283 results for: Retail and Department Stores
Ephemera
D. Kaufman receipt, November 1, 1880
The receipt pictured here was issued by David Kaufman, "Dealer in Boots and Shoes and Custom-Made Clothing." An immigrant from Germany who moved to Seattle from Victoria, British Columbia in 1869, Mr. Kaufman (1834-1912) was a successful tailor, importer, and business man in Seattle. When he died, his will bequeathed a house to each of his four children. The purchaser…
ID Number:2018.3.3.90
Date:1880
Correspondence
Wa Chong Company letter, April 20, 1909
On December 15, 1868, the man believed to be Seattle's first Chinese immigrant, Chun Ching Hock (1844-1927) opened the Wa Chong Company at the foot of Mill Street (now Yesler Way). The store sold imported Chinese goods, tea, rice, coffee, flour, and fireworks, but the company's most profitable business was labor contracting - recruiting and placing Chinese immigrants in domestic…
ID Number:2018.3.3.91
Date:1909
Ephemera
Schwabacher Bros. & Co. receipt, December 31, 1877
Schwabacher Brothers & Company, a San Francisco general store and wholesale house, expanded into Washington Territory when they opened a store in Walla Walla in 1860. Within a short time, the firm became Puget Sound's major wholesaler of canned goods, dry goods and other materials to the logging camps, mill towns and farming communities. Their first Seattle store opened in…
ID Number:2018.3.3.95
Date:1877
Ephemera
Anderson & Thompson Ski Company catalog, 1956
In the 1930s, Norwegian Jorgen Aaland experimented with making a laminated wooden ski. He lived in Seattle at the time and took his idea to Ray Anderson, a ski instructor and president of the city's General Furniture Company. Anderson developed the idea further and received a patent from the US Patent Office in May 1933. Anderson and mountaineer Ben Thompson…
ID Number:2018.3.3.110
Date:1956
Ephemera
Fulmer's Columbia Florist flower coaster, circa 1950
This flower coaster advertises Fulmer's Columbia Florist at 5212 Rainier Avenue. The flower shop, owned by Cecil H. Fulmer (circa 1895-1968) and his wife Helen M. Fulmer (circa 1898-1984), operated at 5212 Rainier Avenue just south of Columbia City business district from the late 1940s to 1953. The couple opened the Fulmer's Agate Shop at this same address, but the…
ID Number:2018.3.3.137
Date:Circa 1950
Ephemera
Rainier Camping Equipment brochure, circa 1958
Incorporated as Rainier Sporting Goods in 1950, and later known as Rainier Camping Equipment, ALL RAINIER, or Rainier Gear, the company sold tents, air mattresses, sleeping bags, camp cots, and other camping equipment for the Seattle Tent and Awning Company. Seattle Tent and Awning Company was begun by S. W. Robb (1866-1929) when he arrived in Seattle in 1896; in…
ID Number:2018.3.3.141
Date:Circa 1958
Photograph
Interior of the B.F. Middleton general store in South Park, Seattle, circa 1895
B.F. (Benjamin Franklin) Middleton, an Iowa native, moved to California and then to the Seattle area after the 1889 Seattle Fire. He settled in South Park in the Duwamish Valley in 1893 and ran a large grocery business and general store at 8207 Dallas Avenue in South Park’s business district.In this image, Middleton stands inside his store surrounded by goods…
ID Number:2019.92.2
Date:1895
Photograph
Interior of the B.F. Middleton general store in South Park, Seattle, circa 1895
B.F. (Benjamin Franklin) Middleton, an Iowa native, moved to California and then to the Seattle area after the 1889 Seattle Fire. He settled in South Park in the Duwamish Valley in 1893 and ran a large grocery business and general store at 8207 Dallas Avenue in South Park’s business district.In this image, Middleton stands inside his store with three customers.…
ID Number:2019.92.3
Date:1895
Photograph
Merl Middleton at front door of Middleton Grocery, Seattle, circa 1910
B.F. (Benjamin Franklin) Middleton, an Iowa native, moved to California and then to the Seattle area after the 1889 Seattle Fire. He settled in South Park in the Duwamish Valley in 1893 and ran a large grocery business and general store at 8207 Dallas Avenue in South Park’s business district.In this image, Merl Middleton, B.F. Middleton’s eldest child, stands at…
ID Number:2019.92.5
Date:1910
Photograph
M. Seller Co. employees posing outside store, Seattle, 1910
This image of the employees of M. Seller Co. was taken outside the store located between 409-417 First Avenue South in Seattle. The store was a wholesaler of crockery, glassware, stoves, and ranges. The only individual identified is George Harvey Sharon (1878-1971), the man wearing a black bowler hat, who in the 1910 U. S. Census listed his occupation as…
ID Number:Lib1989.3.34
Date:1910