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Suited For Survival

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COURTESY OF LARRY HOFFMAN THEN: Andre Wilse's ca. 1900 point of view looking west on James Street from Third Avenue was almost 10 feet higher than mine for the repeat. That intersection was lowered about one story in 1906-7 during one of the many early-20th-century street regrades. Consequently, Wilse looks in line with the third story of the still-standing Collins building on the far left of his view. PAUL DORPAT NOW: Although holding my camera above my head, I could not reach high enough to get the same perspective as Wilse had.

MOST CITYSCAPES recorded in the central business district during Seattle's boom years after the Great Fire of 1889 concentrate on the avenues, especially First and Second. So this prospect on James Street from Third Avenue is unique. It is also impressive. Photographer Andre Wilse recorded it sometime before he returned home to Norway for good in 1900. The 1,000-some images he left are the best single record of Seattle in its first Gold Rush years, beginning in 1897.

In order to show only brick and stone monuments to the post-fire reconstruction of Seattle, Wilse probably avoided the clapboard Normandy/Drexel Building that appears, in part, on the far left of the "now" shot. (It was built before the fire, and is now the oldest surviving structure in the business district.) Instead, the still-standing (and restored in 2001) Colman Building is on Wilse's far left.

Kitty-corner across Second and James are the distinguished six stories of the Butler Hotel. Guests included Presidents Grover Cleveland, William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt. Its Rose Room survived most of the Prohibition years with a combination of payoffs, advance tips on raids, and liquor stocked in lemonade bottles. Patrons drank to the music of Vic Meyers and his Brunswick Recording Orchestra.

The Romanesque and robust Smith block fills most of the right side of Wilse's view at the northeast corner of Second and James. The Harford Building seen in the "now" replaced it in 1930.

John Collins, builder of both the Collins Building and the Seattle Hotel (a slice of the hotel is seen between the Collins and the power pole on the left) was also an early investor in the James Street Cable Railway. Service on these cars lasted until 1940.

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