Fremont’s Elephants

Posted on June 1, 2019 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Even though elephants are only native to Africa and Asia, elephants appear in art, literature and cultural references worldwide.

The Elephant Store in Seattle, far right, as photographed in 1878 by Peterson Studio.

Perhaps the earliest elephant-reference in Seattle was in the 1870s.  In this 1878 photo, we see the Elephant Store on First Avenue at the southeast corner of Columbia Street.  We don’t know exactly why it was called the Elephant Store.  In his commentary on this photo, Seattle historian Paul Dorpat speculated that “presumably both the bargains and the selection were oversized.”

The Fremont neighborhood of Seattle is well-known for its art installations such as Lenin, the Troll and the Interurban statue.  There currently is no elephant-art-motif in Fremont, but historically Fremont has had its own connections to elephant lore:  an elephant named Wide Awake who lived at the nearby Woodland Park Zoo, and an elephant art piece created in Fremont which is displayed as a store’s sign at 8808 Aurora Avenue North.

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Discovering History through Digitized Newspapers

Posted on May 30, 2019 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Washington State is rich in digital resources for historic research.  Many of the research collections of the Washington State Library are on-line.  The Washington State Library, a division of the Office of Secretary of State, has launched a new website for the Washington Digital Newspapers program at:   Washingtondigitalnewspapers.org.

The Washington Digital Newspapers site features newspapers from smaller cities and a pioneer-era collection of newspapers which may have only been in print for a few years.

To access historical search of the newspapers Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Seattle Times, go to the website of the Seattle Public Library.  Use the tabs for “on-line resources” and “genealogy resources” to get to the newspaper search, the census and other searches.

This post (below) is re-blogged from the Secretary of State’s office; read on for more info about the digital newspaper collection of the Washington State Library.

The Washington State Library has digitized some historic newspapers.

 

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Fremont Drug Company in Seattle, Part Three: from Drugstore to Red Door

Posted on April 24, 2019 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

The Red Door in Fremont is in a building which was moved to its present site, 3401 Evanston Ave N.  Another restaurant by a different name is now in this building.  Photo by Valarie.

The Red Door restaurant was in the Fremont Drug Company building which was moved to its present site, 3401 Evanston Avenue, in the year 2001.  This original Fremont Drug Company building was built in 1895 at 3401 Fremont Avenue.

Founded in 1988, the Red Door restaurant closed on March 8, 2020.  The costs of doing business, rent, etc., proved to be too much.  The building is owned by Suzie Burke, a major landholder in Fremont.

This is the third blog post in the series about the Fremont Drug Company and its building, which I will continue to refer to as the Red Door, for the purposes of this article which was written before the restaurant closed.

The story of the Red Door building illustrates the historic heritage of the Fremont business district and the ups and downs of its economy through the impacts of events such as the construction of the ship canal, the construction of the Aurora Bridge, and the economic depression of the 1930s.  As of this update in March 2020 the coronavirus epidemic has set off another economic recession in which more restaurants may close.

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Fremont Drug Company in Seattle, Part Two: the Brothers and the Business

Posted on March 19, 2019 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

The census of the year 1900 showed that at age 24, Thomas W. Lough had already experienced extremes of joys and heartaches in his life.  At age 21 in January 1898, Thomas married Vina Graham in a ceremony at the home of Vina’s parents in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle.  Less than two years later, Vina died.

Vina Lough grave marker at Mt. Pleasant Cemetery on Queen Anne Hill. Photo courtesy of FindAGrave.com

The census of the year 1900 listed the widowed Thomas Lough and his one-year-old daughter Verah as living with his in-laws, Stephen & Emma Graham, who lived next door to the Cheadle family in the 3600 block of Aurora Avenue.  The Grahams raised their granddaughter, freeing Thomas Lough to attend classes at the University of Washington and work toward his chosen profession of pharmacist.

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Fremont Drug Company in Seattle, Part One: Beginnings

Posted on March 8, 2019 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Looking southward from Second & Cherry Streets in July 1889, we see tents set up for businesses in the burned-over downtown district. Photo courtesy of MOHAI.

In the 1880s the City of Seattle had been growing slowly and was only the second-largest city in Washington Territory, after Walla Walla.  At the end of that decade, Seattle experienced a growth spurt from an unexpected source:  a major fire in its downtown business district.  Seattle’s Great Fire of June 6, 1889, caused the rebirth of the city.  The post-fire rebuilding boom made Seattle the most populous city in Washington, a position which it has never lost since then.

The Great Fire did not reached the residential hillsides surrounding downtown Seattle.  After the Fire the residential areas began to grow as new people streamed into Seattle to get work in the reconstruction-of-downtown building boom.  Fremont was one of the neighborhoods which grew with the population growth of Seattle.

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The Naming of Seattle

Posted on March 4, 2019 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Along with the story of the naming of Seattle’s downtown streets, here on this blog I have also explored ways to find out the meaning of street names outside of the downtown area.

The origins of the naming of the City of Seattle are still being debated today.  Was Seattle first called “Duwamps?”  I (Valarie) am re-posting here, an excellent article by Seattle historian Rob Ketcherside, which explores the origins of Seattle’s naming.

US topographical map t1406 of Duwamish Bay

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Doctors and Drugstores in Early Fremont, Seattle

Posted on February 20, 2019 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

In 1894 Ross and Fremont were shown as place names with railroad stops. The ship canal had not yet been built but there was a creek called The Outlet from Lake Union, flowing westward.

The story of Seattle’s Great Fire of June 6, 1889, was widely publicized in national newspapers, including the response of Seattle leaders who pulled together immediately to commence rebuilding the downtown business zone.

Across the USA people recognized the opportunity to get in on the reconstruction boom, and soon people of many different skills, from carpenters to real estate investors, began arriving in Seattle.  New doctors arrived in the city, too, and businessmen with services to offer such as drugstores, meat markets and groceries.

The suburb of Fremont had been founded just a year before Seattle’s Great Fire and was out of range of the fire.  Fremont’s industries, including a lumber mill, iron foundry and construction materials company, boomed with business in the post-fire City of Seattle rebuilding program.  Fremont also acquired new doctors and drugstores in 1889-1890 to serve the resident population.

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The Canney Family and the Lake Union Presbyterian Church

Posted on February 6, 2019 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

The Fremont neighborhood of Seattle is located at the northwest corner of Lake Union, which Seattle’s early-arriving white settlers recognized as an ideal location for industries such as sawmills.

In 1888 Fremont’s developers began sales of lots from this real estate sign at about the present site of the Fremont Bridge. Photo courtesy of UW Special Collections, Asahel Curtis Item 482.

Even though the future-Fremont site was the 1854 homestead claim of William A. Strickler, settlement of this advantageous land area was delayed by legal problems until 1888.

Finally when the new Seattle suburb was named Fremont and was opened up for settlement in 1888, there was a land rush of buyers wanting to obtain lots.  In order to help get the new community going, the real estate agents offered residential lots at the price of $1 to the first one hundred buyers.

Along with residences and businesses, a minister was one of the first to buy property in the new Fremont development.  Rev. Albert Canney was a church-planter employed by the office of the Presbyterian churches of Seattle.  Rev. Canney purchased a site for a future church building in Fremont on North 36th Street at the northeast corner of 1st Ave NW.

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Freedom in Fremont: An Early Gas Station in Seattle

Posted on February 1, 2019 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

In the early 1900s nationalist fervor built up in Europe until the tensions exploded into the First World War from 1914 to 1918.  When Germany declared war on Russia, it set off power struggles within that country which ended Russia’s Romanov dynasty and led to even more political and social upheaval.  Vladimir Lenin claimed to be leading a “workers revolution,” but he seized power and became dictator of the world’s first communist country, the Soviet Union.

Lenin speaking at a rally in 1919

In Seattle after the First World War there was some economic instability and social unrest such as the Seattle General Strike in February 1919.  In 2019, the centennial year of the Seattle General Strike, the event was re-examined as to its causes, course, and conclusion.

Some believe that the Seattle General Strike was triggered in part by news of the “workers revolution” in Russia.  Unfortunately for Russia, the so-called “power to the people” movement devolved into nothing more than another oppressive regime, led by Lenin.

Despite some turmoil in Seattle in 1919, free enterprise prevailed.  One of the key factors in overcoming oppression is the freedom to make one’s own choices of work and other opportunities.  In Seattle in the 1920s immigrants could take hold of the American Dream by owning their own businesses.  One such example of immigrant success was the Fremont Tire Shop at 3526 Fremont Place North, in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle.  The business was established by two Norwegian men.

The content of this article is protected under a Creative Commons Copyright.  Do not copy text or photos.

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Wedgwood and the Inaugural Day Storm of 1993

Posted on January 19, 2019 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

It was January 20, 1993, the day of the inauguration of incoming president Bill Clinton, and I was watching the ceremony and events of the day on TV. 

Wedgewood Estates apartments looking eastward along NE 77th Street. At left is the scarlet oak tree at the corner of 38th Ave NE.  Photo by Valarie, October 2018.

I lived in an apartment on the NE 77th Street side of the Wedgewood Estates complex.  As the day went on, I could see outside that the branches of trees were waving wildly as the wind blew stronger and stronger.  Suddenly with a bang, the wind caught the open window of my upstairs neighbors’ apartment.  The window frame swung outward and back again against the building, shattering the glass. I went outside to look, and then I heard more cracking sounds coming from the corner of NE 77th Street and 37th Ave NE.

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