The Interurban Building, formerly known as the Seattle National Bank Building (1890–1899), the Pacific Block (1899–1930) and the Smith Tower Annex (1930–1977), is a historic office building located at Yesler Way and Occidental Way S in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Built from 1890 to 1891 for the newly formed Seattle National Bank, it is one of the finest examples of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in the Pacific Northwest and has been cited by local architects as one of the most beautiful buildings in downtown Seattle. It was the breakthrough project of young architect John Parkinson, who would go on to design many notable buildings in the Los Angeles area in the late 19th and early 20th century.
The Seattle National Bank would leave their building after only five years, followed by numerous legal battles between its owners, creditors and builders that ultimately led to the foreclosure of the building. It came under the ownership of New York industrialist Lyman Cornelius Smith who would rename it the Pacific Block in 1899. From 1904 to 1928, the Puget Sound Electric Railway's Seattle–Tacoma line terminated in front of the building and the old banking room was converted into a ticket office and waiting room. The building was threatened with demolition several times in the 1910s and 1920s but plans to replace the building with a skyscraper always fell though. The building underwent a major interior modernization beginning in 1929 under L.C. Smith's heirs, which included demolition of the entire Southeast wing of the building. The building was renamed again to the Smith Tower Annex, which it would remain until its most recent restoration in the late 1970s after which it was renamed the Interurban Building as a nod to its role in local transportation. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 as a contributing property to the Pioneer Square Historic District.
History
Yesler's Claim
The site of the Interurban Building as well as most of Pioneer Square was once part of the 1852 donation land claim of Henry Yesler and as the city grew he would gradually sell off or lease lots to prospective settlers as he needed the funds. By the late 1880s the lots at what was then the Southeast corner of Mill Street and Second Avenue South, still owned by Yesler, were covered by a collection of wooden shacks and lodging houses, the earliest dating back to the late 1860s. Among these early hostelries and adjoining several Chinese laundrys was the Wisconsin House, located over the Star Saloon where it is said that anti-Chinese sentiment that culminated in the Seattle riot of 1886 began.
In February 1889 Yesler sold the 2 lots to a group of investors consisting of J.M. Thompson, Fred E. Sander and George M. Boman, all three of which were involved with real estate development as well as having stakes in the Lake Washington Cable Railway Company. The sale price was $85,000 in a deal that would have the buyers paying $75,000 up front and the remainder on January 1, 1890, with the shrewd Yesler insisting on holding onto the property in the interim to continue collecting valuable rent on the tenants and delaying the buyer's intentions of building a large brick building on the site. Yesler would use the proceeds from this sale to fund the further construction of his Pioneer Block which had just broken ground. 4 months after the sale the Great Seattle Fire would clear the property and after a brief occupation by tents housing the burned-out businesses, the subsequent regrading in early 1890 would raise the streets 18 feet above the old ground level.