| Historic Name: |
Marshall-Walker Building |
Common Name: |
Globe Building |
| Style: |
Commercial - Chicago School, Queen Anne - Richardsonian Romanesque |
Neighborhood: |
Pioneer Square |
| Built By: |
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Year Built: |
1891 |
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| Significance |
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In the opinion of the survey, this property is located in a potential historic districe (National and/or local). |
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The Globe Building was designed by William E. Boone in 1890-1891 as the Marshall-Walker Block. The two portions of the building were jointly developed by Ezekiel L. Marshall and Cyrus Walker, who separated their respective portions with a brick wall. Cyrus Walker, a very successful Puget Sound lumberman, involved in real estate in Seattle, was the primary investor. He was the head of the Puget Mill Company in Port Ludlow. He also developed other properties in the “burnt district”: the Walker Building, now the Seattle Quilt Building, located on First Avenue S., south of the Globe Building and most likely the one-story building just south of the Korn Building, now Al and Bob’s Saveway. The Globe Building also sits on the former site of Seattle’s first hospital which was opened in 1863 by Dr. David S. Maynard, affectionately and more commonly known as “Doc” Maynard and a famous early settler.
The structure was designed for warehouse use and designed to carry heavy loads; but the north half of the building originally had fifty separate offices. In the 1890s, it was converted to the Windsor Hotel and in 1898, renamed the Globe Hotel. The Globe Hotel operated until the 1960s. A major fire broke out in the building in 1901. All of Seattle’s fire engines and a five-inch stream of water from the fireboat Snoqualmie were needed to put out the blaze. In 1924, the premises of the Northwestern Drug Company, a front for illegal liquor production, located on the second floor, exploded, showering glass and debris on the street below. At the ground level, the building also housed a saloon, from 1891 to 1970, which, however, sold soft drinks during Prohibition. In 1926, the Seattle Quilt Company became one of the building’s tenants and stayed until the 1970s. The Marshall-Walker/ Globe Building is an interesting combination of the grid-like tendencies of Victorian architecture, with many elements of Chicago School architecture: the strong base, middle and top (even if gone), the wide arches in rusticated stone, the repeated bays and corbel treatment.
The architect of the Marshall-Walker Building, W.E. Boone was born in Pennsylvania in 1830, and described in his 1921 obituary in the Seattle 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 of 1889 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 began his career in railroad construction in Chicago, then pursued 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. He was responsible for many buildings in what is now the Pioneer Square-Skid Road National Historic District including: the pre-fire Yesler-Leary Building, which stood at the intersection of Yesler Avenue and First Avenue, the Merchant’s Café Building (the former Sanderson Block) and the Seattle Quilt Building (former Walker Block) at 316-318 First Avenue S., between Main and Jackson Streets. In partnership with William H. Willcox, he completed the now demolished but spectacular New York Building , (1889-1892), at the northeast corner of Second Avenue and Cherry Street and designed the original four floors of the J.M. Frink Building (or Washington Iron Works Building), now known as the Washington Shoe Building (1891-1892), at the southeast corner of Occidental Avenue South and Jackson Street.
In 1893, in A History of Washington, the Evergreen State, From Early Dawn to Daylight, Julian Hawthorne wrote of Boone: “This well-known citizen, though not among those who came to Seattle at the earliest day of the city’s history to lay here the foundations of municipal and commercial greatness, is a prominent and representative man of the re-enforcement [sic] that came when the place was beginning her larger growth; and to this re-enforcement much of the credit of the city’s remarkable advancement is due.”
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| Appearance |
| The Globe Building is a four story brick block with stone and cast-stone trim and heavy timber interior structure. It has a 60’ x 112’ rectangular footprint and a basement level. The ground level is clad in rusticated stone, which is also used at the second floor level to emphasize parts of the building: for instance the rustication is brought up to the second level above the Main Street entrance, which is topped by a semi-circular window opening. The same treatment is used at the corner entry on Main Street and First Avenue South (on both sides of the corner) and on the last bay, moving south along First Avenue. The upper level of the facades along Main Street and First Avenues are of brick with stone or cast-stone trim and each divided into eight bays. Standard bays above the ground floor level consist of paired trabeated openings with rusticated stone lintels and sills. The “special” bays which have semi-circular openings at the second level, consist of paired openings, as well, but the top paired openings are arched. Currently there are vestiges of what once a imposing cornice. This was partially destroyed during the 1949 earthquake and most of the rest of cornice removed, when cornices in the district were being removed as a safety precaution. The cornice detailing was higher at the “special bays,” creating a kind of towerlike element at the corner of Main Street and First Avenue South.
An important feature of the 1980s restoration by Jones and Jones Architects Landscape Architects involved breaking through the brick wall that separated the “Marshall” and the “Walker” on the interior and connecting the two parts. The name of the former Globe Hotel, housed in the Marshall wing, inspired the current name of the building. Aside from the loss of the cornice, and reconstruction of the storefronts at the Main Street /First Avenue South corner and along First Avenue, all of which is somewhat standard in Pioneer Square restorations, the building is surprisingly intact on the exterior. The interior retains finishes and characteristic Victorian millwork from its original design. |
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| Status: |
Yes - Inventory |
| Classication: |
Building |
District Status: |
NR, LR |
| Cladding(s): |
Brick, Stone - Ashlar/cut |
Foundation(s): |
Concrete - Poured |
| Roof Type(s): |
Flat with Parapet |
Roof Material(s): |
Asphalt/Composition |
| Building Type: |
Commercial/Trade - Warehouse |
Plan: |
Rectangular |
| Structural System: |
Masonry - Unreinforced |
No. of Stories: |
four |
| Unit Theme(s): |
Architecture/Landscape Architecture, Commerce |
| Integrity |
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Storefront: |
Moderate |
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Changes to Original Cladding: |
Slight |
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Changes to Plan: |
Intact |
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Changes to Windows: |
Intact |
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| Major Bibliographic References |
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Bagley, Clarence B. History of Seattle. Chicago: S.J. Clarke, 1916.
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Ochsner, Jeffrey and Dennis Andersen. Distant Corner: Seattle Architects and The Legacy of H. H. Richardson. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2004.
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Link, Karin, “The Rise of the Urban Center,” in Andrews et al. Pioneer Square: Seattle’s Oldest Neighborhood. Manuscript. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, forthcoming 2005.
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A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of the City of Seattle of the County of King, Including Biographies of Those Who Passed Away. New York and Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1903.
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Hawthorne, Julian, editor. History of Washington, the Evergreen State, From Early Days to Daylight. New York: American Historical Publishing Company, 1893.
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“Nonagenarian Kin of Famous Scout Dies in Seattle.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 31 October 1921, n.p. Architects’ File, Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Washington.
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Ochsner, Jeffrey, “Seeing Richardson in His Time: The Problem of Romanesque Revival.” in M. Meister, editor. H. H. Richardson, the Architect and His Peers and Their Era. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1999.
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