Seattle's Coal Age — John M. Goodfellow

Coal’s use as energy is a fundamental technology that changed the world. Coal was very powerful compared to other energy technologies in the 19th century such as firewood and the water wheel and really set the Industrial Revolution into effect, changing the planet into the modern world we see today.

In the 18th century England the tree population was depleted for use as firewood, and charcoal in foundries to smelt iron ore. This led to the production of machinery and metalwork which precipitated more use of coal. A self-reinforcing system was born. Coal is an incredibly potent energy source allowing its influence to spread across the world as a fundamental energy technology.

Seattle was tied to the coal revolution and was once a coal town. It mined coal for San Francisco and also sold it throughout the Pacific. Although we don’t really think about a Coal Age in Seattle, there was one, and it played a huge role, considering how much of the Industrial Revolution was powered by coal. The Coal Age began around 1812 in England, 1830 in the United States, and 1849 in Seattle; bringing with it the revolution of steamboats, trains, and other machinery as well as heating plants.

In 1849, coal is first mined and becomes one of the main reasons for Seattle’s 1851 founding and development. Because of the plentifulness of coal mines in the Seattle area, the city became a very attractive location for shipping, rail, and machinery which propelled the city into the future. San Francisco had minimal coal resources, so in 1870 when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads connected with the Golden Spike moment in Utah, the coasts were joined for the first time. This connection brought in huge contracts for coal, which brought capital, engineers, and machinists to Seattle.

The money coming into the city was not just disappearing when it arrived, it led to an economic boom in Seattle, building up the downtown, homes, and infrastructure throughout the city which brought Capital, Engineers, and Workers. Even the catastrophic fire of 1889 couldn’t stop the growth, as the money coming into the city and people’s love for their town helped build it back better than before, and the coal mines were untouched. Seattle housed about 20,000 people before the fire, but with the importance of the city at the time and the money in and around it, the city population shot up to over 40,000 people four years after the fire. One thing that did look different in Seattle’s downtown after the fires was that they built everything back with brick instead of wood. It stimulated the brick-making industry, based in South East Seattle, which of course were fired using local coal.

Seattle’s Connection of Coal and Shipping created an opportunity for the city to be a viable timber source for California and a general goods supplier to Alaska, and then with the train coming over the pass in 1887, allowed the city to grow even faster than it would have from the coal industry alone. This golden age of coal in Seattle peaked between 1900 to 1920, when petroleum entered the fray as a viable fuel source. Petroleum was easier to use and transport, it also had a higher BTU per pound than coal, making it a more efficient energy source. Originally petroleum was used as a replacement for coal in steam engines, but with the invention of gasoline and diesel engines, it could be used for so many more things than originally envisioned. The engines became smaller & lighter, while the vehicles they powered became larger & heavier. This led to revolutionary advances such as the airplane.

Fast-forwarding to the present day, although coal may not be a dominant energy source, it is still here and widely used. Despite our decline in overall dependence on coal the quantity of coal being consumed in the United States is still the same as it was during the peak of the Coal Age. The coal that comes to the local Centralia Power Plants now comes from Wyoming and Montana and not its neighboring strip mine.

Today, coal is not used as a direct power source, it’s used to generate electricity. This is happening worldwide, including in Washington State. Many people today push to end coal usage due to its impact on Climate Change, but Coal is a cheap resource to generate electricity and can be inexpensively extracted in the Developing World. Renewables need to meet that cost to be adopted Globally.

Seattle doesn’t want to acknowledge its coal past. We want to think of ourselves as a city of the future, a clean energy city, and for us, it’s hard to do that when our past is tied to such a booming coal industry.

As I thought about it, I realized that Seattle’s hosting of the World’s Fair (Century 21) in 1961 was really the turning point where Seattle moved beyond our coal town past. The 1961 Fair had focused on electricity and a cleaner future causing Seattle to acknowledge that the Coal Age was dead. The Era had passed and people in the Northwest repurposed themselves away from coal.

Seattle’s acknowledgment of its Coal History contextualizes the future. We passed through a coal age as we are currently passing through a petroleum age. Change happens. The fact that Seattle did not just pop up as a futuristic and clean city adds a beautiful complexity to its story.

In my book, I explain that the transfer of energy production from wood to coal, to gas is a great example of looking at the whole idea of energy instead of just one piece of it and will help us transfer to a new energy source in the future. When people were in the middle of the Coal Age, they thought it would never end.

The complexities of the world, and all of the technologies that we have, and their evolution, gives me a sense of humbleness and self-awareness.