(click to enlarge photos)

I imagine that many Pacific readers will recognize Lawton Gowey’s not so old “then.”  Without comparing Jean Sherrard’s repeat, they may remember the location of this stubby trestle from the times they chose Western Avenue to escape the congestion of other downtown avenues.  That was a handy avoidance strategy, which had begun already in the 1890s when Western was planked, supported then on its own offshore trestle. 

Here at University Street a timbered ramp that crossed above Western between Front Street (First Avenue) and Railroad Avenue (Alaskan Way) was built soon after the Great Fire of 1889.  Plans to rebuild it in steel were never fulfilled, and so all its many repairs kept to wood.  Gowey had studied the history of this bridge and many others Seattle subjects. He kept track of the changes in our cityscape.  He was not a typical urban photographer; his interests were not so picturesque.  These interests, I believe, explain this photo of the somewhat dilapidated trestle on University Street, and the scar where it had been cut short years earlier.  Late in the 1930s the city’s engineers recommended removing the ramp’s center pier over Western Ave.  That claim stopped all traffic on the ramp; only pedestrians could still reach Western Avenue by the stairway shown. 

I met Lawton Gowey early in 1982, the year he took this photo.  By then Lawton was recognized as a local authority on the history of public transportation, and I went to him for help.  He honed his interest in the 1930s, when he explored Seattle with his father and the family camera.  Later, working downtown as accountant for the Seattle Water Department, he had ready access to many of the city’s archives.  With his camera he continued to explore.  Some of his

subjects, such as the construction of the SeaFirst Building in the late 1960s, he tracked from his office in the City Light Building and other prospects as well.  He used his lunch hours to explore and record changes in the Central Business District and on the waterfront.  His collection includes the many shots he took over time and in all directions from the Smith Tower observatory.   We’ll insert here two looks up a freezing Third Avenue photographed by Lawton from the Seattle City Light (and water) Building on the west side of 3rd between Madison and Spring Streets.

Lawton Gowey died of a heart attack in the spring of 1983 at the mere age of sixty-one.  In the little time Lawton and I had to nurture our friendship, we shared many interests, including repeat photography, London history, and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. This last fondness was also fortunate for both Bach and the members of Bethany Presbyterian Church.  Beginning in 1954 Lawton, was both organist and choir director for that Queen Anne Hill singing congregation. 

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, Paul?   Yessir.  Ron has put up four former features.  Startlingly, or predictable for those who remember the week past, the first if last week’s feature, which was also on University Street and near the waterfront.   The other three edge-links stay near the neighborhood, and predictably, as is our way, some of the images will appear again and again but in different sets or contexts.  This week’s fairly recent (from 1982) photograph is another by Lawton Gowey, and I’ll introduce a portrait or two of Lawton and a clip or two too.   Contrarily, I may take some of them and insert it in the above – the main or featured text.  Next week we return to  another touchstone – Pioneer Square.

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