Pioneer Square is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of Downtown Seattle, Washington, US. It was once the heart of the city: Seattle's founders settled there in 1852, following a brief six-month settlement at Alki Point on the far side of Elliott Bay. The early structures in the neighborhood were mostly wooden, and nearly all burned in the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. By the end of 1890, dozens of brick and stone buildings had been erected in their stead; to this day, the architectural character of the neighborhood derives from these late 19th century buildings, mostly examples of Richardsonian Romanesque.
Yesler Terrace is a 22-acre (8.9 ha) public housing development in Seattle, Washington, United States. It was completed in 1941 as the state's first public housing development and the first racially integrated public housing development in the United States. It occupies much of the area formerly known as Yesler Hill, Yesler's Hill, or Profanity Hill. The development is administered by the Seattle Housing Authority, who have been redeveloping the neighborhood into a mixed-income area with multi-story buildings and community amenities since 2013.
Rainier Tower is a 41-story, 156.67 m (514.0 ft) skyscraper in the Metropolitan Tract of Seattle, Washington, at 1301 Fifth Avenue. It was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, who designed the World Trade Center in New York City as well as the IBM Building, which is on the corner across the street from Rainier Tower to the southeast. Its construction was completed in 1977.
Victor Eugene Steinbrueck was an American architect, best known for his efforts to preserve Seattle's Pioneer Square and Pike Place Market. He authored several books and was also a University of Washington faculty member.
Henry Leiter Yesler was an entrepreneur and a politician, regarded as a founder of the city of Seattle. Yesler served two non-consecutive terms as Mayor of Seattle, and was the city's wealthiest resident during his lifetime.
Hotel Seattle, also known as Seattle Hotel and the Collins Block, was located in Pioneer Square in a triangular block bound by James Street to the north, Yesler Way to the south, and 2nd Avenue to the east, just steps away from the Pioneer Building. It succeeded two prior hotels, a wooden and then a masonry Occidental Hotel.
The Pioneer Building is a Richardsonian Romanesque stone, red brick, terra cotta, and cast iron building located on the northeast corner of First Avenue and James Street, in Seattle's Pioneer Square District. Completed in 1892, the Pioneer Building was designed by architect Elmer Fisher, who designed several of the historic district's new buildings following the Great Seattle Fire of 1889.
Diamond Parking is an American company that operates parking lots in nine U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. It is based in Seattle, Washington, and was founded in 1922 by Louis Diamond. As of 2021, the company operates 1,914 parking lots with over 148,000 stalls in 47 cities.
The Grand Opera House in Seattle, Washington, US, designed by Seattle architect Edwin W. Houghton, a leading designer of Pacific Northwest theaters, was once the city's leading theater. Today, only its exterior survives as the shell of a parking garage. Considered by the city's Department of Neighborhoods to be an example of Richardsonian Romanesque, the building stands just outside the northern boundary of the Pioneer Square neighborhood.
The Westin Seattle is a twin-tower highrise hotel in Seattle, Washington.
The Central Waterfront of Seattle, Washington, United States, is the most urbanized portion of the Elliott Bay shore. It runs from the Pioneer Square shore roughly northwest past Downtown Seattle and Belltown, ending at the Broad Street site of the Olympic Sculpture Park.
Elmer H. Fisher was an architect best known for his work during the rebuilding of the American city of Seattle after it was devastated by fire in 1889. He began his career as a carpenter and migrated from Massachusetts to the Pacific Northwest, where he practiced architecture from 1886 to 1891. After his reputation was damaged by litigation and personal scandal in Seattle, he relocated to Los Angeles in 1893, where he only had modest success as an architect before returning to carpentry, dying around 1905 with his final years almost as mysterious as his early years; the details of his death and his burial location remain unknown. His commercial building designs played a major role in reshaping Seattle architecture in the late 19th century and many still survive as part of the Pioneer Square Historic District.
William Boone was an American architect who practiced mainly in Seattle, Washington from 1882 until 1905. He was one of the founders of the Washington State chapter of the American Institute of Architects as well as its first president. For the majority of the 1880s, he practiced with George Meeker as Boone and Meeker, Seattle's leading architectural firm at the time. In his later years he briefly worked with William H. Willcox as Boone and Willcox and later with James Corner as Boone and Corner. Boone was one of Seattle's most prominent pre-fire architects whose career lasted into the early 20th century outlasting many of his peers. Few of his buildings remain standing today, as many were destroyed in the Great Seattle fire including one of his most well known commissions, the Yesler – Leary Building, built for pioneer Henry Yesler whose mansion Boone also designed. After the fire, he founded the Washington State chapter of the American Institute of Architects and designed the first steel frame office building in Seattle, among several other large brick and public buildings that are still standing in the Pioneer Square district.
The architecture of Seattle, Washington, the largest city in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S., features elements that predate the arrival of the area's first settlers of European ancestry in the mid-19th century, and has reflected and influenced numerous architectural styles over time. As of the early 21st century, a major construction boom continues to redefine the city's downtown area as well as neighborhoods such as Capitol Hill, Ballard and, perhaps most dramatically, South Lake Union.
Augustus Warren Gould was an architect in Boston and Seattle, as well as surrounding areas of the Pacific Northwest including Canada. Gould was born in Nova Scotia, in Canada. He moved from Boston to Seattle by 1905. His firm's work in downtown Seattle included the American Savings Bank and Empire buildings (1906) which were the second and third concrete reinforced structures in the United States ever built. He also designed the King County Courthouse in downtown Seattle. Gould was not formally trained as an architect. His background was in building and contracting.
Theodore E. Peiser was an early photographer in Seattle, Washington and the Pacific Northwest. His studio and many of his photographs were lost in the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. His surviving photographs include one of the few photographs of the Seattle skyline from Beacon Hill before the fire as well as the Yesler-Leary Building in 1885, several years before it burned in the fire. He also captured the first and second Occidental Hotel buildings that preceded the Seattle Hotel and Sinking Ship. He also documented the debut of the first Seattle Street Railway horse-drawn streetcar in 1884 with mayor John Leary.
1st Avenue is a major street in Seattle, Washington, United States. It traverses Downtown Seattle, including Pioneer Square and Belltown, as well as the adjacent neighborhoods of SoDo and Lower Queen Anne. Numerous landmarks including parks, museums, and historic buildings are located along the street, including Pike Place Market. The Great Seattle Fire of 1889 destroyed much of it and it had to be rebuilt. Parades have taken place on it before and after the fire.
The Interurban Building, formerly known as the Seattle National Bank Building (1890–1899), the Pacific Block (1899–1930) and the Smith Tower Annex (1930–1977), is a historic office building located at Yesler Way and Occidental Way S in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Built from 1890 to 1891 for the newly formed Seattle National Bank, it is one of the finest examples of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in the Pacific Northwest and has been cited by local architects as one of the most beautiful buildings in downtown Seattle. It was the breakthrough project of young architect John Parkinson, who would go on to design many notable buildings in the Los Angeles area in the late 19th and early 20th century.
The Mutual Life Building, originally known as the Yesler Building, is an historic office building located in Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood that anchors the West side of the square. The building sits on one of the most historic sites in the city; the original location of Henry Yesler's cookhouse that served his sawmill in the early 1850s and was one of Seattle's first community gathering spaces. It was also the site of the first sermon delivered and first lawsuit tried in King County. By the late 1880s Yesler had replaced the old shanties with several substantial brick buildings including the grand Yesler-Leary Building, which would all be destroyed by the Great Seattle Fire in 1889. The realignment of First Avenue to reconcile Seattle's clashing street grids immediately after the fire would split Yesler's corner into two pieces; the severed eastern corner would become part of Pioneer Square park, and on the western lot Yesler would begin construction of his eponymous block in 1890 to house the First National Bank, which had previously been located in the Yesler-Leary Building. Portland brewer Louis Feurer began construction of a conjoined building to the west of Yesler's at the same time. Progress of both would be stunted and the original plans of architect Elmer H. Fisher were dropped by the time construction resumed in 1892. It would take 4 phases and 4 different architects before the building reached its final form in 1905. The Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York only owned the building from 1896 to 1909, but it would retain their name even after the company moved out in 1916.
Charles Douglas Stimson (1857–1929) was a prominent businessman in Seattle, Washington.
