Pioneer Square, Seattle

Pioneer Square–Skid Road District
Pioneer Square, Seattle is located in Seattle WA Downtown
Pioneer Square, Seattle
Pioneer Square, Seattle is located in Washington (state)
Pioneer Square, Seattle
LocationSeattle, Washington
Built1853
ArchitectElmer H. Fisher (original)
Architectural styleLate Victorian, Romanesque (original)
Italianate, Romanesque (increase)
Chicago (2nd increase)
NRHP reference No.70000086[1] (original)
78000341 (increase 1)
88000739 (increase 2)
Significant dates
Added to NRHPJune 22, 1970
Boundary increasesJuly 7, 1978
June 16, 1988
Pioneer Square–Skid Road Historic District. This map also shows how Second Avenue Extension continues a piece of the north-of-Yesler street grid into the area south of Yesler Way. (The map dates from before the Kingdome was replaced by two new stadiums.)

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.[2][3]

The neighborhood takes its name from a small triangular plaza near the corner of First Avenue and Yesler Way, originally known as Pioneer Place.[4] The Pioneer Square–Skid Road Historic District, a historic district including that plaza and several surrounding blocks, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[5]

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

Like virtually all Seattle neighborhoods, the Pioneer Square neighborhood lacks definitive borders. It is bounded roughly by Alaskan Way S. on the west, beyond which are the docks of Elliott Bay; by S. King Street on the south, beyond which is SoDo; by 5th Avenue S. on the east, beyond which is the International District; and it extends between one and two blocks north of Yesler Way, beyond which is the rest of Downtown. Because Yesler Way marks the boundary between two different plats, the street grid north of Yesler does not line up with the neighborhood's other streets (nor with the compass), so the northern border of the district zigzags along numerous streets.

In some places, the Pioneer Square–Skid Road Historic District extends beyond these borders. It includes Union Station east of 4th Avenue S., and several city blocks south of S. King Street.[6]

  1. ^ "National Register Information System – (#70000086)". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. ^ Pioneer Square Preservation District, Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. Accessed November 29, 2007.
  3. ^ Jeffrey Karl Ochsner, and Dennis Alan Andersen, Distant Corner: Seattle Architects and the Legacy of H. H. Richardson, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2003. ISBN 0-295-98238-1. passim.
  4. ^ Jones, Nard (1972), Seattle, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, p. 195, ISBN 0-385-01875-4
  5. ^ Corley, Margaret A. (July 1969). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form: Pioneer Square - Skid Row District". National Archives (Original Boundary ed.). National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  6. ^ Map near top of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, Administrative History, Chapter 11: Establishing the Seattle Unit. Accessed online November 26, 2007.