Who gave the name of “Wedgwood” to this northeast Seattle neighborhood?
Henry R. Hansen lived in Wedgwood for only a few years, but he left a legacy: the naming of the neighborhood. He didn’t do this on purpose, though. Circa 1945 he changed the name of Hansen’s Tavern to the Wedgwood Tavern in a new building he had built on the same site, at 8517 35th Ave NE.
A plat becomes a name
American Home Builder magazine article of 1946 tells of Balch housing developments
In 1941 developer Albert Balch bought a tract of land and filed a plat map marked with streets and house lots. Plats have names, and he gave the naming rights to his wife Edith.
Balch and his business partner Ralph Jones had begun their real estate development work in the 1930s a few blocks away, at an area which they named View Ridge. In a 1955 interview for the Wedgwood Community Club newsletter, Balch explained that his wife Edith had not liked the name “View Ridge” so Balch told her she could choose the name for his next project.
Entrance “gate of Wedgwood” to the original development on the west side of 35th Ave NE. Photo by Valarie.
Edith was a fan of the British company which produced Wedgwood-blue dinnerware, and she thought that this would make a good name for Balch’s new plat of houses.
Edith knew that her husband had commissioned architects to build Cape Cod & Colonial-style houses which hearkened to English homes. Edith may also have thought of the allusion to “woods” as Balch’s intention was to preserve trees on the property amongst the houses.
When Balch laid out the plan in 1941, “Wedgwood” meant only this development on the west side of 35th Ave NE between NE 80th to 85th Streets.
The Shauers start the first business block in Wedgwood
Prohibition, the national ban on alcoholic drinks, ended in December 1933. As of April of that year, some establishments had been allowed to phase into serving alcohol again, with what was known as three-two beer. This 3.2% alcoholic drink was meant to ease the public into drinking without going into too much alcohol content.
Joe Shauer lived at 8517 35th Ave NE and he had already tried to make a living on several businesses, including a small grocery store and a gas station on the site. In 1933 he applied for a liquor license and began serving three-two beer in his cafe. He didn’t want to do this work himself, however, so he employed a tenant to live in a house behind the building and run the cafe.
The Shauer’s store and gas station in the 1920s.
Joe Shauer missed out on the rise of the Wedgwood neighborhood because it didn’t happen until the 1940s. In 1929 the landowner on the block to the south of NE 85th Street, sold his property to the Jesuits of Seattle University. Joe Shauer thought that if the university was going to move out there, it would not be a good business environment, so in 1935 he sold his property and moved away. But the university plan was never built. Instead, the land was sold again in 1941, to a developer, Albert Balch, who built residential housing.
A business investment
When Prohibition ended, a lot of people looked at the sudden opening of taverns in 1934 and thought that they might try their hand at this business, too. Along with Shauer’s cafe at NE 85th Street, in 1934-1935 Ida’s Inn opened at NE 75th Street and Fiddler’s Inn at NE 94th Street.
Henry R. Hansen bought the Shauer property, moved into their house and kept the businesses on-site. He may have been thinking about changing vocations or perhaps the property was just a business investment. The name “Foster’s Grocery & Service Station” on the property photo, indicates that a tenant might have been running the businesses, not Mr. Hansen himself.
The Hansen family business in early Seattle
Hansen brothers Jim and Henry circa 1910
Henry R. Hansen was a co-owner of the Hansen Brothers Moving & Storage Company which was founded in Seattle in 1890 and still exists today. His parents, Peter & Metta, immigrated from Denmark in 1889 and got in on the business boom after the Seattle Great Fire of that year.
Peter established the P. Hansen Transfer & Freight Company near Pioneer Square as the city was rebuilding in 1890. In those days a moving company & delivery service was sometimes called an express, a transfer company or a drayage. The company’s primary work was unloading freight from rail cars and delivering goods to merchants, or to a storage facility. Delivery drivers drove horse-drawn wagons until about 1910, when Hansen’s started buying truck chassis and constructing frames to accommodate freight.
Circa 1906 the Hansens moved to the University District where they established another office and lived at 4259 Roosevelt Way NE. The eldest of the Hansen children, daughter Johanna who had been born in Denmark, married in 1907. The youngest, Bessie, married in 1914, with the two brothers, James & Henry, marrying in-between those years. By 1920, Peter & Metta Hansen were deceased, and Henry was running the Hansen Brothers company with his siblings.
The name of the renamed tavern catches on
The Wedgwood Public House, descendant of the original tavern. Photo by Valarie.
Today the NE 85th Street intersection in Wedgwood is a major commercial district with banks, cafes and shops on all four corners, in contrast to 1945 when there was only one building at the intersection: Hansen’s Tavern at 8517 35th Ave NE.
Circa 1945-1946, Henry R. Hansen could see that young families were arriving to populate Balch’s Wedgwood houses, and that population trend was likely to attract businesses to the neighborhood. Perhaps this is the reason why Henry decided to redevelop his property which faced the arterial 35th Ave NE, to add more commercial space.
Hansen built a new building with storefronts, enclosing the tavern at the north end of the building. It is very common to rename a business when it is in a new building, so Hansen’s Tavern re-opened as the Wedgwood Tavern. Today there is the Wedgwood Public House at the same site, in the same building built by Henry R. Hansen.
A 1966 photo of the business block with McVicar’s Hardware at center. The Wedgwood Tavern is to the right of the hardware store. At far right is Bud Gagnon’s Wedgewood Pharmacy.
The neighborhood had no name as of 1945, but “Wedgwood” was becoming recognizable due to Balch’s advertising to sell the new houses. After the Wedgwood Tavern opened in the new building in 1945-1946, other businesses began adopting the name “Wedgwood.” By 1954 the name was so much in use that the school district chose it for the new Wedgwood Elementary School. This seemed to solidify the name and the identity of the neighborhood.
As to “who” named the Wedgwood neighborhood, we may say that Henry R. Hansen, Albert Balch, and Edith Balch all had a part.
Today’s view of the block where there was once only the Shauer’s house and the tavern developed by Henry R. Hansen. Photo by Valarie.
Sources:
Henry Hansen with truck circa 1915
Census and newspaper articles.
Phone books and other City Directories: these were not printed during the World War Two years but knowing that Hansen’s new building was constructed in 1945-1946, we can assume the tavern name was changed at that time. It is listed as Wedgwood Tavern in 1946. The first business to open in the adjacent storefronts was McVicar & Son Hardware.
Interviews with Ruth Shauer Jameson, daughter of Joe Shauer, in 1993.
Plat name: the notation “Earl J. McLaughlin” on some of the old photos, is the name of the plat from NE 85th to 90th Streets on the west side of 35th Ave NE.
Website of Hansen Moving & Storage/history.
Hansen’s original office near Pioneer Square
Other source articles on this blog:
The History of Wedgwood’s Neighborhood Pubs
The home of the Shauer family at the north end of the block, closest to NE 86th Street, present site of the Wells Fargo Bank in Wedgwood.
What About the “E” in Wedgwood?
Wedgwood’s First Business District
The McVicar Hardware Store in Wedgwood
Names in the Neighborhood: Wedgwood’s Boundaries and Neighborhood Identity
Albert Balch Part Three: Learning Real Estate in View Ridge
Albert Balch Part Four: A New Development in Wedgwood
Wedgwood in Seattle History 