The Union Trust Building is a commercial building in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

, United States. Located in the city's

Pioneer Square Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and dev ...

neighborhood, on the corner of Main Street and Occidental Way South ( Occidental Mall), it was one of the first rehabilitated buildings in the neighborhood, which is now officially a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

. In the 1960s, when Pioneer Square was better known as "

Skid Road A skid row or skid road is an impoverished area, typically urban, in English-speaking North America whose inhabitants are mostly poor people " on the skids". This specifically refers to poor or homeless, considered disreputable, downtrodden or fo ...

", architect Ralph Anderson purchased the building from investor

Sam Israel Sam Israel (March 4, 1899 – June 11, 1994) was an American real estate investor and landlord. Biography Israel was born to a Greek Jewish familySummary for 117 S Main ST S / Parcel ID 5247800365
Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. Accessed online December 3, 2007.

History

Before the Fire

The entire lot now occupied by the Union Trust Building (the 1893 portion) was originally filled by the 3-story Pacific House, one of the larger wood-frame hotels in Pioneer Square. Designed by Boone & Meeker, It was built from late 1883 to early 1884 by soon-to-be territorial governor

Watson C. Squire Watson Carvosso Squire (May 18, 1838June 7, 1926) was an American Civil War veteran, twelfth governor of Washington Territory, and United States Senator from the state of Washington. Biography Born in Cape Vincent, New York, Squire attended the p ...

and was operated by Eben A. Thorndyke. By 1885 The hotel went into receivership and all the fixtures were auctioned off. It continued on under new management until the great fire and despite the announcement of plans for a 3-story brick hotel, the site would remain vacant for the next several years afterwards.

The Union Trust Company

The Union Trust Company was incorporated in October 1892 by a wealthy syndicate consisting of bankers Edward O. Graves and Manson F. Backus, attorney Thomas B. Hardin, King County

auditor An auditor is a person or a firm appointed by a company to execute an audit.Practical Auditing, Kul Narsingh Shrestha, 2012, Nabin Prakashan, Nepal To act as an auditor, a person should be certified by the regulatory authority of accounting and au ...

William R. Forrest and now ex-governor Squire with a capital stock of $500,000. The company's purpose would be to manage and develop Squire's numerous property holdings including various subdivisions, the Squire-Latimer Building at First and Main (where they would locate their offices) and the property where the Pacific House had stood, among many others. The future site of the Union Trust Building would be transferred from Squire to the trust company on December 9, 1892.

Main Building

Seattle Cracker and Candy Company - 1900

Erected in 1893, the four-story building was one of the few substantial buildings built in Seattle that year, owing to the onset of the

Panic of 1893 The Panic of 1893 was an economic depression in the United States that began in 1893 and ended in 1897. It deeply affected every sector of the economy, and produced political upheaval that led to the political realignment of 1896 and the pres ...

. Highly praised at the time of its construction, it was designed by the architectural partnership Skillings and Corner (Warren Porter Skillings and James N. Corner) in a style described as Italian renaissance. The original plan had called for the use of white sandstone on the ground floor and red brick above, but "white" (actually very light gray) brick throughout was chosen instead, an unusual choice for the time, and a trendsetting one. It was also unusual (though not unique) for its time in having electric (rather than hydraulic)

elevator An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...

s. Used in its early years for a series of wholesale businesses (including Roy & Company, H N. Richmond and Company and John B. Agen), its floors were designed to carry loads of 250 pounds per square foot.Summary for 119 S Main ST S / Parcel ID 5247800360
Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. Accessed online December 3, 2007. The National Grocery Company occupied space in the building until moving into the much larger National Building at Western Avenue and Madison Street in 1904, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Union Trust Building and most of Squire's Pioneer Square property would be purchased shortly after his 1897 death by New York banker and industrialist

Lyman Cornelius Smith Lyman Cornelius Smith (1850-1910) was an American innovator and industrialist. He is buried in a mausoleum in Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse, New York. Early business ventures L.C. Smith's first business venture occurred in 1873, when he opened a ...

who would eventually build the famous

Smith Tower Smith Tower is a skyscraper in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Completed in 1914, the 38-story, tower is the oldest skyscraper in the city and was among the tallest skyscrapers outside New York City at th ...

. The building today is largely intact, although it is missing part of its original

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...

. This was most likely caused by the

1949 Olympia earthquake The 1949 Olympia earthquake occurred on April 13 at with a moment magnitude of 6.7 and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of VIII (''Severe''). The shock was located in the area between Olympia and Tacoma, and was felt throughout the state, as well ...

which damaged many buildings in the Pioneer Square district.

The Union Trust Annex

The adjacent Union Trust Annex (1900–1901) continues a similar design. Brothers Paul and

Michael James Heney Michael James "Moose" Heney (October 24, 1864 – October 11, 1910) was a railroad contractor, best known for his work on the first two railroads built in Alaska, the White Pass and Yukon Route and the Copper River and Northwestern Railway. The son ...

commissioned Saunders and Lawton to design a building matching the Union Trust Building in November 1900. M.J. Heney was a contractor in the Yukon who had been responsible for building most of the

White Pass and Yukon Route The White Pass and Yukon Route (WP&Y, WP&YR) is a Canadian and U.S. Class III narrow-gauge railroad linking the port of Skagway, Alaska, with Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon. An isolated system, it has no direct connection to any other railr ...

from

Skagway The Municipality and Borough of Skagway is a first-class borough in Alaska on the Alaska Panhandle. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,240, up from 968 in 2010. The population doubles in the summer tourist season in order to deal wit ...

Whitehorse Whitehorse () is the capital of Yukon, and the largest city in Northern Canada. It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1426 (Historic Mile 918) on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale areas ...

and used the profits from that project to invest in Seattle property. The name Union Trust Annex dates only from the 1970s. It was built for Ernest Thurlow, and was intended for his Superior Candy and Cracker Company; the Seattle Cracker and Candy Company was already operating in the adjacent Union Trust Building. Superior Candy and Cracker Company occupied the entire annex building from March 1901 to 1915. Unlike the Union Trust Building, the Union Trust Annex retains all of its original parapet. The Union Trust Annex was the original home of the Seattle Unit of the

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stamped ...

, opening in 1979 after several years of work. That move one block south and one block east in 2005 to new quarters in the former Cadillac Hotel. Cadillac Hotel Grand Opening September 2005
, Historic Seattle. Accessed online December 3, 2007.

Notes

{{Pioneer Square, Seattle Commercial buildings completed in 1893 Commercial buildings in Seattle Pioneer Square, Seattle 1893 establishments in Washington (state)