On the SW corner of 25th Ave E and E Boston Street sits a neat and unassuming Colonial Revival Cottage built in 1920. Its official name with National Register of Historic Places is The Nowell Residence named for it first owners, Frank and Elizabeth Nowell.
While
it’s easy to think of 1920 as “fairly recent” when discussing our historic
neighborhood only about 20% of the available Montlake lots had been built on at
that time. The ship canal had opened
just a few short years before but we wouldn’t see the opening of the Montlake
Bridge for another 5 years. Montlake
School as we have known it wouldn’t open for another 4 years. By the end of 1920 only 60 homes in Montlake
had garages as we weren’t yet an automotive-dominated society and there was no
end of convenient street parking available.
The Central Business District between Lynn and McGraw Streets consisted
of only two buildings. This was the
Montlake that Frank and Elizabeth moved into at 2021 25th E.
1923 - Courtesy of Ron Edge
Prior
to settling down in Seattle Frank had done a lot of traveling and held a number
of different jobs in Alaska where he developed an interest in life on the
frontier and an appreciation of the indigenous NW cultures.
He became adept at photography and began documenting his travels. In 1909 he landed a great gig as official photographer for the 1909 Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition and, while there were several notable local photographers, Frank H. Nowell was responsible for some of the most iconic images that we associate with Seattle’s first world’s fair.
He opened a storefront at 1212 4th Ave where he specialized in portraits and photographic services while producing most of the images documenting the building of the Smith Tower completed in 1914. When the Montlake house was built, 6 years later, he and Elizabeth moved in and lived there through the 1930’s before retiring to their Crystal Lake “ranch” near Maltby.
In
1950 Frank H. Nowell passed and left us his photographic legacy. I wonder if there are still any glass plates
in the basement?
Frank Hamilton Nowell
1864 - 1950
No comments:
Post a Comment