Mark the calendar, ye Vintage Seattle readers! The 10th Annual Bungalow Fair is coming up the last weekend of this month (the 29th and 30th). This is your chance to learn more about arts and crafts era architecture as well as other aspects of the movement (like furniture, ceramics, lighting, etc). It’s put on by Historic Seattle and is their most popular yearly event, so be sure to grab a ticket at just 10 bucks. With that said, let’s take a look at an old Craftsman bungalow floorplan from 1910. Click on the image for a larger view. Someday I’ll realize my dream of buying an old Craftsman and fixing it up. Someday.

Arts and crafts era Craftsman home floorplan designed by V.W. Voorhees circa 1910. Just $1700 in projected construction costs. Image courtesy Special Collections, University Archives, University of Washington, Seattle.

Remember back in June when I was snooping around that old abandoned house in my neighborhood and musing about Elvis? Well, in that house I also uncovered this rather odd artifact: an old crumpled piece of paper trumpeting a hovercraft demonstration at the British Pavilion at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. Now I know this may only interest die-hard hovercraft aficionados such as Shipley and myself, but hovercrafts are really just too awesome to pass up. Here’s a clipping and the scanned paper. Most farmers I know have not yet hopped onto the hovercraft bandwagon… just yet. Click on the thumbnail for a larger view.

Hovercraft On Show At Seattle. British Pavilion. Seattle World’s Fair. Seattle 9, Washington.

What if the Kingdome never existed? I was recently routing through some old city archives and found a few rather interesting documents. Being a big Seattle Mariners fan, these seem even more interesting. It’s a 1963 proposal from the Cheney Construction Company (and associates) to the Central Association (who is now the Downtown Seattle Association) regarding a new 70,000 seat stadium to literally be built in Puget Sound. The stadium was to have a forward thinking retractable roof. Remember, this wasn’t realized in Seattle until 1999 with Safeco Field. For those keeping score at home, this was also 13 years before the Kingdome was built. Check out the old propsal documents, schematic, map, and pencil sketch. Click on the images for a larger view:

Page one of the proposal from Cheney Construction Company for the stadium to be located on Seattle’s central waterfront. This pages lists 75,000 seats while the overhead schematic shows 70,000.	Page two of the proposal discussing cost and financing. Interestingly, the cost analysis seems to be coming *after* the proposal, nice! But a budget of $15 million is given as a, um, ballpark.
Overhead schematic showing baseball diamond and football field areas as well as seating levels.	Map showing the location of the proposed stadium in relation to Seattle Center. The planners also wanted to connect the monorail to this facility.
Pencil sketch of the stadium. Imagine getting directly to a Mariners game by boat! Seattle Center and the Needle can be seen in the background.

Yes, the last post was a bit of a downer so let’s jump into something a little more upbeat, shall we? Historic Seattle is honoring the 100th anniversary of the opening of the House of the Good Shepherd on Sunday, July 22 1:30 til 3:30 pm. The building is a City of Seattle landmark and is also on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built in 1907 by noted Seattle architects C. Alfred Breitung and Theobald Buchinger (one half of this team was responsible for one of my very favorite Seattle buildings, The Triangle Hotel next to the stadiums). The event will include period music, historical information, costumed guests, ice cream, and Mayor Nickels. That’s right, ice cream and Nickels! What a combination! Honestly though, this sounds like it will be an interesting event. While we are talking about historic preservation (and when are we not here?), I found this rather funny article from the Stranger about some pretty enterprising residents going up against a developer threatening to tear down one certain house. Good stuff. And let’s end this post with an image of the House of the Good Shepherd. As always, click on the image for a larger view.

House of the Good Shepherd, built in 1907 as a home for “orphaned and wayward girls.” Photograph courtesy Special Collections, University Archives, University of Washington, Seattle.

Now this first item may be a little too hardcore for most, but I actually find it pretty cool. I was recently snooping around an old abandoned house near my neighborhood and discovered a vintage 1962 Century 21 Exposition (also known as the World’s Fair) piece of blank stationary. It’s a little dirty and ripped, but this paper has been waiting to be written on for 45 years. Neat. And did you know that Elvis Presley filmed his 1963 film It Happened At The World’s Fair in Seattle. The Monorail, Seattle Center, and the Space Needle are backdrops in the movie and a young Kurt Russel even appears (kicking Elvis). I’m a bit of a Presley fanatic and once owned the soundtrack and all this nostalgia is making me want to find a copy again (the record has some of his weakest songs, as do most of his 60′s soundtracks, yet One Broken Heart For Sale isn’t bad at all). Come on though, who doesn’t love Elvis? Shipley, back me up here.

1962 Seattle World’s Fair stationary.

Italian version of It Happened At The World’s Fair starring Elvis Presley. The tagline for the movie read “Swinging higher than the space needle with the gals and the songs at the famous Worlds Fair!”

Coming up this Saturday, May 12th is a free (everyone loves free stuff, right?) lecture on the History of Seattle Architecture put on by the Seattle Architecture Foundation. The specific topic will be Architecture and Urbanism from 1935 to the present. It’ll happen beginning at 1pm through 3pm in the Microsoft Auditorium of the Seattle Central Library. This is the 2nd lecture in a series and includes post-World War II suburban development, the impact of the automobile, growing interest in historic preservation, and urban design. So mark your calendars! I know I’ll be there, you’re coming right? Hey, hey, don’t let the word “lecture” scare you off, I’m sure we’ll learn something worthwhile. Speaking of the impact of automobiles, check out this image of the Battery Street Subway (connecting the Viaduct to Aurora Ave N.) carbon monoxide tests from 1954.

Brave souls take part in a carbon monoxide test inside the Battery Street Subway, July 16, 1954. Photograph courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives.

You’ve somehow stumbled across my new blog, VintageSeattle.org. This is a blog looking at Seattle’s past through high-res images: vintage photographs, old postcards, newspaper clippings, historic buildings, forgotten advertisements, etc. My aim is to post full resolution pieces so that you can scrutinize, appreciate, and learn from this material. It’s that simple. Now that’s Vintage! My name is Jess Cliffe, I’m a software designer and artist by day and history nerd by night. There’s more information about the site and myself on the about page. If you are interested in any of this or know someone else who is, please tell others about the site. The only real way of advertising this blog’s existence is via word of mouth. There’s also a faq page if you have any questions. And as always, feel free to e-mail me or submit something. Thanks for coming.