Overview

This shed-roofed, wood-frame depot operated on Seattle's waterfront at Railroad Avenue and Columbia Street for about 14 years.

Building History

The Northern Pacific Railway Company (NPRC) purchased its onetime-rival, the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway (SLSER), in 05/1892. It appears to have used the SLSER's old depot site on the waterfront at Columbia Street as the location for a larger depot erected in 1892. This new depot stood on Railroad Avenue and Columbia Street between 1892 and 1906. In the latter year, the Northern Pacific switched its passenger depot operations to the new King Street Station, built between 1904 and 1906. King Street Station served the two recently merged (in 1901) lines operated by tycoon James J. Hill (1838-1916), the Great Northern Railway and the Northern Pacific Railway.

In 1892, a freight depot still functioned in the previous NPR depot location for the Northern Pacific line on Weller Street between Souht 2nd and South 3rd Avenues. In 1891, the Northern Pacific operated its Passenger Depot #1 on the southeast corner of Weller and 2nd Avenue, while its freight depot was situated on the southeast corner of Weller and 3rd. (See Polk's Seattle Directory Company's Seattle City Directory, 1891, p. 612.)

PCAD id: 24592