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Overview

Lawyer George Morris Haller (d. 12/1889) began construction of the Haller Building and then went on a Whidbey Island duck hunting expedition with physician Thomas T. Minor (d. 12/1889), and his 22-year-old brother-in-law, Lewis Cox (d. 12/1889). All three were lost in an accident in Puget Sound. Haller's parents, Granville O. Haller and Henrietta M. Cox, took over construction and completed it at a cost of $60,000 in 09/1890, the office block standing as a memorial to their lost son. (See Jeffrey Karl Ochsner and Dennis Andersen, Distant Corner, [Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003], p. 145.)

Building History

Designed by the busy firm of Elmer H. Fisher, Architect, the Haller Block stood on the northwest corner of 2nd Avenue and Columbia Street. This was one of 33 commissions that the charismatic Fisher received in 1889 alone, following the Great Fire that destroyed 64 blocks of Seattle's central business district, Pioneer Square. No other architect in Seattle history had this many commissions simultaneously, and the strain of running this practice probably contributed to his rapid departure from the city in 1894.

Building Notes

In 1889-1890 the Washington Magazine occupied Room #44-45 in the Haller Block. (See Polk's Directory Company's Seattle City Directory, 1890, p. 62.)

Several banks and other financial institutions were located in the Haller Block. It originally housed a branch of the Bank of British Columbia and had retail stores on its first floor, and, on the remaining four floors, 60 offices. By 1906, the Bank of California occupied first floor retail space at 801 2nd Avenue. At the same time, Andrew Chillberg's Puget Sound Savings and Loan Company also had its offices at 112 Columbia Street in the Haller Building. (See Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1906, p. 37.) Other companies leasing space in the building in 1906 included the Booth-Whittlesey-Hanford Abstract Company and the Lewis Littlefield Company, a real estate, mortgage and insurance firm.

In 1900, H.H. Dearborn and Company occupied Room C in the Haller Building; this concern sold real estate, and specialized at this time in tide lands properties. (At this time, extensive tide lands were being filled in south of Pioneer Square, in what became known as the SODO District. Land fill of all kinds--garbage, excavated dirt, regrade dirt, demolished building materials all were used to fill in the marshy land.) In 1905, the Bank of California occupied a first-floor corner location in the Haller Block.

In 1909, Theodore N. Haller (d. 02/17/1930), a lawyer and brother of George Morris, and R.S. Cox operated their real estate and loans firm at 33-34 Haller Block; six years later, Haller operated an investment company, without Cox, at 34 Haller Building. Haller Lake, north of Seattle, was named for Theodore Haller.

The physician and landowner Dr. Hamilton Reddick Stillson (1857-1948) maintained his otolaryngology office in Rooms #20-21 of the Haller Building in 1895. (See Polk's Seattle Directory Company's Seattle City Directory, 1895, p. 720.)

Demolition

The Haller Block was razed in 1957. The Norton Building, Seattle's prime example of an early-1950s, International Style skyscraper completed in 1959, occupied the land after the Haller Building's demolition.

PCAD id: 6177