THEN: Judging from the array of vehicles, this dramatic view of treeless Pioneer Square and its pergola, along with the imposing Mutual Life Building, was taken in 1956. The street section at lower right was pedestrianized in the early 1970s. It was paved first with cobblestones, later with bricks. (Bob Carney)NOW: Budding London Plane trees obscure the Pioneer Square pergola and the Mutual Life Building behind it. We could not access the roof of the three-floor Merchants Café to snap the repeat of our “Then,” so this photo, taken in mid-April, approaches that height, with the camera affixed to a 20-foot pole. (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on May 22, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on May 25, 2025
Triangular Pioneer Square endures as Seattle’s historical heart
By Clay Eals
Upon us is Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial opening of good-weather jaunts and an infusion of tourists — a perfect time to highlight and reflect upon what we can see of Seattle’s soul.
THEN: In this photo looking north from Yesler Way in Pioneer Square (then Pioneer Place), thousands line First Avenue for the June 10, 1916, Great War-era (later World War I) defense Preparedness Parade. The clear portion of street in front of the Pioneer Building became part of Pioneer Square Park in the early 1970s. (Courtesy Ron Edge)
Other more recently developed sites may draw more traffic or attention, but the triangle with the geometrically odd name of Pioneer Square Park (historically Pioneer Place) evokes a turning point in the city’s early history.
It arose from ashes of the 1889 Great Seattle Fire with enduring masonry buildings, and erupted with entrepreneurs to feed the 1897 Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush.
Click the above image to download a pdf of the Pioneer Square tree walk. (City of Seattle)
It may seem counterproductive to use a “Now” photo in which a good part of the scene is obscured. The photo was taken in mid-April when the corner was blanketed with newly budded London Plane trees, first planted in 1958.
But it’s a nicely contrasting match for our rather naked “Then” photo, circa 1956, that reveals the Square’s classic cast-iron 1909-10 pergola (per-GO-luh here, PER-gu-luh in Britain) and the imposing 1897 Mutual Life Building to its rear across First Avenue.
Discovered years ago in an antique shop by historian Bob Carney, our battered “Then,” looking northwest, hints at the awkward jog of streets near Yesler Way (lower left) that derived from the conflicting desires of early landowners. Lumberman Henry Yesler platted a southside grid with strict compass points, whereas surveyor Arthur Denny lined up northside roads with the diagonal waterfront. The tricky intersection became — and has stayed — a busy traffic hub, first for horses, then public transit and other vehicles.
THEN: Bill Speidel, home office, 1980s. (HistoryLink)
Likely our “Then” was taken from the roof of the nearby Merchants Café. We can speculate that the unknown photographer sought to document the potential of a hub long “in decay,” as later described by promoter-author Bill Speidel.
Contributing to the Square’s revival was Speidel’s popular Underground Tour business, launched in 1964. Preservationists secured the area as an official city and national landmark district in the 1970s, inspired largely by the 1961 demolition of the eye-catching Seattle Hotel nearby and erection of its replacement, the less-than-classic “sinking ship” parking garage.
NOW: The seven-floor 1897 Mutual Life Building houses 48-year-old Magic Mouse Toys. (Clay Eals)
Still standing sentinel is the seven-floor Mutual Life Building, over the years housing retail shops and offices for everything from brokers and dentists to the Seattle Checker Club and the Gemeroy word-puzzle company. Present-day passers-by readily recognize its nearly half-century-old colorful corner tenant, Magic Mouse Toys.
The park’s I-shaped pergola (Latin and Italian for archway) originally was designed to protect a lavish, now-closed below-ground restroom. The pergola took a huge hit on Jan. 15, 2001, when an 18-wheel truck clipped it, reducing it to rubble. A much stronger, identical version was rebuilt there and opened in August 2002.
Today, the triangle survives in tree-covered shade, enticing us all to visit (or revisit) the city’s historical heart.
NOW: A bust of Chief Seattle, completed by sculptor James When in 1909, was installed in Pioneer Square Park at the same time as its pergola, designed by Julian Everett. The bust tops a once-functioning circular fountain. (Clay Eals)NOW: An intriguing element at the north end of Pioneer Square Park is a Tlingit totem pole installed in 1938 and restored in 1972. It is a replica of a stolen Tlingit pole that had been installed there in 1899 and was damaged by fire. (Clay Eals)THEN: In this view looking southeast, and with the original Pioneer Square totem pole standing sentinel, horses pulling wagons line up to drink from the Chief Seattle fountain-trough (left) on Sept. 16, 1909. (Courtesy Bob Carney)NOW: This street-level view, from mid-March before trees had budded, shows Pioneer Square Park, with its 1909-10 pergola, and, behind it, the 1897 Mutual Life Building. (Clay Eals)
WEB EXTRAS
Big thanks to Jamie Lim and especially Bob Carney 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, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.
Snapped in the mid-1950s from a nearby boy scout camp…Taken on 31 October, 2019, Spirit Lake remains, still choked with millions of logs from the erruption.
THEN: The 14-story Alaska Building, Seattle’s first steel-and-concrete skyscraper, captured in 1920. First constructed in 1905, it was home to the regional Social Security Administration’s 14th floor offices through World War II. Smith Tower stands one block south. (Courtesy MOHAI)NOW: At the corner of Second and Cherry, a baker’s dozen of Social Security supporters gather on a bright spring afternoon, hoisting placards: (from left) Yuki Kistler, Marcia Sanders, Gordon Smith, Lee Bruch, David Lee, David Jensen, Michael O’Grady, Karen Chartier, Steve Toomire, Jeanne Sales, unidentified, Kathie and Clare. The Alaska Building is home to Marriott’s Courtyard Hotel. (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on May 15, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on May 18, 2025
Social Security, recipients say, ‘makes America truly great’
By Jean Sherrard
When aptly named Frank Messenger arrived in Seattle in late 1936, appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt to direct the city’s first Social Security field office, on his shoulders may have rested the weight of history.
Frank Messenger, appointed by Roosevelt to direct the Seattle field office of the Social Security Administration, is seen here in Portland, Oregon in 1931.
A veteran of World War I, then called the Great War, Messenger had served abroad as a trade negotiator for the Department of Commerce before heading the Treasury Department’s procurement offices in 21 states.
But in helming the nascent effort to weave a safety net for those devastated by the Great Depression, Messenger hit his stride. By early 1937, the rapidly expanding Seattle bureau had moved from cramped Room 213 in the downtown Alaska Building to take over the entire 14th floor.
From that perch, Messenger delivered the New Deal’s signature message of hope and promise. In a 1942 Seattle Times interview, he endorsed his office’s mission.
President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935, using taxation to provide a basic safeguard against “the hazards and vicissitudes of life.”
“If you like people,” he said, “this is an interesting spot.”
Nothing gave him greater job satisfaction, he said, than “telling a young widow [with small children] that she wouldn’t lose her home” or seeing “a trembling old hand sign a brand-new Social Security card” or witnessing “the smile of delight on a youngster’s face” when giving a first card to the child.
“This,” Messenger exulted, “is America!”
Eighty-three years later, the message is under siege. Though insisting Social Security benefits will be protected for nearly 69 million retirees, the current administration has upended the agency, promoting falsehoods about fraud while slashing its workforce by many thousands.
Online, we recently asked local recipients to sum up what Social Security means to them. Their responses:
Patricia Falsetto, retired therapist: “It’s not a giant Ponzi Scheme, but a guaranteed income after retirement, a fund which I personally have been paying into since I was 16 years old.”
John Rahn, retired professor: “An irreplaceable lifeline for retired people with little savings.”
Marcia Sanders, retired teacher: “Instead of exploding it, let’s look at ways to fix it. How about raising the Social Security wage limit above $176,000? Seems like a no-brainer. ”
Karen Kent, retired geriatric mental-health therapist: “I saw many elders whose only income was Social Security. [Without] that income, they would end up homeless or committing suicide to avoid homelessness.”
Linda Bevis, retired teacher: “With Social Security under threat, it makes it much more difficult to predict or plan what my future will look like.”
John Owen, retired City Light engineer: “Social Security is a manifestation of some of the most important values that we share as citizens. It is a fundamental example of what makes America truly great.”
I retired from teaching a little more than a year ago. I rely on a pension and Social Security to have a decent, dignified retirement. I paid into both of those funds over the years. Unlike the members of Howard Lutnick’s family, who wouldn’t complain if a Social Security check were late, I would complain, just as I would complain if a paycheck were late. I earned that money and I depend on it to pay my bills. I don’t have a billion dollar reserve that would cause my income from a Social Security check to be insignificant.
I know that as things stand currently, Social Security will eventually run out of money. I understand why people younger than me feel they won’t get any, and that every year people have to wait longer and longer before they are eligible for it. However, instead of exploding the system, let’s look at ways to fix it. How about continuing to take Social Security out of wages, beyond $176,000? That seems like a no-brainer.
Linda Bevis:
I just retired from teaching last month. In the Fall, when I sent my letter of retirement in to my college, I was factoring in Social Security payments to my monthly retirement income. Now, I don’t know if those payments will come through for me or anyone. It makes it much more difficult to predict or plan what my future will look like.
Francis Janes:
I believe that social security is foundational to our promise to seniors that they live their retirement years with dignity and security. Social security affords seniors peace of mind and a means to pay basic living expenses.
Social security payments affords me the flexibility of living in a way that allows me to explore new hobbies, volunteer with community groups, mentor young people, visit new lands and experience new cultures.
Ginny Weisse:
What does social security mean to me.
Just that Security!
One works and pays into the program and counts on the benefit to be there for you when you retire.
Social security provides essential help/support for the elderly, disabled and Social security may be the only income for some.
John Rahn:
I’ll just say, I have been paying social security tax since
I was 16, and I am still paying it at 81.
It’s an irreplaceable lifeline for retired people
with little savings.
Karen Kent:
As a geriatric mental health therapist who did home visits, I saw many elders whose only income was social security. Even living in low income senior housing, they wouldn’t survive with a cut in that income. They would end up homeless or committing suicide to avoid homelessness.”
Patricia Falsetto:
Social security is not an entitlement or a giant Ponzi scheme. It is supposed to be a guaranteed income after retirement, a fund which I personally have been paying into since I was 16 years old. I am now 74 and attempting to live on my social security. Most of my life I have worked in various places which were non-profit and served the greater social good. In later life I went to graduate school to become a mental health therapist and worked in community mental health for almost 20 years before my retirement 6 years ago. I chose these careers not because of the money I would make but because of the help that I could offer others. My parents both owned small businesses and retired with the confidence that their social security would see them through. And it did. Not because they felt they were getting a handout, but because that was the savings account created by the government to ensure they would have some kind of income besides what they could save. I understand that seriously wealthy people are exempt from paying into social security. I find it outrageous that people in our current government care so little and are so indifferent to the welfare of those with more age and less wealth than them. If they are not required to pay into the fund to help others perhaps they should check which way their moral compass is pointing and focus on that rather than judging and condemning people they don’t understand. I seem to hear the shade of Marie Antoinette whispering in their ears saying “why don’t they just eat cake”.
John Owen:
My parents lived through the Great Depression and paid into Social Security from it’s inception until the conclusion of their working days. Both of them worked very hard throughout their lives but, lacking any education beyond high school, their jobs were fairly low paying so they got by on a very modest income. Consequently, they were never able to accumulate much in the way of retirement savings.
My dad died when he was 71 so he never really got much retirement time in. We never did the math but I’m certain he paid much more into Social Security than he was able to withdraw.
My mom worked until, in her early 80’s, she was no longer able physically to make it up and down the stairs to the stock room in the Hallmark store where she was employed. At that point she finally had to retire and Social Security became her only source of income. It wasn’t much but she was very familiar with getting by on ‘not much’. Thanks to her monthly Social Security check she was able to live in dignity for the last decade of her life. Without it she would have been destitute.
In contrast to my parents, I’ve been lucky enough to have had a career which blessed me with a pension and enough financial headroom to enable me to put some money away for retirement. If my Social Security check stopped showing up, there would be some serious belt tightening required in our household but we would not lose our house or go hungry. My parents did not have that luxury and neither do millions of other Americans who are not as fortunate as I have been. One of those millions of Americans is my own brother. He, like many others who have little else besides Social Security to keep them afloat, lives in a legislative district that consistently favors the party that now plans to take those benefits away.
Francis Perkins, the Secretary of Labor under FDR, was the architect of the policies that became the Social Security Act, Medicare and Medicaid. She was also responsible for the creation of host of other things we now take for granted like the 40 hour work week, child labor laws, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation and workplace safety just to name a few. When I think of what Social Security means to me, I think of what she had to say about it:
“The people are what matter to government…and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.”[1]
“It is up to you to contribute some small part to a program of human betterment for all time.”[2]
“…we will go forward into the future a stronger nation because of the fact that we have this basic rock of security under all of our people.”[3]
In other words, Social Security is a manifestation of some of the most important values that we share as citizens. It is a fundamental example of what makes America truly great.
THEN: Near the end of the 30-second Rainier Beer motorcycle ad, filmed in 1978, motorcyclist Randy Chase is seen facing a glowing Mount Rainier, with a Rainier Cold Pack strapped behind him. In Brian Nyjordet’s and Jack Inglis’ original vision, the motorcycle would have been a giant beer bottle. (Courtesy Isaac Olsen, “Rainier: A Beer Odyssey”)NOW: In this wider view of a re-creation of the commercial, motorcyclist Dave Lamar of Tacoma heads toward Mount Rainier, surrounded by roadway improvements and a recent 350-house development. (Clay Eals)
Published in The Seattle Times online on May 8, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on May 11, 2025
Site for 1979 Rainier ad, conceived by students, is rural no more
By Clay Eals
It’s what I call an all-too-common Northwest reality: One of our region’s best-remembered idyllic landscapes is now a vast housing development.
This rural Pierce County site, one hour’s drive southeast of Seattle, where 230th Avenue East becomes Buckley Tapps Highway, once was a narrow, two-lane curve flanked only by backwoods, meadows and aging wooden fence posts.
Long-timers know it as the setting for a 30-second commercial first aired in 1979, in which a solitary motorcycle sweeps by, heading in pre-sunset magic light toward a glowing Mount Rainier. Besides crickets, the ad’s only sound is the bike’s overdubbed, seemingly changing gears: “Raaaaiiiii-neeeerrrr-Beeeeerrrrrr.”
Longtime film actor Mickey Rooney starred in several Rainier Beer commercials. This is a poster from one of the ads.
It could be the most talked-about local TV spot ever. Its saga — and that of other hilarious Rainier commercials, including super-sized “wild” beer bottles “hunted” by actor Mickey Rooney — is told in an irresistible two-hour documentary, “Rainier: A Beer Odyssey.” It debuted at the 2024 Seattle International Film Festival and has had several later runs.
Isaac Olsen, director of “Rainier: A Beer Odyssey,” at the 2024 Seattle International Film Festival. (Courtesy Isaac Olsen)
Where did the motorcycle idea come from? Not Rainier or its ad agency. Many insisted to the documentary’s director, Isaac Olsen, that they knew someone who dreamed it up. But they offered no proof, so the doc skirted the question.
THEN: The May 13, 1979, Oregonian newspaper article that helped filmmaker Isaac Olsen locate the two originators of the idea behind the Rainier Beer motorcycle commercial, including Brian Nyjordet, who had saved the clip. The writer, Clay Eals, had lost the clip but not his photo negatives from the assignment. (Courtesy Brian Nyjordet)
After I saw the film last May, I informed Olsen that I happened to write a 1979 story for the Oregonian newspaper about two Eugene high-school students who sent in the idea in 1976 and were paid $500.
That evidence helped Olsen locate the true originators: Brian Nyjordet, a Poulsbo carpenter, and Jack Inglis, a Portland coffee-wine bar proprietor. Olsen plans to feature them in a sequel focusing on the motorcycle spot.
THEN/NOW: Shown in 1978 (inset), one year after high school, is Brian Nyjordet, who first conceived of the Rainier Beer motorcycle commercial. (Courtesy Brian Nyjordet) Today, Nyjordet stands with Dave Lamar’s motorcycle at the Pierce County site of the 1978 shoot. Inspired by Rainier’s previous commercial in which frogs croaked “Rainier,” Nyjordet imagined “Rainier Beer” sounding like a gear-shifting motorcycle. (Clay Eals)
Nyjordet (who conceived the idea after seeing the sketch-parody movie “The Groove Tube”) and Inglis (who captured it in a storyboard and handled communication) remain thrilled that Rainier embraced their basic concept and executed it at a perfect location.
THEN/NOW: Jack Inglis, who refined and sent in his and Brian Nyjordet’s idea for the Rainier Beer motorcycle commercial in 1976, sits astride his Honda 250 motorcycle while being photographed on May 10, 1979, for an Oregonian story about the resulting TV spot. (Clay Eals) Inset is Inglis today. (Courtesy Jack Inglis)
Of course, the mountain’s still there. So are the two lanes, wider and still divided by a double-yellow line, but surrounded by (no typo) 350 one- and two-floor suburban homes built over the past 10 years, with high perimeter fences, gravel berms, tree saplings, trimmed grass and shrubs, tiny pink marker flags, speed-limit and street signs, fire hydrants, a stormwater facility and a streetlamp.
Typically whizzing along the gradual turn is a sporadic stream of sizable cars, trucks and the occasional motorcycle. Many flout the posted 35-mph limit, slowing only to turn onto side streets.
Posted blue and orange placards promote “Up to 6 Bedroom Homes,” “Up to 5 Car Garages” and, naturally, “Mountain Views.”
But during breaks in traffic, you can still hear an intermittent cricket.
NOW: A real-estate sign posted at the site of the 1978 commercial promotes “Mountain Views.” (Clay Eals)
WEB EXTRAS
Big thanks to Dave Lamar, Brian & Joele Nyjordet, Jack Inglis, Bobbi Lee Betschart (of the Elk Run development) and especially Isaac Olsen 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, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.
Here is a June 11, 2025 story on Brian Nyjordet and the famed motorcycle commercial, by Mike De Felice of the Kitsap Daily Sun. And click here and here to download pdf files of Mike’s story and photos as they appeared in the Port Orchard Independent and North Kitsap Sun.
(Above) The Rainier Beer motorcycle commercial filmed in 1978 is re-created April 5, 2025, at the same spot, with motorcyclist Dave Lamar of Tacoma doing the honors. The rural Pierce County site, one hour’s drive southeast of Seattle, is where 230th Avenue East becomes Buckley Tapps Highway. Here are three versions. (Clay Eals)
(Above) The classic Rainier Beer motorcycle commercial filmed in 1978 is re-created April 5, 2025, at the same spot, with three different nameless motorcyclists doing the honors. The rural Pierce County site, one hour’s drive southeast of Seattle, is where 230th Avenue East becomes Buckley Tapps Highway. Here are three versions. (Clay Eals)
(Above) Here is the original 1979 Rainier Beer motorcycle commercial, embedded in a trailer for the documentary “Rainier: A Beer Odyssey.” The trailer includes sound effects from a previous “frog” commercial.
(Above) Brian Nyjordet, of Poulsbo, reflects on how he came up with the idea for the classic Rainier Beer motorcycle commercial that was filmed in 1978 and first aired in 1979. He is standing on April 5, 2025, at the site the commercial was filmed. (Clay Eals)
NOW: At the site of the famous Rainier Beer motorcycle commercial, Dave Lamar (left) of Tacoma stands with his motorcycle and with Brian Nyjordet of Poulsbo, who originated the idea in 1976. On the back of Lamar’s cycle is a present-day Rainier cold pack, just as in the original 1978 spot. (Clay Eals)NOW: Brian Nyjordet holds up the 1979 Oregonian clipping that details his role in originating the classic Rainier Beer motorcycle commercial. (Clay Eals)A “wild” Rainier bottle captured in a collactor’s cache. (Ron Edge)May 31, 1974, The Herald, Everett.June 16, 1977, The Herald, Everett.Spring 1977, The Axe, South Eugene High School.Feb. 6, 1979, Tacoma News Tribune.March 23, 1986, Seattle Times, p55.March 23, 1986, Seattle Times, p57.March 23, 1986, Seattle Times, p60.
THEN: The sidewheeler Alida is shown in 1870 from the north end of Yesler’s Wharf. Logs in the foreground were destined for Yesler’s sawmill, only blocks away. This photo is the second earliest extant portrait of Seattle’s waterfront. (Courtesy Ron Edge)NOW: This view looks east along the recently opened Marion Street pedestrian overpass. The open water surrounding the Alida in our “then” photo has been filled in over much of the past century. Today’s seawall stands nearly 500 feet west of the original shoreline. (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on May 1, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on May 4, 2025
Before its fiery demise, the Alida sidewheeler briefly served 1870 elites
By Jean Sherrard
Some might call it a one-hit wonder, but for a few months in 1870, the Alida, the sidewheeler steamer in our main “Then” photo, reigned on Puget Sound. Uncrowded Seattle, fewer than 20 years old, had barely topped 1,100 in population. Ambitious, rough-hewn residents focused on laying foundations for the future.
In one of the earliest extant photos of the waterfront, snapped from the west end of Henry Yesler’s wharf, a log boom from Yesler’s mill seems dense enough almost to be walkable.
Just above the Alida’s sidewheel can be made out the dirt intersection of Marion Street and Front Street (now First Avenue). Center left, the steeple of Rev. Daniel Bagley’s five-year-old Methodist Protestant Church (popularly called “the Brown Church”) points heavenward.
An early photo of the Territorial University building, built in 1861 near the corner of Fifth and University. The ionic columns in its portico were made of cedar from Hood Canal and milled at Yesler’s mill. In 1910, the structure was razed. Its columns were moved north to the University of Washington campus, where they stand today. (Paul Dorpat collection)
Bagley was a prime mover behind the construction of the Territorial University (today’s University of Washington) whose dome-shaped cupola graces the center horizon.
Snapped by photographer George Moore, a west-facing view of the first Central School (upper center) near Third and Madison, the first schoolhouse erected by the Seattle School District. The new school had two classrooms for 120 students. When it opened Aug. 4, 1870, it was standing-room only. (Courtesy Ron Edge)
Keen eyes also will make out, at upper right, the original bell-towered Central School, Seattle’s first public schoolhouse nearing completion.
The Alida, commissioned by the entrepreneurial Starr brothers, eager to obtain a federal subsidy to deliver mail between Olympia and Victoria, was constructed in two locations. Its 115-foot hull was laid in Olympia in 1869, while its upper decks, luxuriously appointed with a dozen comfortable staterooms, were installed the following June at Hammond’s Boatyard near the foot of Columbia Street.
Capt. E.A. Starr, jockeying for influence, invited Seattle’s “it” crowd for an inaugural voyage on June 29, 1870, and it seems likely that the prominent citizens are those seen assembled on the upper deck for a round-trip trial run to Port Townsend. By all accounts, the four-hour, eight-minute trip delighted the passengers.
Reported the July 4 Daily Intelligencer, “During the passage down, the beautiful weather, the delightful scenery, the rapid and easy progress made, and, last though not least, the excellent instrumental and vocal music which was furnished by the ladies, all contributed to the enjoyment of the occasion.”
Within weeks, however, the Alida, intended to supplant older, slower steamers, proved too unstable for the daunting passage across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Starrs soon replaced it with the 168-foot North Pacific, a heavier, more powerful vessel that bested all comers.
The Alida was consigned to calmer waters, steaming among Olympia, Seattle and other Puget Sound ports until 1890 when the sidewheeler met a fiery end. Moored at Gig Harbor, the elegant flash in the pan burned to the waterline, set alight by embers from a raging brush fire.
WEB EXTRAS
As promised, here’s the oldest known photo of the waterfront, taken in 1869, one year before our “then”.
Most definitely click to enlarge for full effect. Maybe click again!
Taken by George Robinson of Seward’s departure for Alaska in 1869. This astonishing four-panel panorama was stitched together by the inimitable and mighty Ron Edge.
Also, for our usual narrated 360-degree video, captured on the waterfront from the Marion Street overpass, click here!
Every column featuring maritime topics enlists the finest historians who help ensure we use only the choicest ingredients! Michael Mjelde (former editor of ‘The Sea Chest’) and Stephen Edwin Lundgren are always fit for purpose.
Lundgren adds a few notes to the mix, starting with a fascinating reflection on the 1869 photo just above:
About the Robinson photograph of Seward sailing away to Alaska in July 1869. It’s the sidewheeler Wilson C. Hunt, identifiable by the unique steeple housing for the vertical piston engine.
Accounts of Seward’s trip say he arrived in Sitka on the steamer Active. Prior to that he arrived from SF in Victoria July 20.
Here Lundgren quotes from a lengthy Historylink article written by an authoritative Phil Dougherty:
“The next morning he left for a tour of Puget Sound on the steamer Wilson G. Hunt, accompanied by a party of more than a dozen men and women that included Thomas Somerville (d. 1915), a Scottish Presbyterian minister. Somerville later wrote a vivid narrative of the trip titled ‘The Mediterranean of the Pacific’ that appeared in the September 1870 edition of Harper’s magazine.”
… First stop Port Townsend, then Port Ludlow. Port Gamble, Port Madison, then Port Seattle (just kidding) for an evening visit, thence same evening past Tacoma to Steilacoom overnight, next day to Olympia. Returned “reaching Seattle about 9 p.m., where it was greeted with a 13-gun salute. After a brief stop at Yesler’s Wharf, the Hunt continued north, passing Whidbey Island the next day.” where he transferred to the Active. (https://www.historylink.org/File/9969)
So this Seattle photo – July 22, 1869 – shows the sidewheeler “Hunt” heading north to Nanaimo enroute to Alaska via a larger ship, the Active. (Wilson G. Hunt was larger than the Alida? 185.5×25.8×6.75 461 g.t. versus Alida’s 115 feet)
The Active was also a sidewheeler, 173 feet length, in commercial service 1849-1852 as the Gold Hunter (original name), then 1852-62 as the Coast Survey shp USSCS Active, including Puget Sound service in 1856 during the Indian war. One of few Union ships on West Coast during Civil Way (1861 US Navy service). Returned to commercial service, 7 years later in the summer of 1869 to Alaska with a government survey scientific team to observe a solar eclipse, with Seward aboard. Damaged, beached and wrecked near Humboldt, California June 6, 1870.
Another intriguing note from Lundgren:
This could be the Starr vessel Isabel, dates are inclusive, obviously adequate for open water. It resembles the Alida but longer, more cabin room, enclosed bow freight deck, engine & stack further forward.
The Isabel seems to have been mostly in Canadian service until it got damaged and repaired, at which time Ed Starr bought it probably on the cheap for the Straits of Juan de Fuca leg, which as those who read the sad tale of the Clallam know are very dangerous waters.
Michael Mjelde chimes in:
I got out my copy of Roland Carey’s The Steamboat Landing on Elliott Bay, published by the author in 1962, this evening and note how he specified the Alida being originally ‘partially’ built in Olympia as the Tacoma in 1869, and being completed at the Hammond yard in 1870.
The Alida eventually went beyond Port Townsend to Victoria as indicated by brief article in the Victoria Colonist in which they mention that they “sponsoned” her out in a Victoria shipyard because she tended to roll. I don’t know how long she was a ‘mail’ boat but she did serve in that capacity.
For your information, I have a copy of the index of certificates (NARA-Seattle) issued to vessels licensed to carry passengers by the Steamboat Inspection Service.which, at that time was in Port Townsend. Alidais listed twice in that volume. Unfortunately, the page showing how many passengers she was licensed to carry is missing but the reference to Alida starts in 1875.
You may recall she was quite narrow at 18 feet plus paddle boxes; by comparison, Virginia V was eight feet wider; whereas there was only a difference of six feet in their registered length.
Note that she didn’t ‘officially’ become Alida until she was issued that first register by US Customs. Although her initial construction was in Olympia in 1869, the incomplete hull was towed to Seattle (according to Carey, she received her engines in Seattle) and officially became Alida in Seattle.
THEN: Barricades surround the sidewalk on the north side of South Main Street in Pioneer Square where bricks had fallen from a building above during the April 29, 1965, earthquake. In the background are the Second Avenue Extension and Seattle Lighting. (Screen grab courtesy KOMO-TV)NOW: Disaster-preparedness coach Alice Kuder, featured recently on KING5’s “New Day Northwest,” stands along South Main Street near where bricks fell during the 1965 quake. Her website is JustInCasePlans.com. (Clay Eals)
Published in The Seattle Times online on April 24, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on April 27, 2025
Deadly, damaging 1965 quake reminds us: Should we run?
By Clay Eals
The boy was maybe 8. He resembled TV’s Beaver Cleaver, but his smirk was more Eddie Haskell.
Interviewed briefly on a downtown Seattle sidewalk by KOMO-TV reporter Howard Shuman on April 29, 1965, about that morning’s 6.5-magnitude earthquake, the boy said he had been “in my house,” which “started to rumble.”
What did he do? “Ran outside. What else?”
THEN: Standing next to one of several cracks that opened in the earth on the west side of Green Lake near Highway 99 was KOMO-TV reporter Howard Shuman. A detailed account of the quake by historian Greg Lange appears at HistoryLink.org. (Screen grab courtesy of KOMO-TV)
Lasting 45 seconds at 8:29 a.m., the quake, centered in Northeast Tacoma, shook residents and structures over an area of 190,000 square miles. Three died from falling debris and four others from heart attacks.
NOW: In a corresponding image today, a man, child and dog walk south along Green Lake near Highway 99. (Clay Eals)
The temblor marked the memories of many Northwesterners still living today. With its 60th anniversary upon us, the boy’s cheeky response merits reflection.
Running outside may be a natural gut reaction. But it goes against longstanding advice, which is to stay inside, move away from objects that could fall and crouch under a table or near a wall.
The boy’s sentiment, of course, wasn’t unique. Shuman’s other unnamed interviewees provided chilling echoes.
THEN: KOMO-TV reporter Howard Shuman’s unnamed interviewees included (clockwise from bottom left) a boy (“Ran outside. What else?”), a middle-aged man (“I walked right out of the building.”), a Queen Anne High School student (“Everybody started running out.”) and a young Fisher Flour Mill worker (“I ran about a 5-second 100-yard dash in street shoes.”). (Screen grab courtesy KOMO-TV)
A Queen Anne High School girl, queried downtown, described a scene of panic before classes were to begin: “At first we saw someone running down the hall. There was a lot of noise, and the building started moving and the floor shaking up and down, and everybody started running out.”
A middle-aged man who had been in an elevator in the Great Northern Building at Fourth and Union said, “The elevator wouldn’t work, I pushed all the buttons, and it was shaking, and I didn’t know what to do. Finally the door opened, I looked down, and it was still shaking, and I walked right out of the building.”
At Harbor Island’s Fisher Flour Mill, a wooden tank fell seven stories, brick walls broke away from the sixth floor and two died. A jittery young worker said, “I didn’t have any control over my legs, so I dove underneath a post until I quit, and I ran out, and I ran about a 5-second 100-yard dash in street shoes.”
A summary of steps for earthquake preparedness. (Seattle Times)
Admonitions to the contrary abound for an in-the-moment response. So do longer-term tips, such as those provided by Seattle disaster-preparedness coach Alice Kuder. Her firm, Just in Case, outlines a comprehensive “Flee Bag” of key items needed when a quake knocks out basic services.
All of which is immediately relevant, as geologists repeatedly tell us the Big One is imminent. Not if but when, and it could happen tomorrow. Our region’s most recent major earthquakes warned us in 1949, 1965 and 2001. Logic points to getting educated and taking precautions.
Indeed, “What else?”
WEB EXTRAS
Big thanks to Alice Kuder and especially JoeWren, longtime KOMO-TV archivist, 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, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.
THENs: With a fallen 60-foot stack piercing its boiler room, shifting stairs and a north wall pulling away, Alki Elementary School sustained the most damage of any Seattle public school. A worker posts a warning sign nearby. (Screen grabs courtesy KOMO-TV)THEN: Ordered by Gov. Dan Evans, a “Danger Keep Out” sign hangs inside Olympia’s State Capitol dome, which endured cracking during the earthquake. (Screen grab courtesy KOMO-TV)THEN: Rubble covers a parking area next to a dry-cleaning business in West Seattle’s Admiral district. (Screen grab courtesy KOMO-TV)THEN: A Rainier Beer worker wades in brewing beer that spilled onto a floor from a 2,000-gallon tank knocked off its foundation by the quake. (Screen grab courtesy KOMO-TV)April 29, 1965, Seattle Times, p1.April 29, 1965, Seattle Times, p2.April 29, 1965, Seattle Times, p3.April 29, 1965, Seattle Times, p4.April 29, 1965, Seattle Times, p5.April 29, 1965, Seattle Times, p31.April 30 1965, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p1.April 30 1965, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p2.April 30 1965, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p3.April 30 1965, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p4.April 30 1965, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p5.April 30 1965, Seattle Times, p3.April 30 1965, Seattle Times, p8.July 20, 1965, Seattle Times, p4.July 21, 1965, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p16.
THEN: The Cadillac Hotel, built within six months of the 1889 Great Seattle Fire, provided 25-cent a night lodging for workers in boomtown Seattle. Seriously damaged during the 2001 Nisqually earthquake, the hotel was purchased and rescued from demolition and restored by Historic Seattle.NOW: The residential Cadillac Hotel leased its lower floors to the National Park Service and the Seattle unit of the Klondike Gold Rush Museum (its alternate is in Skagway) since 2005. The museum, a popular venue for school tours, first opened in 1979 near Occidental Square by order of Congress. (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on April 17, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on April 20, 2025
Should Seattle’s Klondike museum close? Just ask its visitors
By Jean Sherrard
On a blustery, mid-March weekend, at a beloved federal facility targeted for closure by the current administration, it was time to strike it rich with opinions.
The museum’s front desk
At Seattle’s Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, inside Pioneer Square’s restored Cadillac Hotel, I launched a poll.
My first prospect was a tall, bearded, mountain of a man. Formerly a Lake Tahoe-area ranger, he was touring the Northwest. He shook his head, declining to identify himself. But as he watched a Gold Rush video, he seethed.
“Nothing I say would be printable,” he said. “If I told you what I really felt, it would ruin my vacation.”
No less passionate, others eagerly went on the record.
Theresa Lacey and Tom Calder read books by lamplight in a Gold Rush cabin exhibit. Theresa feels the pull of history: her great-grandmother, a widow with six children, came west on the Oregon Trail.
Theresa Lacey and Tom Calder of Redmond had just heard of the potential shuttering and made a beeline downtown.
“It feels just like burning books,” Lacey said.
“If we don’t know about the past,” Calder added, “we don’t know where we’ve been or where we’re going.”
Jason Hein, with daughter Vivian, said the museum provides a parallel lesson for today. In a dig at AI and
Jason Hein stands in front of an exhibit featuring John Nordstrom, among the few “stampeders” who made a profit in the gold fields. “It worries me when government tries to remove places like these,” Hein said. “We shouldn’t be erasing stories that inform people about historical facts.”
its investors, he said of the Gold Rush, “For the vast majority seeking the mirage of promised wealth, it was a complete bust.”
The lessons also are generational, Vivian noted: “Kids can come here and see how their ancestors lived and see how the city they live in was built.”
Connie Wall and Dawn Walker, longtime Olympia pals and “national park geeks,” said between them they’ve visited 30-plus national parks. They took the possible closure personally.
“It threatens who we are as people,” Wall said.
“As Americans,” Walker chimed in.
Jenny Dyste and David Monroe stand near a display of packaged goods sold during the Gold Rush. For Dyste, the museum holds a family connection. “My great-grandfather was one of those people who tried to strike it rich by going to Alaska,” she said. “He never made it home, killed by an avalanche.”
Ex-rangers David Monroe and Jenny Dyste, who ferried across the Sound to visit, saluted the museum’s organizational context.
“The national parks,” Monroe said, “are the greatest thing America has done. It’s a gift to the people of the United States.”
Lifelong Northwesterners John and Sandi O’Donnell were making their first visit.
John and Sandi O’Donnell stand near the story of brave women who ventured to the Klondike.
“I’m celebrating my 63rd birthday by buying a National Parks Senior Pass today,” John said.
Sandi lamented the “heartbreaking” prospect of closure. “This place is a national monument.”
Could I find supporters of closure? Try as I might, it just didn’t pan out.
Theresa Werlech of Mercer Island has worked as a tour guide for 35 of her 88 years. Escorting dozens of student choir members from Arizona, she summoned a hopeful analogy.
Longtime tour guide Theresa Werlech stands on an electronic scale that estimates her weight in today’s gold value.
“This place is an absolute jewel,” she said. “I’d be devastated if it closed. Let’s hope that the Klondike continues to go in search of gold.”
WEB EXTRAS
A handful of photos show off the museum’s lovingly designed interior, upstairs and down.
Groups of local seniors are represented in the museum’s fan baseInteractive displays appeal to young and oldThe museum’s downstairs is filled with artifacts, installations and dioramas
For our narrated 360 video of this column, please head over here!
THEN: This northwest-facing aerial, circa 1930-32 according to our automotive informant Bob Carney, zeroes in on Lafayette Elementary School, built in 1893 along California Avenue in West Seattle and damaged beyond repair by a 1949 earthquake. As can be seen here, the dome of the school’s rounded bell tower was shaved flat in 1923. In the photo’s foreground is the northwestern tip of Hiawatha Playfield, opened in 1911. A clumsy, oval-shaped attempt at repair of this print appears at the upper right corner. (Clay Eals collection)NOW1: This modern aerial, with a wider purview to take in more of the Admiral district plus Puget Sound, shows several surviving city landmarks: the 1919/1942 Admiral Theatre (upper right-center), the 1929 former Sixth Church of Christ, Scientist (lower right-center) and the 1911 Hiawatha Playfield (bottom center). (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on April 10, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on April 13, 2025
Neighborhood views from the air school us in new perspective
By Clay Eals
Throughout our lives, we often yearn to be close-up. But sometimes the farther away we get, the more we learn and appreciate. I’m speaking of distance — not only in physical space, but also in time.
Consider today’s pair of photos looking northwest at the West Seattle hub of Admiral Way and California Avenue. Taken from high up, they grant us perspective we rarely glean on the ground. They reveal how neighborhood icons can endure and how radically the rest of it can change.
THEN5: Students put on a Red Riding Hood play at West Seattle Central School, circa 1900. (Log House Museum / Southwest Seattle Historical Society)
Recently I received the main “Then” above — an oversized, mounted print — from a Fall City friend. Cars and other elements date it between 1930 and 1932. The photographer is unknown, but the image’s purpose is clearly to showcase its centered subject, Lafayette Elementary School.
THEN: A ground-level view of West Seattle Central School after its 1908 northern addition. (Log House Museum / Southwest Seattle Historical Society)
Built one-half block south of Admiral Way in 1893 before West Seattle became a city of its own (1902) and annexed to Seattle (1907), the schoolhouse was first called West Seattle Central, drawing students of all grades peninsula-wide. With a bell tower and spires, it took on the nickname of “The Castle.”
THEN: Large portions of Lafayette turned to rubble during an April 1949 earthquake. (Log House Museum / Southwest Seattle Historical Society)
Growth prompted an eight-room addition in 1908, and after West Seattle High School opened nearby in 1917, it focused on lower grades. In 1918, it was renamed for French Gen. Lafayette, who aided the Continental Army in the early 1780s during the U.S. Revolutionary War.
THEN: Earthquake-ravaged Lafayette Elementary was razed in August 1949. (Log House Museum / Southwest Seattle Historical Society)
An April 1949 earthquake, fortunately during spring vacation, reduced much of the edifice to rubble, so in 1950 a much flatter Lafayette opened on the same site, featuring nine rows of innovative brown “saw-toothed” rooftop skylights.
The school presides at the center of our “Now.” But both airborne views display much more that survives:
At upper right is the narrow 1919 Portola Theatre, predecessor of the expanded 1942 Admiral Theatre, today a beloved landmark moviehouse. At lower right is the 1929 former Sixth Church of Christ, Scientist, also a landmark and home of the newly opened Washington State Black Legacy Institute. And at bottom center is the northwest tip of 1911 Hiawatha Playfield, an Olmsted-designed landmark, with two lone tennis players on its courts in each photo.
NOW: Ron Edge has made and indexed high-res scans of hundreds of Seattle’s early aerial photos. To view a sampling of them, see below. (Clay Eals)
What’s changed in nearly 100 years? Oh, my. Lot sizes are far smaller. Houses and commercial buildings are more plentiful, many of them much taller.
The comparisons are seemingly endless, which is why drone shots and Google Earth are popular successors to the airplane- or even balloon-based photos of yesteryear, says Ron Edge, an expert on local aerial photography.
“The interest has always been there,” he says. “People have just loved to see what their towns looked like from the air.”
WEB EXTRAS
Big thanks to Ron Edge for his invaluable help with this installment!
To see Jean Sherrard’s aerial video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, visit here.
You also will find 107 photos from the Laidlaw aerial negatives in the Webster & Stevens Collections at the Museum of History & Industry, along with an index, courtesy of Ron Edge‘s scanning.
Sept. 11, 1926, Seattle Times, p2.Aug. 13, 1929, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p13.Dec. 24, 1930, Seattle Times, p4.June 8, 1933, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p2.May 25, 1941, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p32.May 25, 1941, Seattle Times, p34.July 23, 1949, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p11.Jan. 28, 1950, Seattle Times, p11.Aug. 6, 1950, Seattle Times, p53.Click the page above to see the Laidlaw aerial index, with dates and subjects for the cornucopia of 107 Webster & Stevens images below and for many others, nearly all from the 1930s. (Ron Edge, Museum of History & Industry)
The Alaska Building in 1904 – Seattle’s first steel-framed skyscraper (courtesy Ron Edge)
Help create a fun and timely Now & Then column featuring the local history of Social Security!
The Alaska Building was home to the first Social Security Administration offices in Seattle in 1937. Its enthusiastic regional director was the aptly named Frank Messenger.
The corner of Second and Cherry. The first Social Security bureau was on the Alaska Building’s second floor. (courtesy Ron Edge)
Join us Sunday, April 13, at 2pm at the northeast corner of Second and Cherry in front of the Alaska Building to demonstrate your support for a strong and healthy social security system.
Bring your SSA cards (or facsimiles) to hoist in the air for the group photo. All are welcome!
Also, another opportunity to make your voice heard. Send us your succinct thoughts about Social security for possible use in the upcoming column. All comments will be posted here on the blog as well. Please email seattlenowandthen@gmail.com with the subject line “Social Security.”
THEN1: Bellingham photographer M.F. Jukes perched atop a 15-foot boulder over Chuckanut Drive circa 1920, looking south to Pigeon Point. The Everett-Bellingham Interurban trestle curves along Samish Bay. Unseen in this photo, Great Northern Railway tracks hug the shore.NOW1: The prospect from Jukes’ boulder is now obscured by fir trees, as is the view of Samish Bay. A single car speeds along the narrow lanes, paved with asphalt since 1960. (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on April 6, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on April 3, 2025
Cruise along Chuckanut Drive – ‘an incomparable panorama’ since 1916
By Jean Sherrard
For my Grandpa Jean, a truck driver originally from Stillwater, Oklahoma, the journey was the destination.
A view from Chuckanut of the Salish Sea
In the 1930s, he crisscrossed Washington state in his trucks and was eager to share his scenic discoveries with a growing young family.
Hugging the steep sides of Chuckanut Mountain south
An early, unpaved section of highway showcases the sandstone cliffs of Chuckanut Mountain. Sturdy concrete guardrails replaced wooden fences attached to stone bollards in the mid-1920s. Distinctive Chuckanut sandstone adorns many buildings throughout the Northwest.
of Bellingham, Chuckanut Drive offered breathtaking vistas across Samish Bay and must have attracted the ex-Okie flatlander like a bee to honey.
Parking along the two-lane road and scrambling down to a small Pigeon Point cove for picnics became a family tradition. Sandy beaches, busy crab pots and massive Burlington Northern trains (and the pennies they flattened) colored childhood memories.
Chuckanut Drive has always taken the “drive” part of its name seriously. It can be traversed by car,
Concrete guardrails above a 1925 Chuckanut Drive bridge reveal a road without shoulders or sidewalks, carved directly from the cliff-face. The Chuckanut Mountains are said by some to be “the only place where the Cascades come west down to meet the sea.”
motorcycle or a particularly intrepid bicycle, but its narrow curves chiseled into precipitous sandstone cliffs leave scant margins for error (or photographers!). Likewise, its creation story boasts twists and turns worthy of dime-store novellas.
Primitive and undependable, the earliest north-south passages along the west side of Chuckanut Mountain were subject to falling rocks and high tides.
The Salish Sea and several San Juan islands are seen from today’s Burlington Northern tracks, 200 feet below Chuckanut Drive. Chuckanut is an Indigenous word meaning “long beach far from a narrow entrance.”
After the Great Northern Railway bought the right-of-way along the shoreline in 1893, road improvements were stalled to prevent landslides that might impede rail traffic.
In 1910, a nascent state highway department took control, hiring inexperienced convict crews to carve out stone ledges watched over by guards with shotguns. After 5.5 grueling miles, money ran out, and labor ground to a halt. With a further injection of state funding, contractors finally completed the task.
Hailed upon its spring 1916 opening, the road boasted a slew of firsts. A glowing Seattle Times account proclaimed it “the first link of the Pacific Highway from Vancouver B.C. to San Francisco to parallel salt water.” The route also handily connected Skagit Valley farms to Whatcom County ports, “proving its utilitarian value” while providing “an incomparable panorama of Western Washington.”
An outdoor concert stage in Larrabee State Park
What’s more, Bellingham’s Charles Larrabee, encouraged by Gov. Ernest Lister, donated 20 acres of forested land along the road’s northern stretch, which became Washington’s first state park. Proclaimed the Times, “It will undoubtedly be appreciated by tourists desiring an ideal picnic spot.”
In 1919, Chuckanut Drive began to be paved and widened, attracting even more sightseers. By the mid-1920s, tourist-filled buses with observation windows shared the highway with Prohibition-skirting smugglers of liquor and drugs from Canada.
The Larrabee family gifted the state another 1,500 nearby acres in 1937. Today’s 2,683-acre Larrabee State Park is one of the state’s largest and most popular — and just one of the many hallmarks of spectacular Chuckanut Drive.
WEB EXTRAS
To view our narrated 360 degree video of this column, click right here.
And for ultimate enjoyment, check out this hand-tinted photo from the same prospect (but a different photog) supplied by the legendary Ron Edge.
This hand-tinted photo is more than worthy of its lovely frame!
Below, a few more photos of Larrabee State Park beach and environs.
