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Archives Gazette August 2026
Happy Birthday Pike Place Market!
This month Pike Place Market celebrates its 119th birthday! The origins of the market can be traced to Ordinance 16636 passed on August 5, 1907, designating a portion of “Pike Place” as a location that could be used “for the sale of garden, farm and other food products from wagons, or other similar vehicles, under certain conditions.” The new law intended to create a market that would allow farmers and other producers to provide their goods directly to consumers, promising a better price for all involved. Over the following decades, the market continued to expand while facing challenges such as increasing traffic, proposed moves, competing interests and discrimination, eventual age and neglect, and a near demolition which led to the creation of the Pike Place Market Historical District in 1971. Learn much more about the history and evolution of the market at our Pike Place Market online exhibit!
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Also – there’s just over a month left to catch our exhibit, We the People of Seattle: America at 250, on display now at the Seattle Municipal Tower’s 3rd floor gallery space! Among the many items on display are two that feature Pike Place Market. One is a 1914 petition signed by over 70 Japanese farmers protesting a discriminatory stall-assigning practice used by market authorities at the time. The other is an anonymous letter sent to the mayor in 1970 complaining about the market as a “rat’s nest of hippies,” highlighting how some people at the time viewed the market as an out-of-date eyesore. Check out these and many other objects from the archives at the exhibit!
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What's Happening
Newly Processed: SPD Records
We’re excited to announce that textual records from a large Police Department accession have been processed, and many new collections are now available for research!
The largest series from the accession is SPD Subject Files, which date back to 1907 and cover a wide variety of subject matter including DWI enforcement, precinct buildings, traffic management, drill teams, and the annual police ball. You’ll also find records on special units and programs such as the mounted patrol, community service officers, the school safety patrol program, and the city’s pioneering bicycle squad. Administrative files include organizational charts, discussions of new technology, and plans for department reorganizations.
There are also several new series from the department’s public information division, including administrative records, press releases, news clippings, and internal department newsletters like Call Box and SPD Journal. Another series contains manuals and policies for the entire department as well as for specific units, outlining organization, procedures, and workflows. Records and Evidence Unit Records include departmental policies regarding records access and retention. Other series from the accession include Water and Air Operations Records, Training Bulletins, and a small set of Police Academy Records.
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Illustration from Police Department training bulletin on search techniques, 1959 (Record Series 6408-02)
Read much more about all the new collections (with newly digitized highlights) at our Primary Sources blog!
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Collection Highlights
Find of the Month: Early Morning Garbage Pickup
Our Find of the Month for August highlights a few of the regular complaints made over the years about the noise from early morning garbage pickup. In 1941, the manager of the Malloy Apartments in the U District relayed grumbles from his tenants that "the big trucks roar up the alley, the men talk loud and beat the cans on the edge of the truck body till everyone is thoroughly disturbed." The Health Commissioner replied that early pickup was necessary before traffic began, but that workers “have been ordered to make no unnecessary noise.”
 Garbage truck and workers, 1954. Image 44893 (above) and 44892 (below), SMA.
An inhabitant of the Fairmount Hotel downtown wrote in 1949 to complain about the "unbearable racket" of garbage pickup, claiming that workers had retaliated after he called the city to protest: “...subsequent noises have continued with more vehemence, done apparently as an act of reprisal. Not only do they throw the garbage cans around more violently, but one of the men will cross the street to pick up another can there and loudly holler to his companion on the opposite side nearest the hotel...To be awakened every morning at 4:30 o'clock by these, apparently, intentionally made noises caused by a couple of nincompoops is not only emotionally disturbing but is non-conducive to good health as well.”
In 1967, a Capitol Hill resident wrote to city council about trucks arriving on Broadway between midnight and 3am. "For anywhere from twenty to forty minutes they make an ungodly racket... Obviously sleep is impossible when these trucks are in the area..." And in 1938, after receiving angry letters about 3:30am trash pickups, the Health Commissioner wrote to George Nelson, the owner of the garbage contractor, to "insist on strict adherence" to the acceptable pickup hours noted in his contract. Nelson wrote back saying that he had "personally investigated hundreds of these complaints in the last five years and have found the majority fictitious." He blamed the previous garbage company for promoting false claims in hopes of winning back the contract.
Read more and get links to scanned copies of the letters at the Find of the Month section of our website!
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Pike Place Market Records
If you’re curious to delve more into the 119-year history of the Pike Place Market, you’ll find plenty of records here at SMA to help. These records include documents, photographs, audiovisual materials, drawings, and more.
For example, Pike Place Market Records is a large collection with materials spanning 1907 to 1990 related primarily to the history, proposed redevelopment, and preservation of the Pike Place Market neighborhood. Pike Place Market Historical District records include minutes, subject files, and photographs. And Pike Place Market Visual Images and Audiotapes includes over 2,500 photographs and over 4,500 slides documenting market structures, activities, and celebrations, with over 6,300 items scanned and available to view and download at our Digital Collections site (such as the 1939 photo above).
As always, let us know if you have any questions about records in the archives and how we can help with your research!
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