Just ahead, look for the tall white neoclassical skyscraper topped with a pointy pyramid-shaped crown-it rises above the rooftop sea like a lighthouse at the edge of the Pioneer Square neighborhood.
Alright, let’s step back in time for a moment and imagine Seattle in the early 1900s. Streets bustling, the echoes of the Klondike Gold Rush still in the air, and a sky hungry for something impressive. Suddenly, here comes Smith Tower, shooting 462 feet into the sky like it’s showing off-because, well, it was! Built in 1914, this was the tallest thing around for miles, not just in Seattle but anywhere west of the Mississippi, towering over the city for almost fifty years until the Space Needle stole the spotlight in 1962.
Now, picture a wealthy typewriter and firearm magnate from Syracuse, New York: Lyman Cornelius Smith. The guy was so successful, I bet if his typewriters had Twitter, they’d have gone viral. L.C. Smith bought odd-shaped land right here, after Seattle’s Great Fire cleared space, but he didn’t just want to plop down another office building. Oh no, his son Burns Lyman egged him on, saying, “Dad, let’s outdo Tacoma and build higher than anyone else dared.” A father-son rivalry versus the skyline-classic, right?
Construction began after a parade-worthy Progress and Prosperity Day. Imagine crowds cheering, brass bands blaring, and a single brick ceremoniously pried loose. The steel beams came all the way from Pennsylvania, granite from the nearby Washington quarries, and marble from Vermont. This building was like a shopping list of the country’s best stuff-all to make sure the tower would “cast the rays of the sun in a blaze that should be seen 15 or 20 miles.” If only Instagram had existed. But there were nerves at the site, too. The city had its doubts about the ground here, so workers dug deep, tested the soil, and at one point, even built a giant test box (kind of like the sandbox version of Minecraft) to make sure the earth could hold all that ambition.
As the steel skeleton rose, so did the hazards. During one frantic morning, a three-ton wooden derrick plummeted from the 34th floor, crashing through thirteen floors below-yet miraculously, nobody got hurt. Seattle might be rainy, but even its construction accidents got lucky at Smith Tower. When the last rivet was hammered, the crew celebrated by taking daredevil photos hanging off the flagpole-until they dropped their camera and lost all the proof!
On July 4th, 1914, thousands lined up for a thrilling elevator ride to the top, eager to see Seattle from a whole new perspective. Those early elevators were something special-brass, with fancy latticed gates so you could see each floor go by. For decades, elevator operators whisked guests up and down, and even today you can peek through glass doors and imagine (or re-live) the old days.
Inside, wonder continued with the famous Chinese Room, decked out in blackwood and teak furniture sent by none other than the last Empress of China. And then there was the Wishing Chair, carved with a dragon and phoenix-legend had it that any single person who sat there would be married within a year. Wouldn’t you know it, Smith’s own daughter was wed in that very room.
Smith Tower changed with the times: it survived the dot-com bubble bursting, flirted with becoming condos, and even got a speakeasy restaurant up top for a modern Prohibition vibe. Every December, the crown glows green, and the only home in this entire skyscraper-the penthouse-looks out over the city just like a modern fairytale.
You probably won’t meet Lyman Smith or the parade of elevator operators, but you can feel the layers of dreams, drama, and even a little chaos still humming inside these old walls
