About this property
The Butterworth Building or Butterworth Block at 1921 First Avenue in Seattle, Washington was originally built as the Butterworth & Sons mortuary, which moved into this location in 1903 and moved to larger quarters in 1923. Located on a steep hill, the building has only three stories on the First Avenue side, but five on Post Alley. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP); adjacent to Pike Place Market, it falls within the NRHP's Pike Place Public Market Historic District and the city's Place Market Historical District. Now owned by the McAleese Family since 2005. The building was the city's first purpose-built mortuary building. Jeannie Yandel in 2009 described it as "The city's first place for comprehensive death-related services from corpse retrieval to coffin sales." The building had the first elevator on the West Coast of the United States, used to transport bodies. A Seattle Mail and Herald account from August 1904, shortly after the building opened, calls it "without question of doubt, the most complete establishment of its kind in the United States…" A 2008 Seattle Times article describes the building, still extant, as "eautifully appointed in stained mahogany, art glass, ornamental plaster and specially designed brass and bronze hardware…" The basement, accessible through Post Alley at the rear, is now (as of 2009) home to Kells Irish Restaurant & Pub. Several recent accounts describe the Kells space as the former embalming room and crematorium, but the 1904 account says that the basement housed the building's heating plant, stables, and a storage space for funeral wagons. The building is associated with several ghost stories. In 2010, the building was featured on an episode of Ghost Adventures.
Location
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Everything a full report reveals about Butterworth Building
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Questions about this property
When was Butterworth Building listed on the National Register?
Butterworth Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 13, 1971.
What type of historic resource is Butterworth Building?
Butterworth Building is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Butterworth Building?
The period of significance for Butterworth Building is recorded as the industrial era, specifically around 1903.
Can I research the history near Butterworth Building?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Butterworth Building will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
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