 5269 | 16% |
| 1995 | 4131 | -22% |
| 1996 | 4663 | 13% |
| 1997 | 4353 | -7% |
| 1998 | 5453 | 25% |
| 1999 | 5419 | -1% |
| 2000 | 4595 | -15% |
| 2001 | 5688 | 24% |
| 2002 | 4729 | -17% |
| 2003 | 7468 | 58% |
| 2004 | 7516 | 1% |
| 2005 | 7684 | 2% |
| 2006 | 7347 | -4% |
| 2007 | 6763 | -8% |
| 2008 | 5605 | -17% |
| 2009 | 2950 | -47% |
| 2010 | 2719 | -8% |
| 2011 | 2718 | 0% |
| 2012 | 3454 | 27% |
| 2013 | 4201 | 22% |
| 2014 | 4154 | -1% |
| 2015 | 4310 | 4% |
| 2016 | 4893 | 14% |
| 2017 | 4922 | 1% |
| 2018 | 5245 | 7% |
| 2019 | 4691 | -11% |
| 2020 | 4621 | -1% |
| 2021 | 3678 | -20% |
| 2022 | 292 | -92% |
Commercial buildings were also interesting:
To display on a map, I had to split into "Vashon" and "not Vashon" to get below Google's 2000 limit
| year | buildings | % change |
| 1882 | 1 | |
| 1883 | 1 | |
| 1884 | 0 | |
| 1885 | 0 | |
| 1886 | 0 | |
| 1887 | 0 | |
| 1888 | 0 | |
| 1889 | 0 | |
| 1890 | 1 | |
| 1891 | 0 | |
| 1892 | 0 | |
| 1893 | 0 | |
| 1894 | 0 | |
| 1895 | 1 | |
| 1896 | 0 | |
| 1897 | 0 | |
| 1898 | 0 | |
| 1899 | 1 | |
| 1900 | 407 | 40600% |
| 1901 | 108 | -73% |
| 1902 | 77 | -29% |
| 1903 | 58 | -25% |
| 1904 | 102 | 76% |
| 1905 | 91 | -11% |
| 1906 | 180 | 98% |
| 1907 | 144 | -20% |
| 1908 | 183 | 27% |
| 1909 | 201 | 10% |
| 1910 | 346 | 72% |
| 1911 | 121 | -65% |
| 1912 | 133 | 10% |
| 1913 | 101 | -24% |
| 1914 | 125 | 24% |
| 1915 | 94 | -25% |
| 1916 | 131 | 39% |
| 1917 | 74 | -44% |
| 1918 | 145 | 96% |
| 1919 | 107 | -26% |
| 1920 | 267 | 150% |
| 1921 | 107 | -60% |
| 1922 | 153 | 43% |
| 1923 | 162 | 6% |
| 1924 | 213 | 31% |
| 1925 | 259 | 22% |
| 1926 | 319 | 23% |
| 1927 | 226 | -29% |
| 1928 | 346 | 53% |
| 1929 | 189 | -45% |
| 1930 | 241 | 28% |
| 1931 | 91 | -62% |
| 1932 | 77 | -15% |
| 1933 | 46 | -40% |
| 1934 | 57 | 24% |
| 1935 | 65 | 14% |
| 1936 | 117 | 80% |
| 1937 | 102 | -13% |
| 1938 | 111 | 9% |
| 1939 | 93 | -16% |
| 1940 | 220 | 137% |
| 1941 | 160 | -27% |
| 1942 | 135 | -16% |
| 1943 | 93 | -31% |
| 1944 | 58 | -38% |
| 1945 | 170 | 193% |
| 1946 | 345 | 103% |
| 1947 | 323 | -6% |
| 1948 | 344 | 7% |
| 1949 | 278 | -19% |
| 1950 | 413 | 49% |
| 1951 | 254 | -38% |
| 1952 | 266 | 5% |
| 1953 | 276 | 4% |
| 1954 | 346 | 25% |
| 1955 | 490 | 42% |
| 1956 | 404 | -18% |
| 1957 | 494 | 22% |
| 1958 | 471 | -5% |
| 1959 | 557 | 18% |
| 1960 | 583 | 5% |
| 1961 | 394 | -32% |
| 1962 | 585 | 48% |
| 1963 | 535 | -9% |
| 1964 | 460 | -14% |
| 1965 | 563 | 22% |
| 1966 | 608 | 8% |
| 1967 | 729 | 20% |
| 1968 | 761 | 4% |
| 1969 | 743 | -2% |
| 1970 | 629 | -15% |
| 1971 | 341 | -46% |
| 1972 | 325 | -5% |
| 1973 | 319 | -2% |
| 1974 | 404 | 27% |
| 1975 | 489 | 21% |
| 1976 | 402 | -18% |
| 1977 | 629 | 56% |
| 1978 | 768 | 22% |
| 1979 | 966 | 26% |
| 1980 | 872 | -10% |
| 1981 | 510 | -42% |
| 1982 | 408 | -20% |
| 1983 | 462 | 13% |
| 1984 | 495 | 7% |
| 1985 | 655 | 32% |
| 1986 | 682 | 4% |
| 1987 | 645 | -5% |
| 1988 | 636 | -1% |
| 1989 | 631 | -1% |
| 1990 | 592 | -6% |
| 1991 | 389 | -34% |
| 1992 | 332 | -15% |
| 1993 | 251 | -24% |
| 1994 | 270 | 8% |
| 1995 | 317 | 17% |
| 1996 | 343 | 8% |
| 1997 | 309 | -10% |
| 1998 | 381 | 23% |
| 1999 | 481 | 26% |
| 2000 | 553 | 15% |
| 2001 | 449 | -19% |
| 2002 | 377 | -16% |
| 2003 | 338 | -10% |
| 2004 | 330 | -2% |
| 2005 | 416 | 26% |
| 2006 | 371 | -11% |
| 2007 | 463 | 25% |
| 2008 | 440 | -5% |
| 2009 | 294 | -33% |
| 2010 | 216 | -27% |
| 2011 | 148 | -31% |
| 2012 | 191 | 29% |
| 2013 | 183 | -4% |
| 2014 | 321 | 75% |
| 2015 | 299 | -7% |
| 2016 | 335 | 12% |
| 2017 | 341 | 2% |
| 2018 | 313 | -8% |
| 2019 | 318 | 2% |
| 2020 | 219 | -31% |
| 2021 | 189 | -14% |
| 2022 | 8 | -96% |
Still nothing downtown. Finally after adding in commercial buildings to 1910, I see some things downtown. There is a separate file for apartments that I may try adding in later.
Old houses end up being where you would expect them to be. Queen Anne. Capital Hill. Ballard. There are also a smattering of other places.
Maybe apartm
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