During the Depression of the 1930s, over 600 unemployed and homeless people lived in shacks on vacant land just south of downtown Seattle. They built their homes from scrap lumber and other materials which they found along the waterfront. This area, and similar places throughout the United States, were called Hoovervilles after President Herbert Hoover whom many people blamed for causing the Depression.

This November 1939 photo shows Edwin Hill repairing the roof of his Hooverville shack near downtown Seattle. He roofed his home with tarpaper weighted down with chunks of cement.

Written on negative: Hill, Edwin.
Handwritten on sleeve: Hill, Edwin, Shacktown.
Date photograph was filed at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (date of photograph and file date may differ by a month or more): November 24, 1939.