Union Railroad Passenger Train Depot in Seattle WA

Union Station, Seattle Washington

Date added: September 18, 2024

North facade (front entrance), and east facade. King Street Station in background (1974)

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Seattle's Union Station is an important transportation intersection that once helped to exert strong pressures on the patterns of local and regional development. It is also a fine example of monumental railroad architecture which survives to this day as one of the best-designed structures in the industrial portion of the city.

The station was designed by architect D. J. Patterson of San Francisco. Major elements of the station categorize it architecturally as representative of the Roman Classic Revival period of the early 1900's. Ground was broken for the station's construction in January 1910. The station was completed for occupancy on May 1^st, 1911, and formal dedication ceremonies were conducted on May 21^st, 1911. The Union Station site consisted of blocks 25, 26 and 27 of Maynard's Town Plat bordering on Elliott Bay tidelands. Prior to its acquisition by the railroad the site was occupied by Seattle's first gas plant. Contrary to the usual practice of the time, no civic favors were requested in the acquisition of the property by the Washington-Oregon - Union Pacific, and this site was an outright cash purchase by the railroad.

On May 28^th, 1911 the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad began transcontinental operations from leased station and platform facilities at the Washington-Oregon - Union Pacific terminal. Initially, there were four daily arrival/departures at Union Station highlighted by the transcontinental Olympian and the coastal Shasta Limited. Each train had an express car, a diner, several coaches, tourist sleepers, standard Pullmans, and a lounge-observation car which included a women's parlor where tea was served, a writing room, a library, a clubroom for men, a barbershop, a bath, tailoring and bar accommodations and an observation platform.

After World War I and with the advent of automobile touring in the 1920's, rail travel began a gradual decline. During World War II there was a resurgence of rail passenger travel and Union Station's greatest passenger year was 1945 with the return of Pacific military troops to the continental United States. At its peak, Union Station handled nearly 40 arrivals/departures daily with as many as 7 separate sections of the Milwaukee Road Olympian departing in a single day.

Widespread airline service in the 1950s cut deeply into rail passenger travel. The Milwaukee Road discontinued passenger service from this terminal in 1961 and in May 1971, nearly 60 years to the day from initial service, the last Union Pacific passenger train departed the station.

Seattle's early railroad history was marked by a colorful and often frustrating competition with other Puget Sound communities to be recognized by the railroads as the most logical northwest terminus.

The railroad development competition openly pitted Olympia, Steilacoom, Tacoma, Seattle, Mukilteo, and lesser-rated locations against each other for favored recognition. Seattle's own civic spirit often working against formidable odds, had a great deal to do with the eventual outcome; but the construction of two major passenger stations during the early 1900's convincingly sealed the emergence of Seattle as the northwest terminus of transcontinental and coastal routes.

In 1906 Northern Pacific Railroad commenced passenger service from its new terminal constructed at the south portal of a mile-long rail tunnel, completed a year earlier beneath the Seattle business district. Competitively, in 1908 the Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Company and its parent organization, the Union Pacific Railroad, decided to build an equally grand passenger terminal in Seattle. The side-by-side stations, later to become known as King Street Station and Union Station respectively, were part of a visionary transportation network which was to include rail routes to Alaska and connections with the Orient and Siberia. The stations, of course, were built but the rail network northward and Orient connections were never fully realized.

Because of Seattle's land mass to water relationship, the central business district has always occupied a strategic location with respect to the regional transportation network, including shipping and other surface systems. This has attracted government and national and international commercial activity that has figured significantly in the area's economy. Union Station was the second of two major rail terminals constructed shortly after the turn of the century in visionary recognition of this relationship and the derivative potential for growth. It represented a substantial investment in open and potentially ruinous competition. The fact that both stations prospered is indicative of the phenomenal expansion experienced during this period, and they remain side by side as important historical evidence in a tangible form. The Pioneer Square Historic District, which was Seattle's original commercial center even before these terminals were built, is on adjacent properties to the north and west, and this further contributes to the current significance of Union Station. There is still a clear geographic relationship to the waterfront, so that the historical context is basically complete and undisturbed.

Building Description

The Union Station Building, completed in 1911, is a monumental reinforced concrete structure with brick veneer and classic terra cotta cornices and trim. It consists of two, three-story office wings located one along each side of an expansive barrel vault waiting room, and an attached four-story entrance lobby and office portion at one end. The vaulted space is nearly 60 feet wide and 160 feet long with the lobby on the north, facing Seattle's central business district. Together with a one-story passenger concourse at street level across the back of the station (south wall), these are arranged in a basically rectangular plan with each component visually differentiated on the exterior elevations.

The combined entrance lobby/office portion is offset slightly forward as a unit, its width being the central half of the front wall. Projecting along this in front but stopping short of its ends is a shallow wall section terminating in a decorative stone balcony off the upper floor. Attached over three sets of triple entrance doors is a large flat, rectangular awning angled slightly upward and supported on the wall by four curved brackets underneath and heavy chains above. The entrance is taller than the remaining building by one floor, with a parapet gable roof that runs flat before rising with a medium pitch to its ridge. The parapet continues around the ends of this portion with a heavy cornice and wide frieze following the roof line on all sides. A similar sub-cornice is located beneath the balcony balustrade (which is compositionally equivalent to the parapet) and it continues around the entire building as a wide band between the third and fourth floors. Also, continuing around the building are finished stonework foundation courses up to the middle of the doorways. Centered in the parapet gable over the third floor is a prominent clock, and a flag pole stands above at the apex.

The barrel vault directly behind the entrance is suspended from steel roof trusses that are in turn carried by ledger beams and columns.

The trusses support a gable roof with its ridge behind and below that of the entrance. A continuous wide skylight runs along the ridge its full length on both sides. A parapet gable with a cornice completes this section on the back wall of the building where its central portion, corresponding to the vaulted interior space, is offset outward. At this end of the barrel vault above the concourse there is a glazed lunette forty-five feet across, bordered on the exterior by decorative brickwork in a radial pattern.

The flanking three-story office wings are shorter by a token amount than the total length of the vault and entrance, so that they appear set back on either side of the front and rear facades. The last bay at both ends of the long walls projects outward in the transverse direction by an amount equal to the set back in the front and rear. The roof above is ceramic tile with a very slight overhang, and these projections are treated as if they were extremely short, perpendicular wings with a low hip roof. The roof in between, for the majority of the long wall, slopes gradually over a short distance matching the height of the hip portion and somewhat like a Mansard roof except for the uncharacteristic shallow pitch. This is, in fact, a long gable roof supported by steel trusses with the inside slope catching the run-off where it meets the parallel gable roof of the barrel vault. The narrow overhang above the office wings is a decorative terra cotta cornice with a continuous series of scallop shells in low relief.

The windows are all double-hung and increase in size on the lower floors. They are symmetrically arranged in vertical and horizontal alignment.

The stonework and terra cotta are light in color while the brick and roof tile are dark. The effect is one of alternating horizontal bands of contrasting materials. There is some decorative brickwork throughout the composition including large pseudo quoins, panel recesses, sill decorations, etc.

The interior of the grand barrel vault waiting room proceeds from the entrance at one end to eleven doors opening onto the concourse at the other. There are six arched ribs at intervals across the ceiling with longitudinal beams running the length at eleven and one o'clock. These were each lit with a line of small exposed bulbs along the center. The five spaces between ribs and beams are filled with large skylights, while in corresponding areas on the walls below there are arched panel recesses between piers and imposts. There are sixteen handsome cast bronze wall bracket light fixtures, located one on each pier. A generous glazed tile wainscotting surrounds the room at chest height, conforming to the complex wall surface. The floor is surfaced with little ceramic tiles in a bordered mosaic pattern. This interior is embellished and decorated in the classic, beaux-arts manner of that period with garlands, Greek keys, and other motifs. This room was once furnished with oak benches costing $600 apiece, polished brass spittoons a foot high, and potted palm trees.

The main waiting space is located at the street level which has been elevated above the original level of the tide flats. All tracks and secondary concourses are on this lower level with stairs, ramps, and escalators providing for pedestrian flow between the levels. The track and mezzanine levels of the building itself were used for baggage handling, food service and preparation, storage, mechanical shops and other support facilities.