volume one IN THE D U D L E Y C L A R K - Ohio Vine Tours

Thus, the origin of Rainier Beer.
Germans and Belgians, arriving in droves, constituted the
main population of the work force.
Still, the community had no name. This oversight was finally
rectified when, in 1890, a developer by the name of Julius Horton
bought some of the original Collins homestead and named it
after his son, George, who had just graduated medical school.
Meanwhile, Seattle needed a railroad. How else was it to
burgeon and grow? So, on the first day of May, 1874, three
hundred residents started to build one. Called the Seattle &
Walla Wall Railroad, its terminus was located in Georgetown.
They envisioned crossing the Cascades with their line, and
agreed to contribute one day’s labor a week until the project was
completed. But they were trumped the following year when the
Renton and Talbot Coal Mines built their own line between
Seattle and Tacoma, thereby connecting Seattle to the Northern
Pacific RR.
Thus did Georgetown become a marshalling yard for
railroaders.
By the time electric streetcars reached Georgetown in 1893,
brewing and railroading had become Georgetown’s métier.
At the beginning of the last century, Georgetown had seven
saloons, five grocery stores, and four churches—alcohol proving
once again to be more important than food or God.
Certain influential citizens of Seattle—that big, boiling-over
melting pot to the north—greatly desired to annex Georgetown,
and make it a de facto neighborhood, rather than merely one per
se. But Georgetownians recognized that Seattle’s temperance
ordinances would force them to close all their bars and, as a
result, in 1904, they managed to thwart annexation to become
an incorporated entity unto themselves.
Eventually, a race track was built, and the number of saloons
exceeded twenty-five and were operated twenty-four hours a day
with rooms to rent by the hour or the day.
Georgetown had evolved into a red light district.
Seattle—even then politically correct—embarked upon
a campaign to quash Georgetown’s sinful pride. The result
ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY