Seattle Historical Sites

Although clearly altered, this building has retained its overall massing and several important elements of its main façade. No original drawings seem to be available. In addition, records concerning the building do not conclusively provide a date of construction. The King County Tax Assessor’s Record Card gives a 1934 date to the building, while records at the City of Seattle almost seem to suggest that the building may have been constructed as early as 1914, although the roofs were definitely rebuilt in 1934. The permit from 1914 is not entirely legible, but it seems more likely that the 1934 structure replaced two sheds that had been previously built in 1914.

So far, a historical photo from the King County Tax Assessor’s Record Card gives the most complete evidence concerning the building’s “earlier” appearance. By the 1930s, despite the ornamental brackets, the building housed a business associated with Globe Feed Mills. At that time, this name was painted across the main façade, just above the first floor windows. Large letters with the same name were also apparently hung above the window overhang on the south elevation. Based on the photo and today’s appearance, the entire south elevation had few openings.

Globe feed mills were apparently a particular brand of feed mill, used to grind up grains and process them as animal feed. Globe Feed Mills Inc. was housed in the building until at least the late 1940s. By the mid-1950s, the Portland Seed Company occupied the building. By 1965, the nature of the resident business had changed and the building housed Stores Delivery Service and by 1974, Western Fruit and Produce, a wholesaler. In 1980 as well as the late 1980s, the building was vacant.

1922 Airport Way S is located on the east side of Airport Way South, just south of Holgate Street. It includes a two-level structure with a façade along Airport Way South and a lower one story gabled wing behind it. There is also a lower one story gabled wing, set perpendicular to the first one-story wing. Older reports describe the walls as being of reinforced concrete and corrugated iron. A more recent structural summary describes the building as “a steel frame structure with a metal roof and clad with metal siding on three elevations,” whereas the west elevation, the Airport Way South façade, was constructed of clay tile. The clay tile is currently painted gray.

The original interior structure also includes interior wood frame post and beam construction, with what is considered a mezzanine level above the ground level. Two series of trusses are also set side by side: scissor trusses to the north and Howe trusses to the south. This combination creates the top element of the main facade, which includes two distinctive false fronts, which cover two end gables and rise above them. The false fronts become narrow near the top of the gables behind them and each end in an angled shape. Window openings below have distinctive overhangs. At the upper or mezzanine level, there is an ornamental bracket under each side of the overhangs. At the ground level, there are similar overhangs, although no brackets. Based an earlier photo from the late 1930s, the overhangs and brackets are original, (or good replacements in kind). In addition, an added overhang, which also had repeated and closely spaced brackets on its underside, once surmounted the top of the false fronts. There were also similar overhangs, attached to the front edge of the sides of the gables below the false front.

Under the northern gable, at the ground level, there are three openings, while the upper level has one opening set over the central opening at the lower level. Under the south gable, at the ground level, there were originally three similar window openings. A doorway has since replaced the southern window opening. On the upper level, the three openings are original. With the exception of the modification of the southern window into a doorway and the replacement of multi-pane glazing by single panes, the openings and cladding are mainly consistent with an historical photo from the late 1930s. In addition, there have been obvious changes to the false front portions of the façade.