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Overview

The King County Office Building, completed incrementally between 1876 and 1881, was the second, official building erected by the county government. It continued in service as Seattle's City hall between 1891 and 1909, but was mocked for its Rube Goldbergian additions and architectural crudity, becoming known as the "Katzenjammer Castle." An article in the 1958 Seattle Post-Intelligencer said of it: "This wooden structure was enlarged from time to time by remodeling and the addition of wings in a haphazard manner so that it ultimately became a maze of passageways and halls. Visitors often became lost in the hallways and had to be guided to exits." (See "Worker Serves City 40 Years," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 08/09/1946, p. 13.) It was not coincidental that city government vacated the building by 1909, the year of Seattle's first World's Fair, when thousands of tourists would descend on the city.

Building History

The Euro-American pioneer and sawmill owner Henry L. Yesler (1810-1892) came to Seattle in 1852, and rapidly became active in King County's economic and commercial development. He periodically offered King County spaces or land for official county business between the 1850s and 1870s. By the mid-1850s, Yesler had offered the cookhouse of his successful sawmill for official county functions during the 1850s and 1860s. Later, he served as Seattle's first elected Mayor in 1869 and as a County Commissioner during 1875-1876. A King County website stated: "Through the 1850's, when no official King County government building existed, all government business was transacted in private homes or businesses. By the mid 1850's, Henry Yesler's cook house was the primary meeting place for most events in the Puget Sound area. It served as district court, town hall, jail, a county auditor and judge's office, military headquarters, storehouse, hotel, and church. In 1865, Yesler tore this structure down to make way for a larger building." (See King County.gov., "Courthouse history," accessed 10/11/2021.)

Yesler continued to provide space for local government functions. In 1860, Yesler offered King County a site on Prefontaine Place to erect its first purpose-built facility, offices for the sheriff and auditor. A misunderstanding developed between Yesler and local officials over whether the county should pay rent for the office's use. Desptie this dispute, Yesler continued to provide space for other county functions, most notably its courtrooms. Between 1866 and 1876, Yesler enabled his Hall and bigger Pavilion to be used by the territorial district court.

By 1876, he finally sold land to King County for the construction of a multi-use courthouse-jail-office building. The King County website on courthouse history stated: "In 1876, King County purchased a lot from Henry Yesler for the price of $3,500. On this site was to stand the first King County building on county owned property. The two-story wood, stone and brick structure occupied the corner of Third and Jefferson (the present site of City Hall Park) and cost $17,000 to build. It housed the jail in the basement and the auditor and the clerk on the upper floors. In 1881, the County's first courtroom was added to the property. It provided one courtroom and offices for court officials. This was to be the first of many unsightly additions to the original structure over the course of thirty years." (See King County.gov., "Courthouse history," accessed 10/11/2021.)

King County sold the structure to the City of Seattle for its use as a city hall in 1891. Because it was built as an architectural hodgepodge, it was derisively known as the "Katzenjammer Castle," a reference to the comic strip "Katzenjammer Kids," drawn by cartoonist Rudolph Dirks (1877-1968) beginning in 1897. The very popular comic strip described the antics of twin brothers, Hans and Frtiz, who consistently defied authority, and tormented the hapless Captain, the boys' surrogate father. Historian Paul Dorpat wrote: "When the county moved up to First Hill, the clapboard building was left to the city. Over the next 19 years, the city's population quadrupled, and so did the city hall, with an assortment of alterations and extensions that resembled the comic constructions in the popular cartoon strip, the Katzenjammer Kids. In its last years, this city hall was popularly known as the Katzenjammer Castle." (See Paul Dorpat, "Now and Then Katzenjammer Castle," Seattle Times-Post-Intelligencer Pacific Magazine, 02/07/1988, p. 6.)

The term, "Katzenjammer Castle," was an oxymoron, used somewhat widely by 1905. It had already been applied to an amusement park building in Madison Park nearby to Lake Washington. (See "Katzenjammer Castle classified advertisement," Seattle Daily Times, 06/22/1905, p. 14.) The connections to a comic strip and an amusement park building underscored the City Hall's vulgarity and inappropriateness. By the 1900s, its lack of grandeur, clumsy additions and makeshift history became seen as inconsistent with the city's growing maturity. This deficit of elegance became increasingly apparent as rival cities began erecting Neo-classical, Beaux-Arts-influenced buildings during the decade.

An editorial in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer of 08/19/1914 stated unequivocally its distaste for the Katzenjammer Castle: "Mayor Gill, addressing the city council on the question of additional space for city offices, announced himself opposed to any plan to build a temporary structure in City Hall park. In this stand the mayor ought to have the support of every citizen who has lived in Seattle more than seven years. The picture of Seattle's last 'temporary structure' or rather 'structures;' the curious fungus-like growth which added layer upon layer around the rat-eaten, mouldering city hall of village days until what is now City Hall park was covered with a delirium dream of syncopated architecture, is enough to discourage anybody from countenancing another experiment of this sort. Mayor Gill served as a councilman in that building and probably his recollection of its is still vigorous enough to strengthen his resolution. Neither King county nor Seattle has been particularly fortunate in its official architecture. With the awful example of the old court house yet standing and the memory of the 'Katzenjammer Castle' still vivid in most minds, there should be no encouragement for the economists who want to tide over a period of executive uncertainty by a temporary city hall. Seattle wants no more make-shifts." (See "No Make-Shift City Hall," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 08/19/1914, p. 6.)

Seattle City offices operated here until the completion of the Public Safety Building in 1909, but the Katzenjammer Castle remained until 1915. when it was razed.

Alteration

A courtroom was added in 1881, the first of a number of additions to the building between 1876 and 1909.

The City of Seattle made several additions during its years of occupancy, 1891 and 1909. Seattle historian James R. Warren wrote of the building expansion begun by Seattle's city government in 1891: "In 1891, when the county offices moved to the new courthouse atop 'Profanity Hill,' the city purchased the old structure and renovations began. They installed a long, narrow, hallway to provide private access to the tiny offices. Two new larger rooms were added on the south side for the mayor and comptroller. Under one part of the building they excavated and built a basement courtroom. The old county jail area was extended 13 feet to the north by tacking on the old city jail, which was moved from Fifth and Yesler. Then they painted everything. Here was city government crowded into one homely structure--firehouse, jail, courtrooms, city offices and bureaus. Within a year, the city was renting additional space." (See James R. Warren, "Seattle learned to live with a mobile city hall," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 02/07/1982, p. D4.)

Demolition

The King County Courthouse #1 was razed in 1915.

PCAD id: 8610