Document 55: Excerpts from Asahel Curtis's Diary
Asahel Curtis Papers, Manuscripts and University Archives, University of Washington Libraries.
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Seemingly every degree of the social scale has its representative. Every possible kind of garb is to be seen....Those who are elbowing one another represent every degree...from the richest claim holder to the poor unfortunate whose condition will compel him to go out. The look of abstraction and gloom on many a face is heartrending. The probably cause is the same in many cases. A mortgaged home or a farm or business that has passed into other hands that the great Eldorado could be reached. These fair hills far away between which run streams whose beds were pebbles of gold have faded. Weeks and months of hard work coupled with in many cases poor food have left the system weak....