| Historic Name: |
Pacific Drug Company/ Seattle Paint Company/ Stadium Furniture/ U. S. Rubber Building |
Common Name: |
U. S. Rubber Building |
| Style: |
Beaux Arts - Neoclassical, Commercial - Chicago School |
Neighborhood: |
Pioneer Square |
| Built By: |
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Year Built: |
1902 |
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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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Now commonly known as the U.S. Rubber Building, 319 3rd Avenue South was designed by Boone and Corner and completed in 1902. Early on, from at least 1905 to 1912, the building appears to have been owned and occupied by the Pacific Drug Company Wholesale Stores. Another early owner was the Seattle Paint Company, founded in 1899. When its facilities needed more room in the late 1900s, it moved to new warehouse facilities in the reclaimed tidelands area, which was becoming increasingly industrialized. By 1913, it had moved its main downtown outlet to this building. The building is representative of the expansion of Seattle’s original commercial district at the beginning of a period of important industrial and economic growth (ca 1900 to 1910s). It is also another well-designed warehouse building by the firm of Boone and Corner. The building mixes the basic elements of Chicago School buildings and is divided into a strong “base,” “middle” and “top,” with projecting piers and recessed bays. It also uses elements of classical architecture in the entablature and discs used as decorative elements and in of the smaller details on the cast metal columns of the storefront. Though most architectural elements seem to have been retained, the original classical cornice of the building has been lost.
The architects of the building, W.E. Boone and James Corner, formed a partnership in 1900, which lasted until 1905. Boone’ s career in Seattle goes back to around 1882 and he only retired from architecture in 1910. His architectural career 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. W.E. Boone was born in Pennsylvania in 1830, and described in his 1921 obituary in the Post-Intelligencer, as a direct descendant of Daniel Boone. 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 Merchant’s Café Building of 1889-90 (the former Sanderson Block) and the Globe Building. 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 the Washington Shoe Building. His subsequent partnership with James Corner, who had been in a previous partnership with Warren Skillings (the firm designed the Union Trust Buildings), was famous for the Broadway High School, now the Broadway Performance Hall in Seattle’s Capitol Hill. In the Pioneer Square Historic-Skid Road National Historic District, Boone and Corner also designed the Seattle Quilt Building (formerly the Walker Building) and the Northcoast Building (formerly the Chapin and later the Fuller Building), now part of the Court in the Square. Both of these buildings bear some resemblance to the present building.
In the mid 1970s, the building was more commonly known as the Stadium Furniture Warehouse.
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| Appearance |
| Square in plan, 120 feet by 120 feet, the U.S. Rubber Building is a four story building with basement. Located on the northwest corner of Third Avenue South and Jackson Street, it has exterior brick walls with stone and cast-stone trim. It has two primary facades, one on Jackson Street and one on Third Avenue South, each composed of five bays. The base of the building is mainly composed of storefronts, which correspond to the bay divisions above it. The storefronts are often separated by distinctive metal columns, with two tiny triglyphs and metopes on their capitals and semi-circular molded shapes at the top and bottom of their shafts. The typical storefront also has a multi-pane transom. Piers at the corner and at the end of the primary facades and the lintel above the storefront openings are of stone. Above the first level cast-stone belt-course, are three story brick piers with cast-stone bases and capitals, which separate the bays. At the top of these piers is a belt-course band, which at first is slightly recessed in relation to the pier capital and then projects out with a fillet. The parapet, as it appears now, is brick wall with circular discs placed over the second and third piers (counting from the east) on Jackson Street and over the first four piers on Third Avenue South (from north to south). The Jackson Street and Third Avenue corner is emphasized by the raised parapet in this region, which is lower on each side of it. Emphasizing this change of height even further are what seem like fluted bands in cast stone that run the length of both Jackson Street and Third Avenue South. Above the ground level, window openings are filled with a horizontal row of four double-hung windows in a wood frame. |
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| Status: |
Yes - Inventory |
| Classication: |
Building |
District Status: |
NR, LR |
| Cladding(s): |
Brick, Metal, Stone - Ashlar/cut, Stone - Cast |
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, Manufacturing/Industry |
| Integrity |
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Changes to Plan: |
Intact |
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Changes to Original Cladding: |
Slight |
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Storefront: |
Slight |
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Changes to Windows: |
Intact |
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| Major Bibliographic References |
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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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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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Potter, Elizabeth Wdalton. “Pioneer Square Historic District Expansion Amendment.” December 1976.
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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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