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Now & Then Paul Dorpat

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ONE OF THE marks for the community's passage of time is our Big Snow of 1916. While still celebrated, it is, of course, increasingly not remembered. A very small circle of Seattle "natives" now recalls events of 90 years ago vividly.

Not so long ago the 1916 blizzard was still remembered. During our big snow of 1996, any born-and-bred local of, say, 90 would have remembered the snowfall that began in earnest on the late afternoon of Feb. 1, 1916. By 5 p.m. on Feb. 2, the Weather Bureau at the Hoge Building at Second Avenue and Cherry Street measured 26 inches. This is still our 24-hour record. Five hours later the depth reached 29 inches.

This view of the historic pileup looks north up the waterfront from the Marion Street overpass. Here are the several "railroad piers" built early in the 20th century with boom-time profits increased by the Yukon/Alaska Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Most survive. The smaller structure right of center is an earlier version of Fire Station No. 5.

Canada's Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad built the ornate pier filling the left foreground in 1914. Here, passengers could board the railroad's own "mosquito fleet" of sleek steamers for a scenic ride north to the railroad's West Coast terminus at Prince Rupert and there make connections for "all points east." The railroad's first pier here was built in 1911 but destroyed by fire only three years later. This replacement was built in the style of the original designed by Seattle architect James Eustace Blackwell, and survived until 1964, when it was razed for the staging of vehicles waiting to board Washington State Ferries.

Paul Dorpat specializes in historical photography and has published several books on early Seattle.

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