Vintage Seattle contributor Allen wins again with this old photograph he dug up in a pile of pictu res
at a local bookshop.
You can help him out by providing more clues
over at his flickr page. Thanks Allen! Click for higher res.
Seattle Lake Shore and Eastern Railway c.1887-1889. Seattle waterfront. Looking east up Columbia Ave.
The Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern only operated between 1885 and 1896.
Seattle’s Burke Gilman Trail replaced part of the original tracks of this railroad.
Vintage print, but does not date to the time of the original pho
tograph. Photo courtesy Allen.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/crackdog/3314566435/
Nice find again Allen! (*suppresses jealous rage*). It’s almost impossible to find any identifiable pre-fire Seattle pics on the open market! I made a comment on the flickr page (don’t ask about the user name..) and this is definitely 1887 judging by the construction of the Toklas-Singerman Building on the right.
Also of merit is the good view we get of the front of the Kenney Block at center, built about 1886. This is the best view I’ve ever found of that building!
I’ve always been curious about the house at top center of the picture.
Allen, I forgot my Flickr creds so I couldn’t comment over there, but the Central School, which is at the top left of center behind the church steeple, is incorrectly annotated there as the Territorial University. The University building was over a few streets (to the left) on University, and was closer. The building in this photo is up on Sixth and Marion. It was the original Central School, which burned and was replaced by one not made of wood.
Allen, I believe the house at top center is the original McNaught mansion. If memory serves, the McNaught’s also (I guess much later) had a large Victorian house between Madison and Spring on 4th, which was moved across Spring Street so that the library (the Carnegie one) could be built in that spot. It could be that this house is that house, but I don’t know. That would make it one of the most “mobile homes” Seattle ever knew!
Okay, I get it now. The house at the top of the hill in this photo is (I believe) that of Joseph and Virginia McNaught, who came to town around 1875 and built this house about 1881. The other McNaught house down the hill at Fourth and Spring was that of Joe’s brother James McNaught, who had come to Seattle earlier.
Thanks for all the info. I thought there was something different about the Territorial University building but I didn’t know what else it could be.
Does anyone know what the building on the far right on the horizon is?It appears to be a house.
There is also a building just below the Colman house with a bell tower. I’ve also found this on old pre-fire maps but haven’t figured out what it is. A schoolhouse maybe?
One old map I have (1884) says the belfried building between First and Second on Columbia is a firehouse.
The belfry is from Engine House #1. If anyone else has the book “Shaping Seattle Architecture”, there’s a picture of it on page 13.
I was looking at my 1889 map and I figure this was taken from a pier that extended out into the water on the right (out of frame)and then turned sideways allowing a person to get a view up Columbia from over the water.
I believe the train tracks in this image are now where Western avenue is located. The onramp to the viaduct runs directly overhead in the current location.
The fancy house on the far left is the Martin van Buren Stacy house. There is a picture of it in Caroline Swope’s Classic HOuses of Seattle. It stood until 1960.
@Matt the Journeyman
Didn’t the McNaught mansion, in the center of the photo, at the top of the hill, later become the Ross Shire Hotel at 6th and Marion?
http://www.vintageseattle.org/2010/02/22/ross-shire-hotel-1914/
I read in an 1889 NY Times article, that when the Toklas-Singerman building collapsed after the Great Seattle Fire, “about thirty people were near it, and many of them were crushed”. That was during the cleanup the next day or so after the fire.
Chris, actually no one died as a direct result of the fire. One man was crushed during the cleanup after a free standing brick wall fell on him. With the state of long distance communication at the time, the New York Times probably speculated half of that article just to fill space.
Chris, yes, I think that’s right. I actually saw that name on the parcel on a property map.
Train, waterfront, old Seattle buildings. This photo couldn’t get much better. Thank you for sharing!
I’ve got nothing to contribute, except that it looks just like the train garden I always dreamed of creating. I would love to stop by and check out the “pieces” in that firehouse too. I’d like to know if they were pulled by the fire “laddies” or by horse. Judging by the time period it could be either.
Here’s approximately the same view today:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/crackdog/5467697256/