The Great Northern's Building Boom
New bricks and stone are transforming the downtown core as the Great Northern Railway’s arrival spurs a flurry of commercial construction.
The story, cleaned up
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The building will be of brick and stone. The lower story will be used for stores and the upper stories for offices. The building will cost about $12,000. This is but one of several brick and stone buildings being erected in the city, totaling about 30 buildings. C.K. Douglas, of the Douglas-Fir Investment Co., said the company intended to make this a second Bailey building, at the southeast corner of Second and James streets. The lower floor will be devoted to stores and the rest of the building to offices. The reason for this, Mr. Douglas says, is because with two exceptions, this corner is today a better corner than any other in the city. The same company also contemplates the erection of a four-story brick building on the same block on Jackson street (facing the Northern depot), and will set to building as soon as the work of tearing down the old buildings is taken by the railway company.
“The reason for this... is because with two exceptions, this corner is today a better corner than any other in the city.”
This 1893 boom, fueled by the arrival of the Great Northern Railway, mirrors the rapid speculative development of modern downtown Seattle. The struggle between tearing down old structures for new commercial towers remains a defining rhythm of the city's urban evolution.
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