The Smith Tower Building under construction showing
structural steel skeleton, 1913.

Pioneer Square looking northeast across the intersection of 
1st Ave., James St. and Yesler Way, 
Seattle, March 17, 1917
Photographer - Calvin F. Todd
Buildings in image: Pioneer Building, Collins Building,
Smith Tower; the Pioneer Square pergola is also visible.

The Smith Tower was completed in 1914 
and opened to the public on July 4 of that year. 
In its day, it was considered the tallest building west of the Mississippi. 
In fact, it was reported to be the tallest building in the world, outside 
of the F.W. Woolworth Building, the Singer Building and the 
Metropolitan Life Building in New York. It was commissioned by the 
typewriter and rifle magnate Lyman C. Smith, whose son, Burns Lyman Smith, 
had originally pushed the idea of a skyscraper over the initial plan for a fourteen 
story building. Smith hired Gaggin and Gaggin, an architecture firm from Syracuse, 
New York to design the building. The permit for construction was obtained in 1911. 
From the start, L. C. Smith intended to lavish as much money and care on the 
building as possible and stated: “No money, artistic or architectural skill will be 
spared in making the edifice a monumental advertisement 
for Seattle and the Northwest.” 
Construction for the building exceeded $1.5 million. After the Great Fire of 1889 in 
Seattle and numerous fires in major American cities, fireproofing continued to be an 
important consideration in the construction of buildings. Special care was taken 
in the construction of the Smith Tower, which was advertised 
as “absolutely fireproof.” 
In addition to its fireproofed structural steel frame, it had interior doors 
and trim of metal, finished to look like mahogany as well as bronze window frames. 
In the same period, terra-cotta cladding was also widely advertised as a fire-proofing 
material. The building’s exterior, almost entirely clad in gleaming white terra cotta, 
is one of the finer examples of the legacy of terra cotta clad buildings in Seattle, 
built between the 1910s and the late 1920s. When it opened, the Smith Tower 
contained the latest conveniences of the time, including: lavatories on every floor, 
telephone, telegraph, wireless and cable offices. 
It also featured shops and restaurants. 
It is still famous for the richness of its lobby interior, paneled with Pedrara onyx, 
the ornate steel cage elevator cabs (by the Otis Elevator Company), upper floor 
lobbies clad in marble, as well as the Chinese Room, located on the thirty fifth floor 
of the building. The interior furnishings of the Chinese room were originally provided 
by the last Empress of China as a gift to L. C. Smith. 1911 was at the end of 
10 years of explosive growth for the original commercial district, 
which later became the 
Pioneer Square-Skid Road National Historic District and for Seattle in general. 
1911 was also the year when Virgil Bogue produced the Bogue Plan, which 
would havemoved Seattle’s commercial center north to the 
Denny Regrade and created a 
civic center at about Fourth Avenue and Blanchard Street. At the same time, 
by 1911, the area where the Smith Tower was to be sited was already a 
cosmopolitan area, with many, new shiningexamples of Seattle’s most 
sophisticated architecture, including Eames and Young’s 
Alaska Building of 1904, Bebb and Mendel’s Corona Building of 1903, 
and Arthur Bishop Chamberlain’s Collins Building of 1893-94.
There was a movement to counter Bogue’s idea for a more northern city center 
and the Smith Tower was a big partof it. L. C. Smith actually extracted a promise
 from the city administration that he would build the Smith Tower, 
if it would not move city hall north. While the Bogue Plan was 
defeated in a city wide vote in 1912, ultimately L. C. Smith’s notion of 
keeping the maincommercial district close to the city’s original center did not prevail. 
The center of the citydid move north. 
This also ensured that most of the buildings which make up 
the historic district survived.