The Changing Face of Front Street
Seattle's wooden buildings are vanishing, replaced by permanent brick structures as the city matures.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mr. G. Poncin has succeeded in purchasing from Mr. H. L. Yesler a piece of land 50x100 feet in size, north of and adjoining the Seattle Safe Deposit Company's property on Front Street, the purchase price being $600 per front foot, or $30,000 for the ground. On this Mr. Poncin will build during the present season a three-story brick building, with a basement. The front will be very handsome and will be what is known as a bay window front. It is understood that the Hall & Paulson Furniture Company will occupy the whole of the first floor, while the two upper flats will be divided into handsome offices. Thus one by one the wooden buildings on Front Street are being moved back to give way to larger, handsomer and more substantial structures.
“Thus one by one the wooden buildings on Front Street are being moved back to give way to larger, handsomer and more substantial structures.”
Front Street (modern Alaskan Way/First Avenue) was the epicenter of early Seattle's development. This transition from wood to brick was the literal construction of the city that would define the late 19th century, a process that mirrors current rapid densification and vertical change in downtown Seattle today.
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