Seattle Now & Then: Richmond Beach, 1920, where Shoreline began
Clay Eals
(Click and click again to enlarge photos)
THEN: Looking southwest, with fog-obscured Puget Sound in the distance, this is Richmond Beach’s Market Street, the first business district of what became Shoreline, circa 1920. From left, Sweley’s grocery has replaced James Holloway’s grocery, and Umbrite’s Drug Store has replaced brother John Holloway’s real-estate and insurance office, followed by the Richmond Beach post office and Walloch’s Hardware. (Courtesy of Shoreline Historical Museum)NOW: Grocery (light blue) and drug store (red) buildings still stand from the 1920 view of Market Street, today’s residential Northwest 195th Place. In the foreground, holding the new Shoreline book, are, from left, author Vicki Stiles, designer Barry Hansen and editor T.A. Stanley, with Robby Grillo, executive director of the Shoreline Historical Museum. The Shoreline Library plans an event for the book at 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026. To see and acquire the book, visit shorelinehistoricalmuseum.org. (Clay Eals)
Published in The Seattle Times online on Aug. 13, 2026
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Aug. 16, 2026
From resorts to residences, Shoreline’s story shines in new book
By Clay Eals
“From shore to shore and line to line.”
With that sentiment, a 1944 naming contest was, charmingly, won by a fifth-grader who perfectly sized up the geographical and jurisdictional reach of the then-school district and later municipality: Shoreline!
City of Shoreline map of its 14 neighborhoods, 2025.
The sprawling, 31-year-old suburb north of Seattle fits its name. It stretches east from Puget Sound across bustling Highway 99 and Interstate 5 to Lake Forest Park near the north end of Lake Washington, and from the boundary lines of Seattle to the south and three cities — Woodway, Edmonds, Mountlake Terrace — to the north.
Shoreline, comprising 14 distinct neighborhoods, also boasts intriguing claims to recognition.
That’s due, in part, to the gregarious, industrious Vicki Stiles, executive director of the Shoreline Historical Museum from 1992 to 2021, whose culminating project, “Shoreline, Washington: from First People to a New City,” has just been published.
Cover of the new Shoreline history book.
The 16-chapter, 388-page tome — in large-format hardcover and softbound editions, with 242 photos and maps as well as extensive annotations, bibliographies and index — is the museum’s 10th book but the first full account of the city’s history.
Stiles wrote most of it, drawing on more than 175 individual and organizational sources. It includes two chapters contributed by Seattle historian David Buerge detailing the longtime and ongoing Indigenous presence, including Lushootseed place names, terms, definitions and pronunciations, that preceded the 1850s incursion of European settlers.
People outside of Shoreline, Stiles says, often don’t realize that its earliest business district — just steps above Richmond Beach, at the city’s northwest corner — got its start in 1887 as a resort village.
“The whole idea of having a town named with the word beach in it,” she says, “meant you were inviting people to come from surrounding areas.”
THEN: The Great Northern Railroad stops at the Richmond Beach depot in the 1910s. When tracks reached the beach in 1891, Richmond Beach was a whistle stop, the train stopping only for a specified reason. The depot was built in 1907. (Courtesy of Shoreline Historical Museum)
At first, they came by boat, and soon afterward via railroad along the Sound. Regulars included D.E. Frederick, of the famed Frederick & Nelson department store, who enjoyed chicken dinners at the Holloway Hotel on hillside Market Street, today’s Northwest 195th Place. “There really was this huge push to welcome tourists, and the beach was just beautiful.”
Bolstering the appeal, local landowner and fruit propagator Henry Parry invented a huge, delicious strawberry he named the Richmond Beauty that won top honors at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle.
THEN: On the east side of Shoreline, the Crest movie theater plays “Peggy” and “The Big Lift” on Aug. 7, 1950. The 1949 moviehouse still operates today. The topographically apt term “crest” figures in many school and place designations in Shoreline, including the neighborhoods of Briarcrest and Ridgecrest. (Puget Sound Regional Branch, Washington State Archives, courtesy of Shoreline Historical Museum)
Eventually, Stiles says, jobs provided by industrial employers, especially Standard Oil at next-door Point Wells in 1911, along with mobility afforded by automobiles and modern throughways, transformed Shoreline into primarily a residential area, proud of its schools and high number of parks, soon to be 42. Today, 60,000-plus call their home Shoreline.
Which now has a definitive written story!
THEN: Looking uphill and northwest on then-Market Street circa 1917, the Holloway Hotel stands at top left. At right, starting from the foreground, are the Richmond Beach post office, John Holloway’s real-estate and insurance business, his brother James Holloway’s grocery, Wella Richards’ barbershop and, in the distance, Dalquist Hall. (Courtesy of Shoreline Historical Museum)NOW: Former commercial buildings still stand from the 1920 view of Market Street, today’s residential Northwest 195th Place. In the foreground, holding the new Shoreline book, are, from left, author Vicki Stiles, designer Barry Hansen and editor T.A. Stanley, with Robby Grillo, executive director of the Shoreline Historical Museum. The Shoreline Library plans an event for the book at 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026. To see and acquire the book, visit shorelinehistoricalmuseum.org. (Clay Eals)
WEB EXTRAS
Big thanks to Vicki Stiles and Barry Hansen for their invaluable help with this installment!
To see Clay Eals‘ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos while hearing this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.
Please excuse and persevere through sporadic and irritating wind noise in the above video!
At right, Vicki Stiles and Barry Hansen sign books and answer questions at the June 27 launch of “Shoreline, Washington: from First People to a New City.” (Clay Eals)NOW: Author Vicki Stiles welcomes visitors to the June 27 launch event for her book “Shoreline, Washington: from First People to a New City,” at the Shoreline Masonic Lodge. (Clay Eals)
The next five photos are a few additional images from the book!
Shown in 1937. Tommy Tucker’s new location opened in 1936 at Northwest 182nd Street on the west side of Aurora Avenue North. The old location was on the east side at 170th, which then became the 4-Mile House after Tucker moved. (Courtesy of Puget Sound Regional Branch, Washington State Archives)Shown in 1938, the McCalls’ pumphouse tower presided over Aurora Avenue North’s landscape until the 1960s. The road on the south side of the property, now Northwest 165th Street, was known as McCall Street. (Courtesy of Puget Sound Regional Branch, Washington State Archives)The Hide-A-Way occupies one of the oldest buildings on Aurora Avenue North, built in 1917 on the original brick road. First as a café, and then a tavern beginning in 1933, it is one of the few buildings that has been continuously operated as an eating and drinking establishment. (Courtesy of Puget Sound Regional Branch, Washington State Archives)Shown Nov. 2, 1916, a remarkable snowstorm followed by flooding in some areas brought a substantial washout to Market Street in Richmond Beach. The immense runoff from a culverted stream could not be contained by the pipes. The small café at the corner of Market and Charles Street was a victim of the event. (Courtesy of Shoreline Historical Museum)Shown circa 1935, Lindsay’s Boathouse on Appletree Lane not only rented out boats to those desiring a day of fishing in Puget Sound but also held dances in its large hall. John Kennedy previously had run a dance hall on the beach. (Courtesy of Ron Edge)Feb. 22, 1905, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p2.Feb. 24, 1905, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p2.Aug. 6, 1950, Seattle Times, p20.
