In 1892, Seaborn J. Collins wins election as wreckmaster, becoming the first African American elected to office in King County. A wreckmaster is responsible for the removal and disposal of all timber on the waterfront.
A native of Georgia who came to Seattle in 1885, Collins was nominated by the Republican Party, which was the party of Lincoln that many African Americans supported. He was a carpenter and a machinist, and the first charter member of the African American Republican Club.
Sources:
Esther Hall Mumford. Seattle's Black Victorians 1852-1901 (Seattle: Ananse Press, 1980), 151; Quintard Taylor The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle's Central District from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994), 20, 141.
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