Bubonic plague kills a Seattle resident on October 19, 1907.

See Additional Media
On October 19, 1907, Seattle resident Leong Sheng dies of Bubonic plague. There are two other plague deaths during 1907. Thousands of rats living on ships have carried the bubonic plague from Asia to San Francisco to Seattle.

Seattleites held a public meeting and urged the Governor to petition the U.S. Public Health Service to take charge of the outbreak. The Public Health Service sent officers to Seattle. They inspected for plague 15,475 trapped rats, and policed sanitation, mainly in the 218 blocks along and behind the city's waterfront.

In November 1907, Seattle passed two ordinances to improve sanitary conditions and thus combat the plague. Ordinance #17391 was one of the first rat proofing ordinances enacted anywhere in the United States.

Sources: Roy Steven Nakashima, "The Public Health Significance of Domestic Rats in Seattle, Washington" (Masters thesis, University of Washington, 1980), 12-15.
Related Topics
Curiosities Health
Licensing: This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons license that encourages reproduction with attribution. Credit should be given to both HistoryLink.org and to the author, and sources must be included with any reproduction. Click the icon for more info. Please note that this Creative Commons license applies to text only, and not to images. For more information regarding individual photos or images, please contact the source noted in the image credit.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Major Support for HistoryLink.org Provided By: The State of Washington | Patsy Bullitt Collins | Paul G. Allen Family Foundation | Museum Of History & Industry | 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax Revenue) | City of Seattle | City of Bellevue | City of Tacoma | King County | The Peach Foundation | Microsoft Corporation, Other Public and Private Sponsors and Visitors Like You