The hat belonged to Mrs. Edwin Bowden, who came to Seattle in 1882. In anticipation of an upcoming performance by soprano Emma Abbott at the Frye Opera House, Bowden ordered this fashionable hat from Tirney & Coombs in New York. From 1884 to 1889, the Frye Opera House served as Seattle’s premier cultural attraction for an expanding population. The hat arrived, likely by train, in a wooden box after anxious waiting on Bowden’s part, just in time to be worn to the performance. Transcontinental train service reached Washington in the 1880s—a trip that once took months could now be made in less than a week.