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Overview

The increase in leisure time during the early-twentieth century expanded public interest in various sports as pastimes. Cycling, baseball, golf, tennis, fishing, and skiing developed devoted participants, each person requiring some level of specialized equipment. As a result, stores began to specialize in the sale of sporting goods in the early 20th century, often as adjuncts to other businesses, e.g., hardware sales. (Seattle's Piper and Taft sold Sporting Goods only at 1024 2nd Avenue by 1908 and Spelger and Hurlbut, Incorporated, sold both hardware and sporting goods at 2nd Avenue and Union in 1919, for example.) Warshal's Sporting Goods Store, opened by immigrants from Russia and Poland, developed from a pawnshop business begun by Jacob Warshal in 1925 at 1014 1st Avenue in Downtown Seattle. (See Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1925, p. 1429.) It added sporting goods in 1936.

Building History

At its height, Warshal's Sporting Goods occupied two neighboring buildings near the intersection of 1st Avenue and Marion Street. Jacob "Jack" Warshal (1871-1939) founded a pawnshop at 1014 1st Avenue in 1925. Russian-Jewish immigrants Jacob and his wife Frieda Monosson Warshal (1876-1940) came to the US from Warsaw, Poland, in 07/1911 first landing in Boston, MA. The Warshals joined other Jewish immigrants fleeing en masse Russian-occupied areas during the pogroms that flared up in Poland, Ukraine, and Russia following the failed 1905 Revolution. The Warshals spent about a year in Boston, before relocating transcontinentally to Seattle, where Jack's younger brother Wolf Warshal (1876-1940) operated a second-hand store by 1910. (Wolf had emigrated to the US earlier, in about 1890. See Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1910; Census Place: Seattle Ward 3, King, Washington; Roll: T624_1659; Page: 2b; Enumeration District: 0095; FHL microfilm: 1375672, accessed 06/28/2023.) Wolf also opened a loan business during the 1910s and a menswear company--the Empire Clothing Company--during the 1920s. Jack Warshal had worked in the second-hand goods business (on 2nd Avenue South in 1919-1921) and clothing trade (at 706 1st Avenue in 1924) before opening his 1014 1st Avenue pawnshop. (See R.L. Polk and Company's Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1919, p. 1807, R.L. Polk and Company's Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1921, p. 1469, Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1924, pp. 1433-1434 and Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1925, p. 1429.)

In 1929, the pawnshop became known as "Jacob Warshal and Sons," with Jacob working with his sons Adolph (1899-1979), William (1903-1999) and Milton (1907-1944). (Milton was killed in World War II. See Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1929, p. 1857.) Prior to joining their father's business, both Adolph and William worked for the pawnbroker Israel Peizer who maintained two stores in downtown in 1924, one at 301 1st Avenue South and the other at 1323 1st Avenue. (See Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1924, p. 1433-1434.) Jacob was Jacob Warshal and Sons' president, William its vice-president and Adolph the secretary and treasurer.

By 1936, brothers Adolph and William moved the store into the sales of sporting goods, in addition to pawnbroking, responding to the increasing emphasis on sports in American life. Initially, the store operated in the small corner location, but gradually it grew to occupy the three first-floor storefronts of the six-story building just to the north.

The main store operated at the corner of Madison Street and First Avenue for many years, and never lost money. The business became so successful that it spun off two branch stores after World War II. The first was located on 65th Avenue in Ravenna in the 1950s, which was closed when another store was opened at Northgate Shopping Center in the 1960s. The Northgate outlet closed well before the main one downtown ceased operations in spring 2001. It was sold by the next generation, Jerrold Warshal (1939-2021) to make room from a luxury condominium / boutique hotel project whose progress stalled for a few years after the building's sale and 2003 demolition. (See J. Martin McOmber, "Sales of luxury condos spur the go-ahead for 24-story tower downtown," Seattle Times, 03/24/2004, pp. C1-C2.)

The six-floor Miller Building (aka the Meves Building in 1937 and George V. Heringer Building) and the original, two-story corner structure were sold to Portland, OR, developer, Gordon D. Sondland (born 07/16/1957 in Seattle, WA), and a Seattle partner, N. Jack Alhadeff, in 1997. (Sondland owned Portland's Provenance Hotel chain before serving as Donald Trump's United States Ambassador to the European Union. He sold Provenance in 2022.) Dudley Brier, a Seattle Times writer related the history of Warshal's last years: "Meanwhile, [William] Warshal passed the store on to his son, Dennis. He ran it from 1970 to 1992, then sold out to his cousin, Jerry. In 1997, Jerry Warshal sold the building to a partnership consisting of himself, real-estate investor Jack Alhadeff and hotel developer Gordon Sondland (born 07/16/1957), a co-owner of the Alexis who built the Paramount Hotel and renovated the Roosevelt and Vance hotels downtown. Their architect recently met with city officials to discuss a 26-story building with eight floors for the hotel, 12 for condos, four for parking, a lobby and a restaurant." (See Brier Dudley, Seattle Times.com, "Warshal's: A shiver runs through it," published 06/19/2000, accessed 07/05/2023.)

The Madison Tower was erected on the site between 2004-2006. In 2017, the new owner of Hotel 1000, Loews Hotels & Company, remodeled the Hotel 1000 property. Part of the remodeling would include a restaurant whose interior decor would recall Warshal's and its sporting goods heritage: "The restaurant remodel will hark back to 1936, when the site housed Warshal's Sporting Goods, which had a bait and tackle shop. Seattle's fishing industry will be reflected in elements ranging from portraits of fishermen to wavy shelves. Rustic finishes such as white-washed wood, metal and white brick will reflect the simplicity of fishing boats." (See Daily Journal of Commerce.com, "Hotel 1000's update will include a nod to the past: Warshal's bait and tackle shop," published 06/09/2017, accessed 07/05/2023.)

Building Notes

The Hotel 1000, a Hilton Hotel, occupied this site in 2023.

A clock, with advertising on its shaft, was located outside the sporting goods store, near the corner of 1st Avenue and Marion.

Brier Dudley described Warshal's Sporting Goods store in 2000 and the surrounding area's gentrification in 2000: "You can almost smell the pine needles and campfires, the saltwater and outboard-motor fumes, when you step into Warshal's. To enter the store you must walk through a gallery of posters and maps of the Cascades and Olympics, rivers and streams around Puget Sound, and species of salmon and where to catch them. Inside you can still buy herring and nightcrawlers ($1.99 for a dozen large ones), along with jigs, weights, rods, reels, guns, ammo and a Little Chief Smoker to preserve your catch. That's just on the woodsy side of the store. Another half of the store sells cameras, tennis rackets, shoes and clothes. Outside, the old-fashioned storefront is as much an anomaly as the lonely porn shop next door. The once-seedy block approaching Skid Road was redeveloped in the early 1980s by a company then headed by Paul Schell, now Seattle's mayor. It lost money, Schell quit, and the company was liquidated in the late 1980s. But the block finally has undergone the renaissance that Schell envisioned. It now boasts the Alexis Hotel, frequented by movie stars, a salon offering herbal spas and an antique-lighting store with $380 bathroom lamps. For those who prefer others to catch and preserve their fish, there is a wine bar with an appetizer of smoked albacore, with melon and wasabi creme fraiche for $8.50." (See Brier Dudley, Seattle Times.com, "Warshal's: A shiver runs through it," published 06/19/2000, accessed 07/05/2023.)

Thank you to Joe Mabel for pointing out the existence of the Warshal's photograph in the Seattle Municipal Archives. (See email from Joe Mabel to the author, 06/26/2023.)

Demolition

Warshal's was demolished c. 2003.

PCAD id: 6034