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Now & Then | Post Mortem

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COURTESY OF LAWTON GOWEY THEN: The grandest ruins from the 1889 Great Fire of Seattle can be seen from Yesler Way looking north along Post Alley. PAUL DORPAT NOW: This south end of Post at Yesler Way is called an avenue, while its north end, at the Pike Place Market, is more often called an alley.

This view looks north from Yesler Way through the grandest ruins left by the city's Great Fire of June 6, 1889. On the left a team and wagon head south on the then two-block-long avenue named "Post." In its life, Post has been variously called a street, an avenue and an alley, a confusion that was avoided on many early maps by keeping it nameless.

This original two-block elbow of Post was first graded (over rubble) in 1884. It ran between Yesler Way and Columbia Street. In 1888, Post was paved with planks that were scorched by the fire.

Also in 1888 the City Council agreed to extend Post as far north as Union Street, where it first touched solid ground above the waterfront's meandering line. The 1889 fire helped in this public work by creating tons of fill, most of which was used on the waterfront. Most of the bricks, however, were salvageable for rebuilding the business district, and soon after the fire the ruins were crowded with brick cleaners — by one estimate, about 200 of them. Consequently, these walls were soon razed and the bricks used again in construction.

But during its grand years from 1883 to the '89 fire these sturdy back walls were the rear face of Seattle's first architectural show-strip of the 1880s. The fronts faced the west side of First Avenue (then still named Front Street) between Yesler Way and Columbia Street.

When it was first built in 1881 the closest ruin on the right was Seattle's most ornate structure. It was named the Post Building for the newspaper that shared it with lawyers, a real-estate firm and the Lowman and Hanford Book Store. Next to these bare walls is the rubble of the Seattle post office, a flimsy frame structure that gave no resistance to the fire.

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