The Belltown Boys

“When you’re a Jet

You’re a Jet all the way

From your first cigarette

To your last dying day.”

 Conceived in the late ‘40’s “West Side Story” told of conflict between racial groups living in segregated neighborhoods of New York City, and like the Jets and the Sharks, the youth of Belltown and Seattle were at odds based on geographical separation. 

After William Bell’s claim grew to become “Belltown” it was its own entity packed up tight against Denny Hill.  Denny Hill, being enough of a topographic feature as to complicate easy northern expansion from Seattle’s core, fostered a sense of community identity and separation.  Two schools, North School and Denny School, were only ½ mile apart but on opposite sides of the hill.  Word has it that they didn’t get along. 

In her book, “When Seattle Was a Village” Sofie Frye Bass tells us of this conflict between the Belltown Gang and the Mill Street Gang who would meet to fight on the sawdust near Yesler’s Mill after the Belltown Boys rowed down to the Mill Street rendezvous.  Sheriff Lewis Wyckoff would show up to break up the fights, put the Belltown Boys back in their rowboats and send them back north beyond The Hill.