1st Avenue is a major street in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

, United States. It traverses

Downtown Seattle Downtown is the central business district of Seattle, Washington. It is fairly compact compared with other city centers on the U.S. West Coast due to its geographical situation, being hemmed in on the north and east by hills, on the west by ...

, including Pioneer Square and Belltown, as well as the adjacent neighborhoods of

SoDo Sodo ( am, ሶዶ) or Wolaita Sodo ( am, ወላይታ ሶዶ) or ( Wolaytatto: ''Wolayta Sodo Ambbaa'') is a city in south-central Ethiopia. The administrative center of the Wolaita Zone. It has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation bet ...

and

Lower Queen Anne Lower Queen Anne (officially known since 2021 as Uptown) is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, at the base of Queen Anne, Seattle, Queen Anne Hill. While its boundaries are not precise, the toponym usually refers to the sho ...

. Numerous landmarks including parks, museums, and historic buildings are located along the street, including

Pike Place Market Pike Place Market is a public market in Seattle, Washington, United States. It opened on August 17, 1907, and is one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers' markets in the United States. Overlooking the Elliott Bay waterfront on Pu ...

. The

Great Seattle Fire The Great Seattle Fire was a fire that destroyed the entire central business district of Seattle, Washington on June 6, 1889. The conflagration lasted for less than a day, burning through the afternoon and into the night, and during the same sum ...

of 1889 destroyed much of it and it had to be rebuilt. Parades have taken place on it before and after the fire.

History

1st Avenue is called "Seattle's oldest thoroughfare". Seattle's original street system was a misaligned grid created by three of the original settlers. Today's 1st Avenue was Front Street north of Yesler in

Arthur A. Denny Arthur Armstrong Denny (June 20, 1822 – January 9, 1899) was one of the founders of Seattle, Washington,, Special Collections, Washington State Historical Society (WSHS). Accessed online 8 March 2008. the acknowledged leader of the pioneer Den ...

's plat, and Commercial Street to its south in Doc Maynard's. The grid persists in the 21st century and 1st Avenue makes two 20-degree bends where it enters and exits the Downtown Seattle core, or Denny's plat.

Great Seattle Fire and Underground Seattle

1st Ave from Columbia St after Seattle fire of June 6, 1889 (CURTIS 502)

1st Avenue South in Pioneer Square is built over and adjacent to "areaways" comprising Underground Seattle, dating to rebuilding following the

of 1889. The fire began where the Federal Office Building (Seattle) now stands. Street level was lifted one story in most of Pioneer Square.

Rebuilding

Parade, First Avenue, Seattle, early 1900s

Seattle, First Avenue, circa 1942 (19352697212)

After the Great Fire, present-day Pioneer Square was rebuilt with fireproof materials including stone and brick, often with iron structural members. Historic buildings from this period on 1st Avenue that remained in the late 20th century include: *

Pioneer Square pergola The Pioneer Square Pergola is a cast iron and glass pergola in Pioneer Square, Seattle, Pioneer Square, a park in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. It was built in 1909 to shelter passengers waiting for Cable railway, cable cars on the ...

(1909) * Pioneer Building (1889–90) * Mutual Life Building (1892) on the site of Seattle's first community building, Yesler's cookhouse * Yesler Building (1890–95) * Schwabacher Building (1890) * Terry-Denny Building (1889–90) *

Maynard Building The Maynard Building is a five-story office building in Seattle, Washington. Constructed in 1892 on a Romanesque Revival design by Albert Wickersham, the masonry building was originally known as the Dexter Horton Building and housed Dexter Horton ...

(1892) * Lippy Building (1900) * The City Club (1906) * State Hotel (1890) * Grand Central Building (1889) * Globe Hotel (1890) * Bread of Life Mission (1889) * Maud Building (1889) * Squire Building (1900) * Smith Building (1900) * Seattle Quilt Building (1904) * Pacific Marine Building (1905) * Wax & Raine Building (1904) * Seller Building (1906) * Hambach Building (1907) * Seattle Hardware (1904) * Flatiron Building (aka Triangle Hotel and Bar) (1908–10) Just north of Pioneer Square is the 1889

Colman Building The Colman Building is a historic office building on First Avenue (Seattle), First Avenue in downtown Seattle, Washington (state), Washington. It occupies a half of a block in proximity to Pioneer Square, and is bound by First Avenue, Marion, an ...

Pike Place Market

(opened 1907), "one of Seattle's most famous cultural and commercial institutions", faces 1st Avenue on its east side, between Pike Street and Virginia Street.

Street description

SoDo

1st Avenue South is an arterial through the center of the South of Downtown (SoDo) industrial area of Seattle. It is designated as one of three or four north-south "major truck streets" in the district.

Starbucks Center The Starbucks Center (formerly the SODO Center) is the world headquarters of the List of coffeehouse chains, coffeehouse chain Starbucks. It is located in the SoDo, Seattle, SoDo neighborhood of Seattle, Washington; the area is part of the cit ...

, built in 1912 and headquarters of Starbucks since 1997, is on 1st Avenue South in SoDo. After it briefly joins State Route 99 then crossing the

Duwamish River