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Spokane Depot History

When the Northern Pacific Railway completed their line to Spokane in the summer of 1881, the city's first depot was located at Lincoln Street, north of current-day's Steam Plant Square. It was replaced in 1886 by a larger but still modest single-story depot designed by NP's in-house architect Charles Talbot. Eastlake in design and built entirely of wood, It along with most of Spokane's business district would be leveled by the Great Spokane Fire of August 4, 1889. The railroad would operate out of a temporary building near the site of the old depot for almost a year before word came down from New York in June of 1890 that they would be moving the depot location East to a more spacious parcel between Bernard and Division streets. There they proposed a grand $40,000 structure that would have originally featured a central tower and in their own words would be "the handsomest on the North Pacific coast." The new depot officially opened to the public on March 4, 1891 and while not as ornate as originally proposed, the building was like no depot built before in Washington state, not even at the railroad's terminus at Tacoma. Clad in dark red brick and trimmed in stone, the Romanesque revival building resembled the grand stations of the Northeast, especially the Henry Hobson Richardson-designed New London Union Station in New London, Connecticut.

History

Dexter Horton and Early Years 1853-1889

The Maynard building stands on the site of Seattle's first brick and stone buildings, which housed the city's first major dry goods store and bank, respectively. Dexter Horton arrived in Seattle in May 1853 in a group of future Northwest notables including Aaron and Thomas Mercer, Daniel Bagley, John Pike, and William Shoudy. A native of New York, Horton emigrated from his home in Princeton, Illinois to Salem, Oregon and on to Seattle in the span of several years, later joined by his wife and daughter. he would spend his first year in Seattle working for William Nathaniel Bell at Smith Cove and doing odd jobs at the various lumber mills around Puget Sound before coming to work at Henry Yesler's newly completed sawmill in the summer of 1854.

Within a year he opened a dry goods store on the East side of Front Street with David Phillips, another member of his 1853 settler party, and was successful enough to open a branch store in Olympia before dissolving the partnership in 1861; Phillips would maintain the Olympia store and Horton the one in Seattle, which doubled as his family's home.

In 1868 Horton built Seattle's first non-wooden building occupying the north half of the property for the short-lived dry goods firm of Atkins & Shoudy, co-owned by William Shoudy, yet another member of the 1853 party and later founder of Ellensburg. Atkins & Shoudy were succeeded by Crawford & Harrington by 1870 and later known as Harrington & Smith, who after the great fire would transition into a wholesale firm and construct the 3 story building now located across the alley.

In 1870 Horton, having recently gotten out of the mercantile business, rekindled his partnership with David Phillips and established the Phillips, Horton & Company bank with a capitol stock of $50,000. The bank opened in a wooden building on the Northwest corner of First Avenue and Washington Street adjacent to the Crawford & Harrington store. Phillips died in March 1872 and with Arthur A. Denny stepping in as partner the name was officially changed to Dexter Horton & Company, Denny having humbly declined to add his name to the company.

During the summer of 1875 the bank relocated to temporary quarters across the alley while construction began on a one story fireproof stone building to take the place of the old wooden one. The cornerstone was laid on July 24, 1875 at a ceremony attended by most of Seattle's leading businessmen, and many would contribute artifacts to a time capsule placed within it. Built by contractor John Carkeek of sandstone quarried near Port Townsend, construction progressed slowly, with the bank opening nearly a year later. The Crawford & Harrington building, who shared a party wall with the new bank, would soon undergo a complete remodel, replacing the brick façade with one of Chuckanut sandstone to match the bank's robust appearance and its floors raised to match. An elaborate freestanding vault built of brick and stone and lined with iron plating was built inside the bank in January 1883 by contractor John Keenan, under the stressful watch of Arthur Denny.

While the building was gutted by the Great Seattle fire of 1889 and its stonework badly spalled, the vault and its contents had withstood the heat and the walls were still sound. As soon as the embers cooled a new roof was installed and banking operations quickly resumed. The proposed raising of the street level throughout Pioneer Square to address the city's long-standing tidal sewage problems would leave the old bank building entirely below grade, so plans were expedited for a grand replacement.

Reconstruction and early years 1890-???

After securing ownership of the entire 120' by 60' property, previously split between 3 owners, the bank relocated to temporary quarters in the Colman Building while excavation started. Demolition of the stone bank building and the adjacent Harrington & Smith store, whose stone shell has also survived the fire, began in April of 1891. The contents of the cornerstone were recovered and placed in Dexter Horton's archives. The old bank's stoop, carved from a single massive boulder unearthed during the building's excavation in the 1870s, had become Seattle's cornerstone, and was the original datum point from which all surveying in the city was based off; the datum point would be relocated to the corner of the Pioneer Building, which is still the point where most numbered street names in King County radiate from today.

The bank's then president, prominent Portland, Oregon businessman and politician William S. Ladd, commissioned architect Albert Wickersham, then also based in Portland, to design a 5-story $100,000 building, that would match the height of the adjacent Terry-Denny Building. Trimmed in Chuckanut sandstone, it would be the first of many buildings to be clad in buff colored brick rather than the common red.

Value Village

Savers traces its history back to the 1920s when Montana farmer Benjamin Ellison and his 6 brothers joined the Salvation Army, traveling the county soliciting clothing donations for themselves and the needy. The Ellison family would eventually help the organization open their first thrift stores.

In 1954 Ellison's son William, envisioning a thrift store run more like a traditional department store, partnered with UNNAMED VETERANS THINGY and with a brother opened his own store in a former movie theater in San Francisco's Mission District. In 1966 Ellison bought out his brother and moved the business to Renton, Washington, where the first Value Village store was opened in 1967. Similar to the business model of their San Francisco store, they would partner with local charity (in this case the Northwest Center) to collect donations which Value Village would pay them for in bulk. Met with quick success, Ellison would open a second store in 1967 under the name Thrift Village in Redwood City, California. Other Thrift Village stores would soon follow in Los Angeles and Portland and the company would incorporate under the name Thrift Village Inc., usually abbreviated as TVI. The second Value Village location in Washington would open in Burien in 1969, followed by more within several Seattle neighborhoods. By 1970, with 6 stores in 3 states, Ellison moved his family and headquarters to Bellevue, Washington. The chain languished throughout the 70s due to mismanagement and the recession, but business picked up again by the end of the decade and by 1989 they had over 40 stores in the United States and Canada. William's son Thomas Ellison, who joined the company straight out of high school in 1974, took over as CEO in 1987. William would remain on the board of the directors until his retirement in 2000. He would pass away in 2008.