The New Face of Main Street
A wooden 'temporary' structure goes up at the corner of Main and Second, drawing both praise for its utility and a critique of Seattle's lack of permanent masonry.
Work is rapidly being pushed forward on the new building which Col. Squire is putting up on the southwest corner of Main and Second streets, and it is the intention, if possible, to get the structure under roof before the winter sets in in earnest. The architects of the building are Messrs. Boone & Meeker, and their plans cannot be too highly praised, as they have certainly made the very best possible use of the material in their hands. The building is to be a wooden structure, three stories in height, fronting 70 feet on Main street and 120 on Second. The ground floor will be occupied by six store rooms. From each street there will be an entrance stairway leading to the upper floors. The two upper stories are to be divided into bedrooms, which will number in all seventy. It is to be earnestly regretted that the owner of the valuable land did not see fit to erect a building of more substantial and less dangerous materials. This, at best, can be only a temporary structure, as Seattle will be a city of brick and stone, and not a hamlet of wood.
“This, at best, can be only a temporary structure, as Seattle will be a city of brick and stone, and not a hamlet of wood.”
This 1883 article captures the precise moment Seattle began to transition from a frontier 'hamlet of wood' to a brick metropolis, a process accelerated shortly after by the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. Today, the corner of Main and Second is in the heart of Pioneer Square, the very district that eventually defined the city's brick-and-mortar identity.
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