Inga Caroline Hoffield (1894-1945) was born in Iowa to Norwegian-immigrant parents Benjamin Kornelius Hoffield (1865-1949) and Ellen B. (Strom) Hoffield (1872-c. 1905). The family moved to Seattle before 1900, and Inga and her two younger sisters attended Salmon Bay School at 26th Avenue W and W Prospect Street.

The manuscript pictured here is an essay that Inga wrote while a student at Salmon Bay School, describing a field trip. Inga chronicles the view from the 15th floor of the Alaska Building (at 618 Second Avenue), which had been completed in 1904 and was the tallest building in Seattle at the time. She could see the Catholic Cathedral (St. James Cathedral at 804 Ninth Avenue), Central School (Central School II at Seventh Avenue and Madison Street), the old Rainier Hotel (at Fifth Avenue and Marion Street), and the battleship USS Nebraska in Elliott Bay. The class also took the Interurban electric railway to Renton where they toured the Seattle Glass Company's factory and a nearby coal mine.

A few months after Inga's essay was written, an account of a trip to Woodlawn Park by her sister, Clara M. (Hoffield) Hoeck (1895-1971), appeared in The Seattle Sunday Times.

Caption information source: "My Fourth of July Picnic," The Seattle Sunday Times, August 26, 1906, p. 19
Caption information source: "Seattle Public Schools, 1862-2000: Lawton School," by Nile Thompson and Carolyn J. Marr, HistoryLink.org Essay 10544