Totem pole at Pioneer Square, 1915

• Other Authors: University of Washington Libraries
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Webster & Stevens
• Subjects: Tlingit Indians > Arts & Crafts; Totem poles > Alaska > Tongass; Totem poles > Washington (State) > Seattle; tlingit; Alaska
• Online Access: http://cdm16786.contentdm.oclc.org:80/cdm/ref/collection/loc/id/86; http://content.lib.washington.edu/cgi-bin/htmlview.exe?CISOROOT=/loc&CISOPTR=86

The totem pole in Pioneer Square has been a Seattle landmark since 1899. That year, a group of Seattle businessmen visited Tongass, a Tlingit village in southeastern Alaska. They thought the village was deserted and removed a 50-foot tall totem pole as a souvenir. The men brought the pole back to Seattle and had it set up in Pioneer Square. They were later fined for the theft. The pole was originally created as a memorial to a woman of the Raven Clan. After rot and fire damaged the original pole, it was replaced in 1938 by a duplicate carved by Tlingit craftsmen. In this photo, the totem pole towers over a group of men waiting for the streetcar in Pioneer Square. Photographers Ira Webster and Nelson Stevens opened their Seattle studio in 1902. They were the official photographers for The Seattle Times for 23 years, beginning in 1906, and also did extensive commercial photography work in Seattle and King County. Webster retired in 1925 and died in 1942; and Stevens died around 1930. (Firm stationery; Charles T. Hommel, A Guide to Historical Photograph Collections in Seattle, p. 46.)