Idaho Wreckage Maritime Monument - Seattle, WA
N 47° 36.055 W 122° 20.177
10T E 549891 N 5272159
This anchor and historical marker lie inside the historic Public Boat Landing Pergola along Alaskan Way on the waterfront in downtown Seattle, WA.
Waymark Code: WMG5ZQ
Location: Washington, United States
Date Posted: 01/17/2013
Views: 1
Visitors walking along Alaskan Way, part of the Seattle waterfront, might notice an anchor and maritime monument located inside a very historic pergola that was once used as a public boat landing for passengers ferrying in and around Puget Sound. This particular monument has a metal plaque with an inscription that says the following:
HISTORICAL POINT OF INTEREST
BENEATH YOUR FEET LIES THE WRECKAGE OF THE PIONEER SIDEWHEEL STEAMER "IDAHO", WHICH SERVED FROM 1900 UNTIL 1909 AS DR. ALEXANDER DE SOTO'S FAMOUS WAYSIDE MISSION HOSPITAL. HERE DR. DE SOTO MINISTERED TO THE NEEDS OF SEAFARERS AND THE DESTITUTE, DONATING HIS TIME AND FUNDS TO THEIR CARE.
ERECTED NATIONAL MARITIME DAY 1960
In reading more about Dr. De Soto's ship-turned-hospital, I discovered a very nice article that highlights his 'Wayside Mission' and includes some wonderful historical pictures (including the one above):
The Idaho was probably one of the last ships to be buried beneath Seattle’s waterfront. The irony of this sidewheeler’s last days was sensational enough to be popularly told and retold. As a 1903 article in the weekly Commonwealth put it, the Idaho’s career was “a happy instance of compensation” in which an “opium-smuggling ship became an ark of refuge for opium victims.” ... Built to work on the Columbia River out of The Dalles, the Idaho was soon successfully taken over that river’s treacherous cascades and then, in 1882, was sent on to Puget Sound. Here its shadier labors included smuggling illegal aliens and opium. But in 1899 the ship was redeemed by a Spanish Jesuit turned surgeon ... Dr. Alexander de Soto bought the steamer with money made from practicing surgery on the well-to-do and converted it into a hospital for the down-and-out. With the ship set above high tide on pilings at the foot of Jackson Street, De Soto and his wards abandoned their first hospital, a borrowed bam where he not only cared for but also lived with his indigent patients. The good works of De Soto’s Wayside Mission were so in demand that his example eventually spurred the city itself to provide health care for the indigent. With the 1909 completion of the new Public Safety ·Building (now the 400 Yesler Building); Seattle opened its own clinic ... Two years earlier, in 1907, the Wayside Mission was forced from its land-bound sidewheeler and moved to a temporary site at Second and Republican, now the part of the Seattle Center taken by the Bagley Write Repertory Theatre. Soon after, the redeemed Idaho was laid to rest beneath fill near the foot of Jackson Street.
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The Seattle Parks and Recreation website that has a page devoted to this area's history and can be read about in more detail.
***NOTE*** This monument as well as others along this stretch of waterfront along Alaskan Way have had access to them temporarily blocked by fencing due to construction projects. I had to jump a fence to get access to this monument and others on this stretch of walkway. I don't know when construction will end but I wanted you to know this in the event you try to visit these monuments. I encourage visitors to this area to let me know when the fencing comes down and I'll remove this disclaimer. Thanks