Ron Edge comes forward with a few Christmas related “clippings” from his collection. They start boldly with three front covers for the once popular and studied Argus Christmas Issues, these from 1903, 1904 and 1907. At 25 cents a copy it was not cheap, and note that by 1907 it had doubled to four bits i.e. 50 cents. The weekly Argus began publishing in the 1890s and continued on as a respected and influential journal of local politics and culture. The last I remember of it is from the 1970s when the then adolescent weekly – The Weekly – made it hard for the old and stiffened Argus to keep up.
(Remember: CLICK to Enlarge.)
The Argus Christmas Issue for 1903.For 1904 Argus again uses a big ship for its Christmas Number cover. This is "Seattle's Own Battleship Nebraska" manufactured at Moran's Shipyard on the waterfront - near the foot of Dearborn Street. The keel was launched in 1904, although it took much longer to install the superstructure, and by then was already obsolete. It was an expensive piece of post-Spanish-American War military hardware and never used except for some steaming about. The grandly frigid outline of Alaska - territorial still - is turned to curls and pulchritude for the 1907 Argus Christmas Number. This was the year that construction on the 1909 Alaska Yukon and Pacific Expostion began in earnest, and as everyone may by now know three young women, although differently composed, were used in the AYPE's principal logo or symbolic bug. A few of the many variations are printed directly below.AYP BUG in Plaster. The by then old description of Puget Sound as the protected waterway where "rail meets sail" was being turned over as steamships replaced schooners and such. There was no easy rhyme to replace "rail-sail" but at least once "steam meets steam" was tried. An officially staged tableau of the AYP symbolThe Bug-Tableau on an AYP stage with chorus and minstrels.The bug pins were popular.Another tableau, this one staged for the front page of the Post-Intelligencer for Sept. 9, 1909. The caption to the screened photo reads, "From left to right: Miss Koye, representing the Orient; Miss Frances Sarver, representing Alaska and the Yukon; Miss Fannie Sarver, representing the Pacific Northwest."
Next Ron Edge shares a few clips from the Bon Marche as Santa sanctuary early in the 20th Century.
When the Bon was at Second and Pike.
Every new “big thing” like Northgate needs “the biggest” of something, and the northend mall found it’s.
The "Tallest Christmas Tree" in the world needed a parking lot to parody the mere trees we put up in our mere living rooms. Both shots - consecutive by their numbers - were photography by the prolific Ellis out of Arlington.
