In 1876 Belltown School was built at the northwest corner of Third Avenue and Vine Street in what was called alternately Belltown and North Seattle. Although the site had been subdivided for lots and streets, they were barely visible among the recently clear-cut rubble of Denny Hill. Fewer than 2,000 lived in Seattle then. Eight years later when the school was abandoned for a much larger one nearby, the city's population had multiplied more than 10 times. Both views look north across Vine Street from the alley between Third and Second avenues.

Belltown School was built during a bit of a boom in 1876. Austin Bell, namesake for it and the neighborhood, sold the corner property to the school district for $200, and for another $2,642 a local contractor named M. Keezer put up this two-story structure.

At Third and Vine, the new schoolhouse was only eight blocks north of North School, on Pine near Third. The psychological distance, however, was greater, for Denny Hill then still stood between them.

By 1882 all of Seattle's public schools were overflowing. At a January mass meeting in Yesler's Hall, "10 gentlemen and five ladies" were appointed to visit and describe the schools. At North School, teacher Miss Sandersen declared that for her 40 seats she had 74 students, and that if any more enrolled she would "commence hanging the little fellows on the hooks on the walls of the room." The air at North School was so stale that the newspaper reporter who tagged along noted that more than one of the visitors left with a headache.

The committee concluded that if changes were not made, the city's schools would soon become a "disgrace and a stench in the nostrils of all public-spirited citizens." The following year the 12-room Central School was opened at Sixth and Madison, and in 1884, after another multiroom school was built nearby at Fifth and Battery, Belltown School was closed.

Paul Dorpat's two-hour videotape on Seattle's early history, "Seattle Chronicle," is $29.95 from Tartu Publications, P.O. Box 85208, Seattle, WA 98145.