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Ahead Of The Curve

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COURTESY OF FRANK HARWOOD THEN: A rare, if not so spectacular, view into a Seattle neighborhood ca. 1906 reveals a still largely rough University of Washington campus as a dark curtain of evergreens behind the Latona skyline. PAUL DORPAT NOW: A few of the homes showing in the "then" survive, although with one or two exceptions they are hidden in this view. Posing are a few neighbors who were nearby when I visited the scene.

IN 1906 OR perhaps as late as early 1907, the photographer Frank Harwood visited the northwest corner of the Latona Addition and recorded this view looking east on 42nd Street from First Avenue Northeast. That the scene does not include any obvious landmarks is part of its unique appeal. It is rare to find early views like this of "mere" residential streets rather than commercial ones.

The 1906 date is figured from the Latona Primary School campus, which appears here right-of-center. The white tower just to the left of the power pole (near the scene's center) tops the first Latona School from 1891, the year that Latona and Brooklyn (University District) and Fremont were annexed into Seattle. To the left of the tower is the larger Latona School No. 2, which was completed in 1906. So this year it celebrates its centennial, helped along by a restoration in 1999-2000.

The 1907 speculation is figured from the screen of trees on the horizon. That is the part of the University District that, beginning in 1907, was elaborately changed for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909. None of the grand fair structures is yet apparent here; they would be by 1908. However, at the far left border of the scene is a glimpse of the university's nearly new Science Hall, later renamed Parrington Hall.

The Latona Addition was filed in 1889, one year before Brooklyn. At the north end of its namesake Latona Bridge it was, at least east of Fremont, the primary business center of the North End throughout the 1890s. In 1902, however, under protest Latona lost its federal post office to "University Station," the then "hip" name of the University District.

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