Exterior of Sears, Roebuck & Company warehouse, Seattle, circa 1915

Chicago-based mail order firm Sears, Roebuck & Company opened its first Seattle warehouse about 1910 in the Pioneer Square neighborhood. By 1913 the company had completed construction on a new seven-story reinforced concrete warehouse and distribution center closer to the rail yards south of downtown. The following year Sears announced plans for a huge addition to the distribution center, designed by the company's in-house architect, George C. Nimmons (1865-1947). The addition, a nine-story brick building with iconic clock tower, was completed in 1915. Sears added retail space to the complex in the 1920s, and continued operating at the site until 2014. This image, facing northwest from the lumber-paved intersection of Utah Avenue S. and S. Lander Street, shows the 1913 building and the new 1915 addition, complete but for its clock. Both buildings are still standing in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood, utilized since the 1990s as the headquarters for the Starbucks Corporation. Caption information from Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, Parcel ID 7666207220. Caption information source: *Subjects (LCTGM): Business districts--Washington (State)--Seattle; Mail-order businesses--Washington

Date

c. 1915

Photographer / author

Webster & Stevens

Archive

Wikimedia Commons

Type

photograph

Original size

700 × 576 pixels

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