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Saturday, July 16, 2011

Seattle of the Past

I blogged a bit about my grandmother-in-law a few months back . Yesterday I was delighted to borrow for a season even more of her treasures.  One is a scrapbook with newspaper clippings with everything from World War 1, Seattle and Skagit county tidbits, humor pieces and articles about famous people.  It's awesome. The funny thing is I KNOW how awesome this is but still find myself wishing she didn't paste crooked or cut dates and publication names off.  I am chiding myself for being bothered by this because this book is a gem and who am I to complain when there are so many things to delight over it about?!

Here are three images of Seattle I wanted to share with others who can't get enough of old Seattle.  There's no date on this but I think it might be about 1930 and I would love any comments if there's anything about this photo that can help in dating it. "Here is a photograph of modern Seattle's skyline showing some of the principle buildings 1--Terminal Sales 2--Securities 3--Bon Marche. 4--Shopping Tower. 5--Medical-Dental. 6--Vance. 7--Fourth Avenue. 8--Northern Life. 9--Olympic Hotel. 10--Marlborough. 11--Exchange. 12--County-City. 13--Smith" (middle of scrapbook page - click image and look for magnifying glass to enlarge)
From Maren Nielsen Andersen's album
I'm not really clear if the image above the "Today And Yesterday" clipping was part of the same article. The buildings don't look familiar to me.  *Update 1/19/12 - Identified buildings found on Paul Dorpat's site

This was a really tiny photo that appears to be something she purchased:
From Maren Nielsen Andersen's album

The next beautiful photo is dated 1932: "The Seattle Sunday Times Rotogravure Pictorial Sections June 5, 1932. "The U.S.S. Akron visits the Pacific Northwest: The Big Naval Airship is seen in her flight over Seattle.  High above the towers of the business district the huge dirigible sails as, during her loop over the city, she heads Northward for her appearance over Everett, Bellingham, Port Townsend and Port Angeles. She came up the coast from Sunnyvale, Cal. This view was from the roof of the Exchange Building."

From Maren Nielsen Andersen's album
Sadly, According to Wikipedia, The U.S.S. Akron met with a disaster less than a year after its West Coast tour.

2 comments:

  1. This is a great photo that I've not seen before. Unusual to see the Seattle Tower and the Telephone Building when they were the skyscrapers of the uptown area. And any shot of the "blimp" is a reason to celebrate, say I. Thanks for this post!

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  2. Thanks for the comment, Matt! I'd love to see print of this to get a clearer scan than you can get from an almost eighty year old newspaper clipping.

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