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Published in The Seattle Times online on Jan. 15, 2026
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Jan. 18, 2026

Past is present: Immersion in the Depression’s day-to-day ordeal

By Clay Eals

When people picture the Great Depression in Seattle, one scene usually comes to mind. It’s depicted in in our “Then” shot looking north along the waterfront to downtown.

Even in bright sunlight, it’s a dark landscape. While smoky piers bespeak activity, the foreground paints a dispiriting amalgam of scattered, makeshift dwellings. This “town that forgot the straight line,” as dubbed by American Architect magazine in 1933, appears devoid of people. But contrary evidence abounds, including light-colored clothes flapping in the wind.

Overseen by the Seattle Tower (1929, center) and Smith Tower (1914, right), this formerly vacant acreage had been the site of World War I concrete machinery pits before it became known as Hooverville, a jab at Herbert Hoover, the new president when the stock market crashed in 1929, triggering the Depression.

The landscape portrait was taken early in Hooverville’s nine-year existence. What many don’t realize — and what may resonate in today’s homelessness debate — is that the city declared the Hooverville huts hazardous and twice used kerosene to burn them down before letting the 600 inhabitants, nearly all men, rebuild with a promise to keep order. The pact lasted until 1940, when the site was cleared for use by U.S armed forces as the country again mobilized for war.

Those are among countless details in the narrative carved by former Seattle Times editorial board member Bruce Ramsey in his book “Seattle in the Great Depression” (2025, WSU Press). Therein, the retired, longtime regional business reporter, a child of Depression parents, offers two noteworthy approaches to the topic.

First, Ramsey mines material straight from the city’s three daily newspapers and other period publications, including a master’s thesis by a University of Washington student who lived in Hooverville. Second, unusual for history books, Ramsey casts his tale entirely in the present tense.

The result is that, in 344 pages and with 120 photos, readers can experience how Seattle lived through the nationwide economic and social crisis day by grueling day. As Ramsey puts it, “Newspaper stories are first impressions, fresh takes. Because I wasn’t there, I want to listen to the people who were.”

Today, the Hooverville site is near the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 46, eerily empty since the 2017 collapse of cargo giant Hanjin Shipping Co. The governing Northwest Seaport Alliance is seeking a replacement.

Meanwhile, Greg Nickels, tagged with his own Nickelsville jab for homeless villages arising late in his 2001-2009 Seattle mayoral term, argues in a recent Facebook post that the land should “come back in the heart of the city” as a vibrant urban center like Granville Island in Vancouver, B.C.

Whatever its future, the area’s haunting past persists in perspectives of the present.

WEB EXTRAS

Big thanks to Ensign Santiago Vazquez and Petty Officers Daylan Garlic and William Kirk of the U.S. Coast Guard for photo access to their building and especially Bruce and Anne Ramsey for their invaluable help with this installment!

To see Clay Eals‘ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos while hearing this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

Below, you will find a 1982 “Now & Then” column on Hooverville, 8 additional photos and 2 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com, Washington Digital Newspapers and other sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.