North corner of 7500 35th Ave NE struck by this vehicle on January 12, 2020. The driver lost control and swerved off the road.
On January 12, 2020, a car swerved off the road and struck the northernmost corner of the building at 7500 35th Ave NE, in the block to the north of the Wedgwood Safeway. The incident has caused renewed interest in the history of this building. The original building of 1926 was a neighborhood grocery; from 1934 to 1948 it was Ida’s Inn Beer Parlor.
This is the story of Ida’s Inn and the evolution of the business district at the intersection of NE 75th Street and 35th Ave NE.
The Ihrig family across America
The Ihrig family were German immigrants who ended their westward migration when they came to Seattle in 1883. In 1852 Adam & Mary Ihrig had first settled in northern Illinois in a large German farming community. Adam & Mary decided to move farther west in the 1870s. Their tenth child was born while they lived near Albany, Oregon, again amongst German settlers. But the Ihrig family still kept moving, and by the early 1880s they were in Seattle.
Perhaps Adam & Mary thought that there would be more and better opportunities for their family in the city of Seattle, or perhaps their grown sons persuaded them to move. In the 1880s Seattle had a large German immigrant community with its own churches, social clubs and even a German-language newspaper; the Ihrig family would feel at home. The Washington Territorial Census of 1883 recorded that the older Ihrig sons worked in downtown Seattle that year as blacksmiths, butchers & saloonkeepers.
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Wedgwood in Seattle History 