Rob Ketcherside is co-founder of Capitol Hill Historical Society, https://capitolhillpast.com. He has a book, Lost Seattle, available at the library and the Elliott Bay Book Co.
To H. S. Gullixson, Esq in Seattle from “R. F.” in Yokohama, Japan. 1906.
Earlier this month, CHS reported that the Knights of Columbus, Seattle Council 676 is preparing to sell its 106-year-old masonry clubhouse at the corner of Harvard and Union. Part of that property was remembered in this classic CHS Re:Take from the archives inspired by a postcard historian Robert Ketcherside found documenting the edges a personal tale that predates the old Knights hall and shines light on Seattle’s connection to a global conflict many of us know little about.
The postcard may seem a benign note of thanks on a charming Japanese street scene. On closer inspection it captures global trade, journalistic pursuit of truth, and the sharing of ideas; and also has ties with racism, death, war, and exploitation of immigrants. Here’s a Memorial Day revisit to the history.
The postcard
It was just a simple postcard.
708 E Union today is part of the parking lot next to the Knights of Columbus Hall. The card was postmarked 1906 in Seattle and Yokohama, Japan. Continue reading →
The stairs on East Republican Street between Melrose and Bellevue may be both the most overlooked stairway and the most forlorn landmark in Seattle.
The stairs were landmarked in 1979, just after Seattle’s preservation ordinance went into effect. The landmark designation report issued at the time didn’t pinpoint its date of construction, vaguely stating that it was “…one of the finest… produced by the City Engineering Design Staff during the first two decades of the twentieth century.” Continue reading →
In 2004 the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board voted to make the Pantages House a Seattle landmark. They had three reasons: its association with Alexander Pantages, its architectural style, and its prominent siting at the corner of Denny and Harvard.
The house was built in 1906 for Alexander Pantages by architects Knapp & West at the southeast corner of Denny Way and Harvard Avenue. It’s a block from Dick’s and Capitol Hill Station.
Construction date: If you look around you’ll find that everyone but us says it was built in 1907. That’s the date given in the city’s report on landmark designation. Possibly that came from the 1936 King County Assessor property card, which is not to be trusted for early dates. Continue reading →
Photo of Wilshire Building from King County Assessor records for parcel 600350-1191 courtesy Washington State Archives Puget Sound Regional Branch. Scanned by CHHS volunteer Gloria Fletcher.
A: 228 Harvard Ave E; B: 302 Harvard Ave E; C: Wilshire Building, 229-235 Broadway E. Also note the buildings across and kitty corner from the Wilshire Building at Thomas and Broadway (clockwise): Rossman’s super service station (1937 photo); Dodds/Progress Grocery (1937 photo); and the Fleming & Moore Grocery. This aerial image is from the 1937 King County Aerial Survey, a pdf is available.
Article about Stoddart’s Mission Groceteria in Redlands, California from 1915 Los Angeles newspaper. Courtesy Tamara Bunnell.
Circa 1926 grocery building which housed Piggly Wiggly after construction. 1326 East Pike St. Parcel 600300-0295. Courtesy Washington State Archives Puget Sound Regional Branch. Scanned by Brendan McKeon for a Seattle Architecture Foundation project.
Seattle’s first self-service grocery chain, Groceteria, opened its Broadway store in the Summer of 1916 at 233 Broadway E, just south of Thomas. It served the neighborhood along with Capitol Hill and Renton Hill stores for a decade before its surprising collapse.
Listen to Rob Ketcherside’s interview with NPR 88.5 KNKX about Seattle’s Groceteria stores and the tragedy of Alvin Monson, from Saturday January 6. It repeats on air Monday January 8 at 7 PM.
It started with retail innovation: Prior to the 1930s creation of supermarkets, food in America was sold at specialty stores focused on individual product types: green grocer (fruits and vegetables), fish monger, butcher, baker, and grocer for example. They were clustered in neighborhood business districts and shared space in public markets. Contrary to the name, only two of the dozen-odd public markets in downtown Seattle were publicly owned. But they all guaranteed one-stop shopping and easy access to streetcar lines. If a Seattleite couldn’t find what they needed near home, they could certainly get it downtown.
After the onset of World War One in mid-1914, inflation set in worldwide. This included a rise in the price of canned and packaged foods that were sold at grocery stores. Grocers immediately felt strain on their service-rich business model. Most stores offered purchase on credit, delivery by horse and buggy and ordering by telephone. Notably “cash groceries” offered no-frills purchases. The standard shopping experience was like a deli: shoppers asked for items at a counter and it was slowly filled from the back while they interacted with one of the many clerks. Stores filled their shelves with piecemeal deliveries by distributors and layers of middlemen.
Within a few years, self-service shopping at chain grocery stores upset the industry. If you know anything about self-service grocery history, then you believe that Piggly Wiggly started it all in Tennessee in late 1916. The Smithsonian believes that. Wikipedia believes that. But it’s wrong. Continue reading →
The two-story commercial building covers the short block between Bellevue Ave and Crawford Place on the south side of Pine Street. It was lovingly restored by Hunters Capital in 2012. They took a useful building that was well-known for its first floor tenant Area 51 and turned it into an Auto Row gem that ushers folks up Pine Street and into the neighborhood. Continue reading →
Bobby Morris from the south edge of the reservoir (Rob Ketcherside)
Ancient Chinese Scholar Tree at northwest corner of park
Attendees of Christian convention (Seattle Times July 11, 1907)
Cal Anderson Park was designated a Seattle Landmark 19 years ago this month on November 4, 1998.
But if you search the city landmark list for “Cal Anderson,” you won’t find anything.
In 1998, Cal Anderson Park was still a civic dream. As part of the process leading to the creation of Cal Anderson, Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle Parks self-nominated the existing reservoir (Lincoln Reservoir) that they hoped to lid over, the grounds around it, and Bobby Morris Playfield to the south which would also be affected. The entire stretch from Pine to Denny, Nagle to 11th became a landmark.
Holding Seattle’s water
Lincoln Reservoir was an important part of the municipal water system created by Seattle following the Great Seattle Fire in 1889. One of the realizations after the fire was that the collection of private wells at springs across Seattle’s hillsides could not supply enough water to carry the city forward. After a successful funding vote, City Engineer R. H. Thomson set out to create a dammed reservoir in the Cascade mountains and a 20 mile pipeline to three reservoirs. Continue reading →
On November 15, 1899 — one hundred and eighteen years ago this month — Nagle Place was dedicated by the Seattle City Council in ordinance 5630.
Where it’s at
Nagle Place is among the shortest streets in Seattle. It’s bounded by Pine Street on the south and Denny Way on the north, just three blocks long. It’s intersected only once, by Howell Street. The former Olive Street right of way brings a staircase down from Broadway which continues as a path through Cal Anderson Park to the east.
Nagle Place in Kroll Map book at Seattle Public Utilities Engineering Vault, apparently updated through the 1980s
What’s a Nagle?
John H. Nagle came to Seattle in 1853 as the pioneers were first staking their land claims and filing “plats”, the first official maps of roads and property to be sold. The land that Nagle claimed was more than a mile northeast of the main town, centered on current Cal Anderson Park. He built a homestead and he worked a farm on the land.
We don’t know exactly what afflicted him, but in 1874 Nagle was committed to the Washington Territory Insane Asylum, deemed a “dangerous man”. His stay at the asylum was funded by renting and then slowly selling his property. Continue reading →
1894 Seattle Topographic map with illustration of ridge (USGS via ArcGIS)
City landmark apartments by Fred Anhalt at 1014 E Roy and 1005 E Roy (Rob Ketcherside)
The Rainier Chapter (Seattle) of the Daughters of the American Revolution are headquartered in this replica of Mount Vernon on Roy Street.
I dug a bit in Archive.org’s Wayback Machine and was surprised to find that CHS started in January 2006 as a Blogspot. That first recording captured a microcosm of Justin’s neighborhood writing: a hair salon review, a couple of restaurant reviews, a warning of an upcoming moth spray, and a lamentation on the loss of an old, dependable haunt. As you know, this was a formula that he looped through a few hundred thousand times over the next 11 years.
While Justin was developing CHS from a hobby blog into a life-sucking addiction, geologist David B. Williams was basking in the afterglow of the publication of his first book about Seattle: 2005’s The Street-Smart Naturalist.
Street Naturism
One reader of the book let it all hang out in a brief Seattle Public Library review of Street-Smart Naturalist: “Everyone in Seattle should read this engaging and insightful book about how nature and the wild still exist within city limits, and that we are part of it.”
I second the recommendation, but I’ll strip away the book jacket and show you the salient bits. Capitol Hill made two appearances in Street-Smart Naturalist. First was a short piece about the several hundred year-old Garry oak tree at Oak Manor on Belmont Ave and Belmont Place. Then in the chapter The Hills Williams rightly questioned whether it’s appropriate to call the long form of Capitol Hill a hill at all. Continue reading →
When you are at the intersection of Harvard and Thomas and look around, it’s impossible to not be awed and a bit baffled by the utter lack of planning and engineering.
You probably have an intersection that confuses you or an intersection you hate. Leave a comment and we’ll see if we can console you with some sort of reasoning. Meanwhile, here’s one odd truth.
What’s wrong?
Harvard and Thomas… it’s one of a kind. As it heads south Harvard changes from a normal, comfortably cozy Capitol Hill residential street into a confusing mass of concrete with no clear use or direction. Continue reading →
Pike Street west from the edge of Minor in 1902 post-regrade blended with yesterday, January 14, 2017. The 1902 image is fantastic and worth seeing on its own. (Washington State Archives; blend by Rob Ketcherside)
John Pike as an old man, from his 1903 obituary (Seattle Times)
John Henry Pike never lived in our midst. But the street named after him cuts the southern border of our neighborhood, and the improvement of Pike Street led directly to the creation of Capitol Hill. So let’s celebrate him and the street he begat.
John Pike
He was born in Massachusetts, probably Springfield, more than two centuries ago: 1814. Like Seattle’s founding fathers he was part of the “Go West” era of American history. European immigrants and young descendants of early Americans alike all moved successively farther west.
After living in western New York for many years, Pike found himself in the early 1850s living with wife and son in the fateful farming town of Princeton, Illinois.
If you find it on a map today you’ll see a cluster of commercial buildings with a road leading out of town to a freeway and a Walmart. Zoom out beyond the residences and the map is swallowed by farmland. Eventually Chicago appears to the east and Peoria to the south. Continue reading →
