On August 31, 1909, the Dearborn Street regrade begins in Seattle. This regrade removes a steep hill between downtown and the Rainier Valley that had been a barrier to the development of the south end of the city. The hill, which stretches east along Dearborn Street from 8th Avenue S to 13th Avenue S, is washed away with high-pressure water hoses and its dirt channeled east to build up lowlands along Rainier Avenue S between Dearborn and Atlantic streets. The job also includes the construction of a steel bridge over Dearborn Street on 12th Street S. It is the city's third-largest regrade project, exceeded only by the series of five Denny Hill regrades and the Jackson Street regrade. The work is scheduled to be completed within 18 months, but landsides and litigation plague the project and it will take more than three years to complete.
An Unwelcome Obstacle
In the early twentieth century, the Dearborn Street hill and its neighbor to the north, the Jackson Street hill, were part of a ridge that connected First Hill and Beacon Hill, but they were an unwelcome obstacle between downtown and the rapidly growing Rainier Valley to the southeast. Though smaller than the Jackson Street hill, the Dearborn Street hill was in places taller, rising at one point more than 110 feet above the nearby lowlands, and had an especially steep incline of 19 percent at Dearborn Street and 12th Avenue S. And the hills weren't just difficult to climb. It cost more to ship goods up them. It was still the era of horse and wagon, and steeper hills required more horsepower for heavier loads, increasing costs as much as five times.
The success of the initial Denny Hill regrades and other, smaller regrades during the early 1900s helped provide the city of Seattle with the impetus it needed to regrade both the Jackson and Dearborn Street hills. The Dearborn Street regrade was considered secondary to the Jackson Street regrade, perhaps because the Jackson Street regrade was larger. Jackson Street was regraded first (between 1907 and 1910). This turned out to be beneficial for the Dearborn Street regrade, because the first ordinance that authorized the work called for a more aggressive project. Problems encountered and lessons learned during the Jackson Street regrade resulted in the Dearborn Street project being scaled back in a second ordinance, which passed the Seattle City Council in May 1909.
The regrade covered Dearborn Street from Seattle Boulevard (now Airport Way S) to Rainier Avenue S, as well as adjacent land that stretched for a few blocks south of Dearborn along 9th and 10th Avenue S. Fill, using dirt washed away from the hill, was to be added along Rainier Avenue S and just to its west, stretching south from Jackson to Atlantic streets. The project also included the construction of a steel bridge on 12th Avenue S over the newly graded Dearborn Street, but there was some initial pushback from Beacon Hill residents, who argued that cutting away the hill at Dearborn Street would isolate it from downtown. Some, including City Engineer Reginald Thomson (1856-1949), advocated a tunnel through the hill along 12th Street S instead, but the parties eventually agreed on a bridge.
Under Construction
Work on the Dearborn Street regrade began on August 31, 1909. Lewis & Wiley, the same company that handled the Jackson Street regrade, was awarded the contract at a price of $352,453.60, equivalent to more than $12.5 million in 2025. As was done in the Jackson Street regrade, the hill was washed away by high-pressure water hoses, which was possible because it was primarily compact dirt. Work was carried out in three eight-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, six days a week excepting Sundays. The contract called for the job to be completed in March 1911, but the project got off to a slow start. Because of a court-ordered injunction, Lewis & Wiley was unable to begin work on the heart of the project along Dearborn Street until early 1910, though the contractors were able to work other parts of the job south of Dearborn. Work was further interrupted during 1910 by more legal battles and landslides, including a large slide near 10th Avenue S and Dearborn Street in April which took several (fortunately empty) houses down with it.
By September, work was 71 percent complete. However, the following month Thomson authorized a six-month work stoppage on the project, publicly reasoning that it would be easier and cheaper to resume work in the spring. A storm of protest and criticism followed, but it was hardly the last time that aggrieved property owners in the regraded area had reason to complain. Slides continued to bedevil the work, and episodic court orders which forced a pause in the job were a problem. Residents who were fortunate enough to remain in their homes during the pendency of the project found themselves living in a muddy construction zone, and in addition, there was considerable fear because of the numerous landslides.
Work on the regrade continued through the spring and summer of 1911, but at a slower pace than anticipated. By the late summer of 1911, preparations were finally underway for the steel bridge on 12th Avenue S over Dearborn Street. Construction of the 420-foot-long, 110-foot-tall span began that autumn, and it opened to traffic on January 15, 1912. A temporary timber trestle was built over the deck so that its elevation would align with the roadway, but a slide five years later destroyed the southern timber approach and shifted the bridge about 30 inches north. Six concrete approach spans replaced the original timber piles in 1924, and a concrete floor was built on the bridge that year. Formerly named the 12th Avenue South Bridge (but also sometimes called the Dearborn Street Bridge) the structure was renamed the Jose Rizal Bridge in 1974 in honor of Jose Rizal (1861-1896), a nineteenth-century Filipino hero.
Finis
The Board of Public Works issued a certificate of completion for the project on October 4, 1912, though some nominal street work continued for a brief time afterward. Approximately 1.6 million yards of dirt were excavated and another 1.3 million yards of dirt filled, for a total of 2.9 million cubic yards of dirt moved in the Dearborn Street regrade. It was the third-largest regrade project in Seattle's history, and it dramatically changed the land. The cut at 12th Avenue S and Dearborn Street alone measured 112 feet, and the grade was reduced from a high of 19 percent to a maximum of 3 percent along Dearborn Street, while Rainier Avenue S was raised as much as 14 feet in places.
The regrade remained in the news in 1913. By that summer, disgruntled property owners had filed nearly half a million dollars in claims against the city (more than $16 million in 2025 dollars) for damages resulting from the slides. Even Thomson was disappointed with the headaches and legal actions which followed, and later wrote, "the greater portion of [the regrade's] length proved an injury to the immediately abutting property rather than a benefit" (Williams, p. 162). The claims were eventually resolved, and the regraded area developed primarily into what is now known as the North Beacon Hill neighborhood, though its northern and western end is considered part of the Chinatown-International District.
