Smith Tower is a skyscraper in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Completed in 1914, the 38-story, 462 ft (141 m) tower was among the tallest skyscrapers outside New York City at the time of its completion. It was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River until the completion of the Kansas City Power & Light Building in 1931. It remained the tallest building on the U.S. West Coast for nearly half a century, until the Space Needle overtook it in 1962.
Smith Tower as seen from the Pacific Building.
Smith Tower construction, February 1913
Smith Tower looking north on 2nd Avenue, 1914
Looking north from the observation deck, August 2007
Pioneer Square is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of Downtown Seattle, Washington, US. It was once the heart of the city: Seattle's founders settled there in 1852, following a brief six-month settlement at Alki Point on the far side of Elliott Bay. The early structures in the neighborhood were mostly wooden, and nearly all burned in the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. By the end of 1890, dozens of brick and stone buildings had been erected in their stead; to this day, the architectural character of the neighborhood derives from these late 19th century buildings, mostly examples of Richardsonian Romanesque.
Pioneer Square, Seattle
Washington Park Building on Washington Street in the Pioneer Square neighborhood. It was built in 1890 just after the Great Seattle Fire and was originally the Lowman and Hanford Printing and Binding Building
1st Ave S, Pioneer Square district, 1901
Pioneer Square pergola, 1914