Pike Place Market

In 1907 the Seattle City Council designated newly planked Pike Place as a public market where people could buy produce straight from local growers. On the first rainy Saturday, August 17, 1907, eight farmers sold everything they brought to a crowd of nearly 10,000. Three months later, 120 farmers sold from wagons along the street. By the end of the year a shed with 76 stalls was under construction. By 1917 the Economy Market, Corner Market, Sanitary Market, and the lower levels of the Main Market were in place.

The city’s historic-preservation page calls Pike Place Market the oldest continuously operating and most historically authentic public market in the country. During World War II the Market lost more than half its farmers after Japanese American growers were incarcerated. By the 1960s fewer than 100 farmers remained.

A 1963 downtown plan proposed replacing much of the Market with Pike Plaza towers and a smaller updated market. Architect Victor Steinbrueck and Friends of the Market put the question on the November 1971 ballot. Seattle voted 73,369 to 53,264 to preserve it. The vote created a seven-acre local and National Register historic district and a larger 22-acre redevelopment area. The sources below are the City of Seattle historic-district page.