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Built in 1920, this property was purchased in December of 1919 by the Brown Brothers Lumber Company, a development company which was located at 1321 Smith Tower. Ralph D. Brown was the manager. By 1938, Russell A. and Olive L. Provine resided in the building. The Provine’s resided previously at 2811 Thirty-Second Avenue South. Mr. Provine worked as treasurer for Northwest Broadcasting System Inc. Mr. Provine purchased the building in July of 1941 and remained in the house through 1961. Ralph G. McCune bought the house in April of 1962 for $12,750 and remained through 1968.
The Mount Baker neighborhood comprises two north-south tending ridges located southeast of downtown Seattle along Lake Washington. Initial development of the area occurred relatively late, post-1900, following the construction of the Rainier Avenue Electric Street Railway in the 1890s. York Station on Rainier Avenue and the Dose Addition were developed earlier than the Mount Baker Park Addition, platted in 1907 by the Hunter Tract Improvement Company. The Mount Baker Park Addition represents the core of the neighborhood and is its primary character-defining feature. Mount Baker Park is one of Seattle’s earliest planned residential communities that successfully integrated the natural environment and a relatively exclusive residential neighborhood in its layout of lots, streets, boulevards, and parks. The houses, primarily built between 1905 and 1929, reflect a variety of eclectic and Northwest-based architectural styles, and include designs by many prominent local architects.
Other important influences were the streetcar connection with downtown Seattle, the integration of local parks and boulevards into the Olmsted system, the construction of Franklin High School in 1912, and the building of the Mount Baker tunnel and Lacey V. Murrow Floating Bridge to Mercer Island in 1940. Today this middle-to-upper income neighborhood remains predominantly residential, is home to an ethnically diverse population, and retains much of its planned character.
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