Union Trust Building (Seattle)

The Union Trust Building is a commercial building in Seattle, Washington, United States. Located in the city's Pioneer Square neighborhood, on the corner of Main Street and Occidental Way South (Occidental Mall), it was one of the first rehabilitated buildings in the neighborhood, which is now officially a historic district. In the 1960s, when Pioneer Square was better known as "Skid Road", architect Ralph Anderson purchased the building from investor Sam Israel for $50,000 and set about remodeling it, a project that set a pattern for the next several decades of development in the neighborhood.[1] Anderson also rehabilitated the adjacent Union Trust Annex.[2]

For the building in Cleveland, Ohio formerly known as the Union Trust Building, see Huntington Bank Building. For the building in Pittsburgh, see Union Trust Building (Pittsburgh).
Union Trust Building
The building's exterior in 2007
Location115-119 S Main St
Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Coordinates47°35′59.36″N 122°19′59.93″W
Built1893 (1893), 1901 (1901) (Annex)
ArchitectWarren Skillings
James Corner
Architectural styleRomanesque Revival
Part ofPioneer Square Historic District (ID70000086)
Designated CPJune 22, 1970

Main building
The building in 1900, before the construction of the annex.

Erected in 1893, the four-story building was one of many to be built in the "burnt district" in the years after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. Highly praised at the time of its construction, it was designed by the architectural partnership Skillings and Corner (Warren Porter Skillings and James N. Corner) in a style described as Italian renaissance.[3] The original plan had called for the use of white sandstone on the ground floor and red brick above, but "white" (actually very light gray) brick throughout was chosen instead, an unusual choice for the time, and a trendsetting one. It was also unusual (though not unique) for its time in having electric (rather than hydraulic) elevators.[4]

Used in its early years for a series of wholesale businesses (including Roy & Company, H N. Richmond and Company and John B. Agen), its floors were designed to carry loads of 250 pounds per square foot.[4] The National Grocery Company occupied space in the building until moving into the much larger National Building at Western Avenue and Madison Street in 1904, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[5]

The building today is largely intact, although it is missing part of its original parapet.[4] This was most likely caused by the 1949 Olympia earthquake which damaged many buildings in the Pioneer Square district.

The Union Trust Annex

The adjacent Union Trust Annex (1900–1901) continues a similar design; the architect is unknown, but it was not Skillings and Corner. The name Union Trust Annex dates only from the 1970s. The use of light brick was, by then, a well-established practice. It was built for Ernest Thurlow, and was intended for his Superior Candy and Cracker Company;[2][4] the Seattle Cracker and Candy Company was already operating in the adjacent Union Trust Building.[6] Superior Candy and Cracker Company occupied the entire annex building from March 1901 to 1915.[2]

Unlike the Union Trust Building, the Union Trust Annex retains all of its original parapet. [2]

The Union Trust Annex was the original home of the Seattle Unit of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, opening in 1979 after several years of work.[7] That move one block south and one block east in 2005 to new quarters in the former Cadillac Hotel.[8]

Notes
  1. Marcie Sillman, Downtown: The First Downtown Archived October 13, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, KUOW-FM, March 12, 2007. Accessed online 3 December 2007.
  2. Summary for 117 S Main ST S / Parcel ID 5247800365, Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. Accessed online 3 December 2007.
  3. "Artists in Building... Two New Wholesale Blocks on Main Street". The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. 13 Mar 1893. p. 5. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  4. Summary for 119 S Main ST S / Parcel ID 5247800360, Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. Accessed online 3 December 2007.
  5. "National Grocery Company, Home of the Reliance Brand of Canned Goods" Seattle Times 7 Feb. 1904.
  6. Polk's Seattle City Directory 1899, Polk's Seattle Directory Co., 1899, p. 866.
  7. Chapter 11: Establishing the Seattle Unit Archived December 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, Klondike Gold Rush: Administrative History Archived December 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine (Administrative history of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park), National Park Service. Accessed online 3 December 2007.
  8. Cadillac Hotel Grand Opening September 2005 Archived July 8, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Historic Seattle. Accessed online 3 December 2007.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.