![]() Because timber work is seasonal - just like the Northwest's other main industry, fishing - some of those lumbering loggers and salty sailors quite naturally (in order to preserve their financial savings) took to building themselves floating shacks from scrap boards, and living rent- or mortgage-free lifestyles during their off seasons. ![]() ![]() Seattle was founded in 1852-1853 as a seaport town whose first industry was logging - an enterprise that sometimes towed floating bunkhouses and cookhouses up rivers for crews' use. Over time, several colonies were effectively decimated through zoning wars, shoreline-redevelopment schemes, and freeway-construction projects, but the shrunken-but-still-thriving colony (of about 480 units) on Lake Union - with its increasingly luxurious structures, one of which served as a key setting in the 1993 Hollywood blockbuster, Sleepless In Seattle - attests to the continuing desirability of this unusual lifestyle. City Hall responded to the landlubbers' concerns about property values and views - not to mention underlying outrage over moral turpitude - with decades of land-use battles, health department inquiries, and other legalistic crusades against the floating homes. Scandalized uplanders - especially those in middle-class neighborhoods who literally and figuratively "looked down" on the waterborne communities - viewed them as squalid, lawless nests of anarchic outcasts, rowdy riff-raff, and the flotsam of society. Because of the low-cost living, the colonies also attracted bohemians, political radicals, and a certain share of criminals. Others - along the Elliott Bay waterfront, the Duwamish River, Harbor Island, Salmon Bay, Lake Union, Portage Bay, and Union Bay - were mainly inhabited by workers struggling to stay financially afloat. Some of these communities - especially those off the Madison Park and Leschi neighborhoods on Lake Washington - were formed by the well-to-do who enjoyed summering aboard their fancy abodes. Although Seattleites didn't invent houseboats, the young town saw early colonies of them arise at disparate locations along its numerous bays, lakes, and rivers. For more than 100 years Seattle has famously been host to remarkable clusters of floating homes that have helped define the town's social culture and maintain its reputation as a place where unconventional modes of living are enjoyed.
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