1513 results for: City of Seattle
Photograph
Hooverville, August 19, 1933
During the hard times of the 1930s economic depression, many unemployed and homeless people settled just west of where Seattle's Kingdome now stands. They built ramshackle houses out of scrap material and elected their own mayor. The area was nicknamed Hooverville or Hoover City by people who blamed President Herbert Hoover for causing the Depression.This 1933 photo, taken at Seattle's…
ID Number:1983.10.4435.2
Date:1933
Photograph
New streets in the Denny Hill Regrade, Seattle, July 30, 1935
During the second Denny Hill regrading project, street paving, sewers, water mains, sidewalks, and other improvements were done under a single contract. This meant that rebuilding the city streets could proceed in a coordinated manner. However, the Depression hit Seattle during the 1930s, and rebuilding took a long time. In this photo, taken around 1935, the newly-extended Sixth, Seventh, and…
ID Number:1983.10.4533.1
Date:1935
Photograph
Aurora Bridge and ship canal, August 7, 1935
Seattle's George Washington Memorial Bridge (commonly called the Aurora Bridge) was dedicated on February 22, 1932, on the bicentennial of the first president's birth. The governor of the state and a Canadian representative used a two-person saw to cut the official "ribbon," a large Douglas fir. This photo, taken in 1935, shows the main span of the Aurora Bridge above…
ID Number:1983.10.4538.2
Date:1935
Photograph
County-City Building after completion of phase two, July 3, 1936
In 1916, the new King County Courthouse and Municipal Building, also called the County-City Building, opened on Third Avenue in downtown Seattle. The building, designed by Seattle architect Augustus Warren Gould, was five stories tall, with a partial sixth story for the use of the city engineer. In 1929-1931, architect Henry Bittman's six story addition expanded Gould's original building upwards.…
ID Number:1983.10.4557.2
Date:1936
Photograph
The Ranch roadhouse, circa 1937
In the late 1930s, Washington restaurants could serve beer and wine but no mixed drinks by the glass unless patrons supplied their own bottles of liquor. Liquor laws tended to be less strict outside city limits. This stimulated the growth of country bottle clubs and roadhouses which catered to those willing to drive out of town for a drink. In…
ID Number:1983.10.4584.1
Date:Circa 1937
Photograph
Greenwood street scene, circa 1932
In the 1930s, Seattle's northern city limits were at 85th Street, in the Greenwood neighborhood. People could take the streetcar to Greenwood and catch the interurban railway north to Everett and other outlying towns.This photo shows what the Greenwood business district looked like around 1932. Webster & Stevens number: P1304
ID Number:1983.10.4969.24
Date:1932
Photograph
Exchange Building, Seattle, circa 1930
The Exchange Building is one of several Art Deco office buildings in Seattle. It was designed as a home for stock and commodity exchanges. The Exchange Building was the last large downtown building built before the Depression of the 1930s hit the city. It was Seattle's tallest building until after World War II ended in 1945. Sign in image: The…
ID Number:1983.10.4971.41
Date:Circa 1930
Photograph
View southwest from Washington Hotel, Seattle, circa 1903
Denny Hill once stood north of what is now Seattle’s central business district, between Second and Fifth Avenues. Between 1889 and 1906, the Denny (later Washington) Hotel dominated its southern slope. Workers began regrading Seattle's Denny Hill in 1898 and at first, the owners of the Washington Hotel didn't want the city to remove their part of the hill. This…
ID Number:1983.10.6036.4
Date:Circa 1903
Photograph
Great Western Iron and Steel Company, Kirkland, circa 1892
In 1888, Seattle investors convinced British industrialist Peter Kirk to open a steel mill in Kirkland, named in his honor. They hoped that the Moss Bay Iron and Steel Works, reorganized in 1890 as the Great Western Iron and Steel Company, would turn Kirkland into the Pittsburgh of the West. The city boomed as speculators subdivided land and built substantial…
ID Number:1983.10.6113
Date:Circa 1892
Photograph
King County Courthouse, became Seattle City Hall, 1882
In 1882, the government of King County occupied a wood frame courthouse at Third Avenue, between Jefferson Street and Yesler Way in downtown Seattle. In 1890, the county offices moved up the hill to a new courthouse near the present site of Harborview Hospital and sold the old building to the city of Seattle. This photo shows the King County…
ID Number:1983.10.6136
Date:1882