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>> If there's one thing that says Seattle more than the world champion Seahawks or the 12th man, it's the space needle.
But that high altitude symbol of the 1962 world's fair wasn't always top dog.
If you were to go back exactly 100 years, Seattleites were craning their necks and rising to new levels in the city's original skyscraper.
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>> So what I have here, this is very cool.
I got this collection a couple years ago.
This came from a person whose grandfather worked on building the Smith tower.
And it is an entire documentation of the construction of the tower from the foundation to the entire structure going up.
>> So in 1911, you're looking at the site of the putting the boards up, and they're beginning to clear out the site.
My name Nicoleette Bromburg, I'm the curator for special collections at the university of Washington libraries.
You can see they're laying the foundation and beginning to do the beams in there.
>> Welcome to the lobby of Smith tower.
We'll take you on inside, where you can see some of the ornate decor that was originally in the building from 1914.
This includes our manually operated elevator and we'll take elevator 7 all the way up to the 35th floor.
>> Dramatic arrival to the Chinese room and observation deck.
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>> Technically, my office is down on the second floor, but this is kind of my second office.
And I think it's the coolest office in the city.
My name is Kate chase.
We are on the 35th floor of the Smith tower.
And I am the marketing manager for the Smith tower.
We turn 100 this year.
The big centennial.
You know, these days, the space needle is what represents Seattle.
But prior to the world's fair in 1962, Seattle was all about the Smith tower.
If you ask anybody's grandmother or grandfather, they all remember as little kids coming into Seattle and this was the place to go.
In 1914, when the Smith tower was built, it was actually the tallest building west of the Mississippi.
And it remained the tallest building on the west coast until the space needle was built.
Elsy Smith, the name sake of the Smith tower, he was originally from Syracuse, New York.
And his fortune came from Smith Corona type writers.
And he actually was convinced by a fellow businessman and his wife to start purchasing land in Seattle.
You know, this was after the great fire, and at the beginning of the gold rush.
And so Seattle was really beginning to grow as a city.
He purchased a few plots of land out here, including the second and yesler locations.
And he decided that Seattle deserved something grander.
>> So now, you can begin to see things that are sticking up.
Oh, see here, this is good.
Now you can see the, it's beginning to take shape.
>> He originally came up with plans for about an 18-story building.
However, his son was in New York city at the time, and he saw all of the huge skyscrapers going up at that time.
And he said that we've got to go bigger.
And so over about a year, they came up with plans for a 25-story building.
And then, you know, a 30-story building.
And finally worked their way up to the 42-story building that stands here today.
>> So then, this just begins to go up and up and up.
This was a major, major undertaking.
It took from 1911 to 1914 to build it.
See, now it's getting up there.
The tower is beginning to take shape.
Now watch the clouding going up.
They're getting close to the top, just kind of crept up, up, up.
>> The term 42 stories is actually a reference to a unit of measurement.
A story is a little bit more than 10 feet.
And nowadays, of course, when we say story, we're actually talking about floors.
So there are 38 physical floors above ground for the Smith tower.
But when you measure it by stories, it's 42.
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>> The Smith tower is an icon of Seattle.
The Smith tower represented Seattle kind of like the space needle does now.
And in this promotional brochure, the Smith tower is right there in the front.
And that's standing as the symbol for Seattle.
And even so, even if you're a new person, you know that building is unusual.
And you're going to know it doesn't look like the same old, same old skyscraper.
And right now, because it isn't as important as it used to be, it's a fun part of what makes Seattle, Seattle, rather than just another boring city.
>> Smith tower centennial celebration is coming up in July.
But you don't have to wait until then to ride those manually operated elevators all the way up to the top.
For hours and more details, go to Smithtower.com. 00:05:33.901, ∂∂