In 1875 Polish immigrants Ferdinand Toklas (1845-1924) and Paul Singerman (1847-1915) moved to Seattle and opened what became the city's first department store in Pioneer Square. Originally called the San Francisco Store and later renamed Toklas, Singerman, & Co., the founders retired in 1892 and sold the store to another partner, John B. MacDougall (1849-1931), who incorporated it as MacDougall & Southwick Co. The popular store at Second Avenue and Pike Street was operated by Mercantile Store Corp. from 1910 until it closed in 1964.

This image of the Toklas, Singerman & Co. baseball team includes named but unidentified individuals Frank Miller, Frank Porter, Ira Rank, Otis Rank, and Harry Stevenson, who was a "shoeman." The Rank brothers were born in Ohio and moved to Seattle from Kansas in the late 1880s. Otis worked for Toklas, Singerman & Co. as a dry goods salesman before joining the Yukon Gold Rush in 1896. He seems to have done well in Alaska; after he returned to Washington he and his wife opened a mercantile and apple orchards in Cashmere. Ira and another brother, Orrin, also went to Alaska, remaining in Nome for many years.

Caption information source: The Seattle Sunday Times, October 30, 1955, p. 15; April 6, 1916, p. 3; and January 2, 1948, p. 15.