Smith Tower

Step in from the street and look up. The lobby is lined with marble and bronze that catch the light. The air smells faintly of polish and old wood. The metal has the soft glow of well-kept things. An elevator door slides open, operated by hand. You are at the base of Smith Tower, one of the oldest skyscrapers in the American West.

The tower was completed in 1914. At that time, it was the tallest office building west of the Mississippi River. The newspapers of the day wrote about it with wonder. For people then, its height was hard to imagine. It rose far above everything around it. For nearly fifty years, no building on the West Coast stood taller.

The tower carries the name of Lyman Smith. He had built a large business in typewriters and firearms back east. He never saw the finished building, because he died before it was complete. His family carried the project through. They wanted a structure that would last and would honor the family name for many years.

The outside is covered in white terracotta. This is a baked clay material, shaped and glazed, then fixed to the steel frame. Thousands of these clay pieces cover the building, each one set in place by hand. White terracotta was chosen because it stays bright and is easy to clean in a rainy climate. From a distance, the tower looks like pale stone rising to a sharp point.

Inside, the elevators are part of the experience. They are made of brass and copper, and for many years they were run by human operators. An operator would pull a lever, watch the floors, and stop the car by feel. The cars move with a gentle sway and a soft mechanical hum. A few of these elevators still run in the old way, guided by a person.

Ride to the thirty-fifth floor. Here you reach the observation level and a famous space called the Chinese Room. The walls and ceiling are covered in carved and painted wood. Carved figures and patterns wind across the dark panels. The decoration was a gift connected to China, given when the tower was new. The room feels far away from the modern city outside.

In the Chinese Room sits a special chair, known as the Wishing Chair. There is an old story attached to it. The legend says that a single woman who sits in the chair will marry within a year. This is a tale told for fun, not a fact. Still, many visitors take their turn in the seat and smile for a photograph.

Walk out onto the open observation deck. From here, the older heart of Seattle spreads below you. This district is called Pioneer Square. Its brick buildings and tree-lined streets formed the early core of the city. Above you, the triangular tip of the tower's own roof points at the sky. From this height, you can read the old street grid and the shape of the early town.

Look out toward the water and the hills. You can see the bay, the port with its tall cranes, and the ridges beyond. Ferries cross the water in slow, steady lines. When the tower was built, this view had far fewer tall buildings in it. Now glass towers stand all around. Smith Tower sits among them, small but proud.

For decades, this was the high point of the city. Then, in 1962, the Space Needle rose and took that title. Newer office towers followed and grew much taller. Yet none of them carry the same age and detail. Smith Tower remains a link to the city of a hundred years ago. It keeps an older sense of time alive among the glass towers that now surround it. People still ride up just to stand where the city once ended.

Notice the care in the small things. The brass mailboxes, the patterned floors, the shaped ceilings. These were made by hand in an age before machines did such work. Run your eyes along the worn brass and you can almost sense the hands that shaped it. The building was meant to impress, and it still does, through craft rather than sheer size.

Before you leave the deck, stand quietly for a moment. Feel the wind and watch the light on the old rooftops below. This tower has watched the city grow up and around it, year after year. It no longer reaches the highest, and it does not need to. It holds its place with the calm of long experience.