Waterfront, Seattle Washington, Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection, between 1900 and 1910. Image courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Seattle Waterfront 190x
January 10th, 2011 @ 12:03 am by Cliffe | Sorted Photo Exposure |
Shots of the Seattle waterfront from Puget Sound are a time honored tradition around here. This one comes to us from the Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection between 1900 and 1910. Click for higher res.
Waterfront, Seattle Washington, Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection, between 1900 and 1910. Image courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Waterfront, Seattle Washington, Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection, between 1900 and 1910. Image courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
I would date this between mid 1904 to early 1905. The Schwabacher Warehouse (1905) has not yet been built on the far right while the 1904 Pacific Coast Co. Building (Seen just to the left of the pier of the same [Pier B]) looks completed. You might be able to approximate that further.
What is that big building on top of the hill?
That’s ye olde city hall on top of the hill, I think. That or the courthouse, I always mix ‘em up. The white buildings just above the stern of the ship at Pier A show the legend Mutual Life Ins. Co., and you can still see that legend when you walk down Western Avenue to Yesler past the old steam plant (whose stack is visible here at far left. I see the City Light building up on the hill, a structure I never even heard of until just yesterday when a photo of it showed up on Paul Dorpat’s website (http://pauldorpat.com/?p=11882). How did I miss that building for all these years?
Looks like it was yet another casualty of building a fat freeway right through our city.
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerzombie/4083627984/)
The big building on the hill is the original King County Courthouse, which was located approximately where Harborview Medical Center is now.
What’s that brick building to the left of the courthouse with what looks like a dome on it?
What a great photo!! I’m trying to get my bearings and wondering what are the main/wide streets on the far left and the far right?
Booboo, Without looking at a Map I can tell you that on the far right is Jackson Street while on the left might be Spring Street (?)
Love it! Thanks! Have you seen this rendering of the Seattle waterfront skyline progression for the last half century? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_v3eOhYbqU
Far left would have to be Columbia, m’thinks, judging by the fact that its trajectory down the hill would make it the next street north of the steam plant stack. In a stretch — accounting for wind chill factor and illusions caused by focal length — I might give you Marion, but no way Madison or Spring. Keep in mind (and eye) that the big white building to the right of the stack is the Alaska building on Cherry.
Colin, the domed building on 7th and Jefferson appears to have been the Snoqualmie Power Company building, at least that’s what it is called on a map of 1903.
I see the tower of King St. RR station poking up, when was it built, 1906?
There’s also a tall spire in the fuzz at the very right edge. Is that Holy Names in its first location?
My mistake, it’s NOT King St. station tower, too far north! It looks like Madison St. cable car going up the hill on the right of the picture…..
OK, another error on my part; the street to the right must be Jackson, the camera lens makes hills look bigger. The City Light building (above pier B)is on Yesler way.
The tower you’re looking at is on the Touraine Hotel at Occidental and Main. It was the tallest building in the pioneer square district south of Yesler until the earhtquake in ’49 knocked it down. If the date from my first post was correct (late 1904-early 1905), King Street Station’s tower hasn’t been built yet but it’s probably under construction.
OK, case closed, Moving On!
-Looks like it was yet another casualty of building a fat freeway right through our city.-