State Hotel
The State Hotel, also called the Delmar Building, operated for many years as a low-budget hotel and once housed Seattle’s earliest pharmacy. It is important for its connection to Seattle’s “Skid Road” period.
Upon construction in 1891 in the post-fire building boom, the northern part of the property, the section that would later be the State Hotel, was a dry goods store. As well as the city’s earliest pharmacy, the building is also said to have housed a Chinese laundry in the basement. In 1909, the northern portion of the building became the 200-room low-budget State Hotel, much like the Grand Pacific Hotel. The State Hotel maintained operations until fire damaged the upper floors in 1967.[1]
The neighborhood immediately south of Yesler Way has gone by a variety of names at different points in Seattle’s history, including the Great Redistricted District, the Lava Beds, Below the Deadline, Down on the Sawdust, the Tenderloin, and the Skid Road. For decades, the area was known for its numerous saloons, brothels, gambling houses, and violence. During the early twentieth century, Seattle got caught up in the Progressive movement.[2] The Reverend Mark Matthews, a Presbyterian pastor, advocated for the social reform of this part of the city, proclaiming:
“It’s time for the decent people of Seattle to stop ignoring the cesspool in our midst and set about to have it removed. Yesler Way was once a skid road down which logs were pushed to Henry Yesler’s sawmill on the waterfront. Today it is a skid road down which human souls go sliding to hell!”[3]
The State Hotel sign advertising rooms for 75 cents on the First Avenue side of the building is a remnant of this sordid period of the neighborhood’s history.
[1] “Summary for 108 S Washington ST S / Parcel ID 5247800481,” Seattle.gov (2004), http://web6.seattle.gov/DPD/HistoricalSite/QueryResult.aspx?ID=1213485036.
[2] Mildred Andrews, “Skid Road,” in Pioneer Square: Seattle's Oldest Neighborhood, ed. Mildred Tanner Andrews (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005), 96.
[3] Andrews, “Skid Road,” in Pioneer Square, 100.
Credits and Sources:
Description by Madison Heslop on behalf of the American Society for Environmental History.
Andrews, Mildred. "Skid Road." In Pioneer Square: Seattle's Oldest Neighborhood, edited by Mildred Tanner Andrews, 94-117. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005. [ALT Andrews, Mildred Tanner, ed. Pioneer Square: Seattle's Oldest Neighborhood. Seattle: University of Washingotn Press, 2005.]
“Summary for 108 S Washington ST S / Parcel ID 5247800481.”Seattle.gov, 2004.http://web6.seattle.gov/DPD/HistoricalSite/QueryResult.aspx?ID=1213485036.
