Seattle Historical Sites

Summary for 107 Occidental WAY / Parcel ID 5247800535 / Inv #

Historic Name: Walker Block or Walker Building Common Name: Al & Bob's Saveway Style: Commercial Neighborhood: Pioneer Square Built By: Year Built: 1891   Significance In the opinion of the survey, this property is located in a potential historic districe (National and/or local). The Seattle Post-Intelligencer of September 8, 1891 wrote: “The piledriving for Cyrus Walker’s four-story brick immediately south of the Korn Block on Second Street is about to be completed. The building will complete the block of buildings on South Second Street between Yesler avenue and Washington street [sic].” Second Street, of course, is now Occidental South. Jeffrey Ochsner and Dennis Andersen in Distant Corner: Seattle Architects and the Legacy of H. H. Richardson, in reference to the same building, mention that the architects were Boone and Willcox. Also noted is that the building, although planned as a four story building, was never built past the first floor. Despite the changes to the storefront, it retains enough detailing, a mix of Victorian and classical ornament, to give a sense that it is part of the first wave of building, right after the Fire of 1889. It is also intriguing that it is another building commissioned by Cyrus Walker, Cyrus Walker was a very successful Puget Sound lumberman and the head of the Puget Mill Company in Port Ludlow. He also developed several properties in the “burnt district, including the very notable Marshall-Walker Building, now the Globe Building , another “Walker Building,” now the Seattle Quilt Building, located on First Avenue S., south of the Globe Building. This is by no means the best example of Boone and Willcox work, partly because it was never really completed. It still represents an early commercial building erected soon after the Fire of 1889. Born in Pennsylvania in 1830, W.E. Boone was described in his 1921 obituary in the Post-Intelligencer, as a direct descendant of Daniel Boone. His architectural career in Seattle is interesting, because he had a known practice before Seattle’s Great Fire and was a partner in several successful offices well after the fire, a rarity among the architects who contributed to the rebuilding of Seattle in 1889. He was responsible for many buildings in what is now the Pioneer Square Historic District, including the pre-fire Yesler-Leary Building, which stood at the intersection of Yesler Avenue and First Avenue, the Globe Building (the former Marshall Walker Block), the Washington Iron Works Building (now the Washington Shoe Builing) and the Seattle Quilt Building. Before his arrival in Seattle, he worked in railroad construction in Chicago, then in building construction in Minneapolis and the Bay Area. There he began to enjoy some prominence as the designer of the “Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind,” in Berkeley and a Masonic Temple and a City Hall in Oakland, California. He arrived in Seattle around 1882, where he remained until his death. In partnership with William H. Willcox, he also completed the spectacular New York Building , (1889-1892 – now demolished), at the northeast corner of Second Avenue and Cherry Street . Before the formation of Boone and Willcox in 1890, William H. Willcox (born 1832; not to be confused with W. H. R. Wilcox) practiced in New York, Chicago, Nebraska and Minneapolis-St. Paul and published an eighty four page booklet entitled: Hints to Those Who Propose to Build – Also a Description of Improved Plans for the Construction of Churches. The Boone and Willcox partnership lasted until 1893. Willcox then practiced architecture in Los Angeles from 1893 to 1895 and architecture and surveying in San Francisco in the 1900s and 1910s. He died in California in 1929. From 1894 to 1899, Charles Bruhn occupied the building and from 1903 to circa 1906, the Seattle Market, owned by the Frye-Bruhn Company. From 1906 to 1930, its successor, the Frye Company, owned by Charles Frye, occupied the building. Charles Frye founded Cudahy Bar-S Brand Meats and is also associated with the Charles and Emma Frye art collection and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle. The building was known for a long time, at least until the late 1960s, as the “Frye Market.”   Appearance This is a one story building. It has one façade on Occidental Avenue South. Exterior walls are primarily of brick, but the façade is mainly taken up by storefront and has rusticated stone cladding and what appears to be cast stone cladding above the lintel. The façade is divided into three parts by original bracket-like ornaments at the top of the façade. The ends of the façade are rusticated blocks topped by the same kind of ornament. Storefronts are newer and utilitarian, but there are also vestiges of original ornamental metal storefront: thin engaged round tube-like columns with capitals which show a leaf pattern. These vestiges of metal pier (probably cast all in one piece) occur at the center of the second bay at each side of the doorway and at the third bay, at each side of a doorway.

Detail for 107 Occidental WAY / Parcel ID 5247800535 / Inv #

Status: Yes - Inventory Classication: Building District Status: NR, LR Cladding(s): Brick, Metal, Stone, Stone - Cast Foundation(s): Concrete - Poured Roof Type(s): Flat with Parapet Roof Material(s): Unknown Building Type: Commercial/Trade - Business Plan: Rectangular Structural System: Masonry - Unreinforced No. of Stories: one Unit Theme(s): Architecture/Landscape Architecture, Commerce, Community Planning/Development Integrity Changes to Original Cladding: Moderate : Changes to Plan: Intact Storefront: Extensive Major Bibliographic References Ochsner, Jeffrey and Dennis Andersen. Distant Corner: Seattle Architects and The Legacy of H. H. Richardson. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2004. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 8 September 1891.

Photo collection for 107 Occidental WAY / Parcel ID 5247800535 / Inv #

Photo taken May 24, 2004