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Overview

The Union Block housed the location of the important menswear store, Toklas, Singerment and Company from 1892 until 1903. This was approximately the sixth location that the firm had in Seattle, since the arrival of Paul Singerman in the city in the Fall of 1874.

Building History

Merchant Paul Singerman (1847-1915) founded this clothing store in 1892, six months after the sale of his menswear business, Toklas, Singerman and Company, to his business partner, J.B. MacDougall, and another man, Henry C. Southwick. (The MacDougall and Southwick Company Department Store operated until 1964 in Seattle.) Singerman's new store (also called "Toklas, Singerman and Company,") opened next door to the MacDougall and Southwick Department Store in the Union Block, at 707 1st Avenue, and operated at this address between 1892 and 1903. The name remained "Toklas Singerman and Company" even after San Francisco partner, Ferdinand Toklas (1845-1924), retired from the firm in 1895. Toklas, Singerman and Company moved to a seventh Seattle store in 1903 in the Lumber Exchange Building; Paul Singerman went into partnership with his sons in 05/1904, and renamed the business at that time to "Singerman and Sons." (See "Will Change Firm Name," Seattle Times, 05/22/1904, p. 24.) After 1912, a second Singerman and Sons store opened at 3rd Avenue and Pike Street.

PCAD id: 17857