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Overview

The three-story, wood-frame Hotel Snoqualmie operated at this location from at least 1890. It continued here until about 1913, when the Singerman and Sons Company menswear store moved into the building.

This was the last location of the menswear store operated by the clothier Paul Singerman (1847-1915). Singerman and his partner, Ferdinand Toklas, opened their first enterprise in Seattle in 1875, and the two remained affliliated for 20 years until the latter's retirement. This store, known as the "Annex," operated concurrently with the store in the Lumber Exchange Building, opened in 1903.

Building History

The Hotel Snoqualmie stood on this site by 1893, occupying the address numbers 215-225 Pike Street at that time. A Sanborn-Ferris Company map of 1893 indicated that a restaurant, bakery and kitchen stood at 215 Pike, the hotel office at 219, a bar and billiard room at 221, an unidentified store and separate card room at 223 and a drugstore at 225.

In 1906, the Snoqualmie Hotel was operated by John A. Hilyer. The Snoqualmie Pharmacy, owned by Birger A. Clausen, stood at 225 Pike Street. (See Polk’s Seattle Directory Company’s Seattle City Directory, 1893, p. 1068.) The Snoqualimie continued in operation at this address in 1912.

In 1913, seeking to anticipate the northerly migration of the retail shopping district, clothing retailer Paul Singerman (born 02/09/1847-d. 08/28/1915) added a second menswear store at 223 Pike Street, purchasing ground-floor space in the old Hotel Snoqualmie building.

Singerman re-founded a clothing store in 1892, six months after the sale of his first apparel business, Toklas, Singerman and Company. (Singerman sold this business to the MacDougall and Southwick Company, which took over the building.) Singerman's post-1892 store was also known as "Toklas Singerman and Company" and it opened at 707 1st Avenue, next door to MacDougall and Southwick on the southwest corner of 1st Avenue and Columbia Street, operating here from 1892-1903. On 03/01/1903, Toklas Singerman and Company moved to the Lumber Exchange Building at 1119-1123 2nd Avenue. The Lumber Exchange store became known as "Singerman and Sons" in 1904.

The Seattle Times stated of Singerman and Sons' second store opening: "For the past ten years the present firm of Singerman & Sons, which succeeded the Toklas-Singerman Company, has carried on business at the southwest corner of Second Avenue and Seneca Street. This issue of The Times contains elsewhere the announcement of the opening of the Singerman & Sons' Annex at 223 Pike Street, and Isadore [sic] Singerman on whose young and capable shoulders rests the general management of the firm's interests, is thoroughly optimistic concerning the new venture. He expects to see Pike Street within a very few years as busy a thoroughfare as is Second Avenue today." (See "Oldest Clothing House Opens on Pike Street," Seattle Times, 07/11/1913, p. 8.) At his death in 1915, Singerman continued to operate the two locations.

Building Notes

In 1906, the Hotel Rochester stood across the street at 116 ½ Pike Street. (See Polk’s Seattle Directory Company’s Seattle City Directory, 1906, p. 607.) By 1912, the area within two blocks of the Hotel Snoqualmie was filled with hotels and apartment-hotels, including the Hotel Abbott, Hotel Loring, Antlers Hotel, Raleigh Hotel, Hotel Georgian, and Hotel Federal, Hotel New Netherland and Hotel Metropole.

(Historian Joe Mabel communicated with the author about the Singerman and Sons store occupying the former Hotel Snoqualmie in an email 08/09/2020. Thank you to him for this information.)

Alterations

In 1916, Paul's son, Isidore R. Singerman (born c. 1881-d. 06/03/1949) expanded the 3rd and Pike store. At this time, he signed a five-year lease for additional space on the second and third floors, the second serving as the menswear department, the third as the boys' department. (See "Singerman & Sons To Occupy Three Floors," The Jewish Voice, 06/16/1916, p. 3.)

Demolition

The Hotel Snoqualmie/Singerman and Sons Store was torn down by about 1922 to make way for the S.H. Kress and Company Store built at 1423 3rd Avenue between 1923 and 1924.

PCAD id: 17859