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Sept. 1908, Oct. 1920 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Creator: | Seattle Chamber of Commerce , creator |
| Title: | Seattle Chamber of Commerce Photograph Collection |
| Date Span: | Sept. 22-27, 1908 |
| Date Span: | Oct. 16-23, 1920 |
| Quantity: | 2 albums (55 photographic prints) |
| PH Collection No.: | 20 |
| Location: | K0066 |
| Languages: | Collection materials are in English. |
| Funding for encoding this finding aid was partially provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. |
The Seattle Chamber of Commerce was established on April 17, 1882, by 23 businessmen, including Henry L. Yesler, Judge Thomas Burke, H.B. Bagley, and others, with J.R. Lewis serving as the first president. By 1890 the Chamber was incorporated and had grown to three hundred members. The Chamber's earliest endeavors included establishing railroad termini in Seattle and developing the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, the Pasco-Kennewick Bridge, and the commerce of the Columbia River Basin. By 1893 both the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific Railroads had located their termini in Seattle.
In 1912 the Chamber's membership directory stated: "The objects of this Association are to foster, protect, and advance the commercial, industrial, mercantile, and other public interests of the City of Seattle; to promote the growth and development of the State of Washington, the Territory of Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest." The Chamber addressed these goals through committees that focused on areas such as Alaska, city affairs, county affairs, foreign and domestic affairs, logged-off lands and irrigation, mercantile issues, rivers and harbors, state affairs and legislation, and transportation.
The collection consists of two albums depicting two separate trips organized by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. The earlier album, entitled Seattle Chamber of Commerce, Business Men's Excursion to Inland Empire, Sept. 22-27, 1908, contains 23 photos taken along the route of the Northern Pacific Railroad and the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railroad in Washington State. The photographs include captions. The final page of the album lists the towns visited under "Itinerary," and the names of attendees, alphabetically by last name, under "Personnel."
The later album is entitled Trade Relations Tour, Seattle Chamber of Commerce, Oct. 16 to 23, 1920. These 32 images were taken as the tour traveled through the Wenatchee Valley, the Columbia Valley, Okanogan, White Stone Irrigation Project between Oroville and Tonasket, a power plant near Pasco, a factory at Toppenish, and the Yakima Valley, all in Eastern Washington. Most of the images are credited to Asahel Curtis; however, as the official photographer for the Chamber at this time, it is probable that he took all the photographs. The final page of the album lists "Personnel" alphabetically by last name.
Collection is open to the public.
Records of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce are housed at the Seattle Public Library.
During the first decades of the twentieth century, the Seattle Chamber of Commerce organized tours of various parts of Washington State to encourage the commercial development of agriculture and natural resources such as mining, forestry, and hydroelectric power. The two trips depicted in this collection reflect railroad tours of Eastern Washington. Typically the excursionists were greeted at the depots with gifts of local fruit. The towns' commercial clubs treated their guests to luncheons or dinners, complete with speeches by both hosts and visitors. The excursion of Sept. 22-27, 1908, traveling on the North Bank Railroad's "1909 Special," began in Portland and followed the Columbia River inland to White Salmon and Kennewick. The visit to Walla Walla included a tour of the Washington State Penitentiary hosted by Supt. Reed, former chief of police of Seattle. In Spokane, the businessmen were treated to a motorcade and banquet in the Doges Hall of the Davenport Hotel. Throughout the tour, major topics of discussion between the visiting and local businessmen included the benefit to agricultural trade brought by the expanding railroad system, as well as the promotion of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition which was planned for the following year, 1909.
The Chamber discontinued the regional trade relations tours during the World War I years due to increased transportation costs and shortage of cars, but returned to the tradition for the tour of Oct. 1920. In that year, 122 Seattle businessmen traveled over 1,200 miles in a Great Northern train, complete with observation, baggage, and dining cars as well as five sleeper cars. The tour crossed the Cascades, with its first stop in Leavenworth, continuing through Wenatchee, Chelan, and the Okanogan region, traveling east to Spokane, then southward to Pasco and Walla Walla, through the Yakima Valley, and finally through Ellensburg and the Kittitas Valley on the way home. Many of the stops were related to regional agriculture, and each location featured banquets, speeches, and entertainment. Discussions focused on the need for irrigation and land reclamation projects to increase agricultural production.
The 1908 album was donated by N.W. Fillipi, Dec. 3, 1945. The donor of the 1920 album is unknown.
Two separate photograph collections, Seattle Chamber of Commerce Collections 20 and 36, were combined to create this collection.
The 1908 album, Business Men's Excursion to Inland Empire, has been dismantled due to fragile bindings; the pages have been put in folders, and the page order has been maintained. The second album remains intact and is housed in a single folder.
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