The Seattle Athletic Club's Search for a Home
A look at the social life of late 19th-century Seattle as the local Athletic Club secures new quarters and refines its membership rules.
The Seattle Athletic Club held a business meeting last night at the Northern Hotel to solidify plans for new, permanent quarters. After the potential lease at the Citizens' Market building failed due to legal obstacles, the board finalized a proposition to occupy three basement stories in a new block to be erected at the northwest corner of Front and Seneca Streets. Plans include a natatorium on the first level and a gymnasium on the others. Until the site is ready, the club will operate out of temporary rooms in the Seattle National Bank building at the intersection of South Second Street and Yesler Avenue. The club also updated its constitution, changing its official colors from white and red to white and blue, and established new categories for non-professional athletic members.
“The plan is to have a natatorium on the first story, and to make a gymnasium of the other two, with all the proper appendages of reception, reading, billiard and instructor’s rooms.”
The club’s struggle to find a permanent home in the early 1890s echoes Seattle's ongoing cycle of development and displacement. The intersection of Front (now 1st Avenue) and Seneca remains a central hub in the city, though the structures have changed many times since.
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