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Category: Fremont Businesses

Coast Carton Company, 4133 Stone Way

Posted on by Valarie

In the past twenty years we have seen a complete transformation of Stone Way from a light-industrial area to an avenue of modern apartment buildings.  There are still a few old buildings.  Coast Carton Company at 4133 Stone Way, was built as a box factory in 1912 and the building now has retail storefronts. 

In 1906 James L. Norie of Pennsylvania traveled with his father-in-law, Joseph Kaye, to explore the timber resources of the State of Washington.  They had read newspaper accounts that major timber companies such as Weyerhaeuser and Laird-Norton had left Minnesota and moved to Washington in search of new forests of trees.  Joseph Kaye was also in the lumber business and wanted to try to find a new supply.  He bought a lumber mill in Pilchuck, a mill town near Arlington in Snohomish County, about 40 miles northeast of Seattle. 

A few years later, J.L. Norie brought his family to the Pacific Northwest and operated a lumber mill in Sedro-Woolley, Skagit County. Next, the Norie family moved to Seattle.  Instead of working directly with timber, in 1912 Norie set up a secondary business:  the making of paper boxes from softwood trees such as pine and fir.  Norie built a box factory at 4133 Stone Way (southwest corner of 42nd Street). 

All of James Norie’s family, his parents and siblings, moved to the Pacific Northwest as did those of his wife Martha Kaye Norie.  James & Martha’s son worked at Coast Carton as did James’ nephew Robert, Robert’s wife Lena and daughter Katherine. 

James Norie outlived two wives and continued to manage the box factory until he was in his seventies, in the 1950s.  In 1964 at age 86, Norie attended a reunion at the old ghost-town of Pilchuck, Snohomish County.  He took sick and died in Seattle, two weeks after the Pilchuck reunion. 

Sources: 

Genealogy listings including Find A Grave. 

Plat name: the notation “Elders Orchard” on the Coast Cartons property photo, is the legal description of the plat name. The photo was taken circa 1938 in a survey of all taxable buildings in King County, for property tax assessment.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 8, 1937, page 19:  J.L. Norie’s first wife, Martha, was killed in a car wreck. 

Seattle Daily Times, October 25, 1964, page 98: Lucile MacDonald column about Pilchuck, a vanished town in Snohomish County. 

Fremont’s Pocket Desert

Posted on by Valarie

In Fremont, our neighborhood known for its eccentricity, a small mystery has been hiding in plain sight. The Fremont Neighbor blog has written the following inquiry:

“On the grounds of what is now the Fremont Foundry event venue, 154 North 35th Street, sits a modest postcard-sized plaque reading simply “Fremont Pocket Desert.” No one seems to know its origin story.

The plaque’s location is particularly intriguing given the property’s colorful history. This is where sculptor Peter Bevis, the same visionary who brought us the Lenin statue, once pursued his dream of creating an artists’ community.

Bevis, who died in 2015, was a passionate sculptor who used money earned from commercial fishing in Alaska to slowly build the Fremont Fine Arts Foundry starting in 1979. By 1987, the nearly 22,000-square-foot building housed 11 live-in spaces where artists could work. Back then, Fremont called itself an “Artists’ Republic,” and Bevis believed he could create a true artistic mecca.

But like many of Bevis’ ambitious projects, including his doomed quest to save the art deco ferry Kalakala, the artists’ community eventually faded. By 2012, as tech companies moved into Fremont and the neighborhood’s bohemian character shifted, Bevis sold the foundry for $2.1 million. Currently the building serves as an upscale event venue.

So where does the “Fremont Pocket Desert” plaque fit into this story? Was it one of Bevis’ artistic statements? A remnant from the building’s days as a working foundry? An inside joke among the artists who once lived there?

The plaque’s cryptic message feels entirely in keeping with both Bevis’ unconventional spirit and Fremont’s tradition of playful installations.”

Do you know the story behind Fremont’s “Pocket Desert” plaque? If you have any information about this small but intriguing piece of Fremont history, please reach out to the Fremont Neighbor blog: Home – Fremont Neighbor

Harvey Funeral Home, 508 North 36th Street

Posted on by Valarie

The Harvey Funeral Home on North 36th Street, corner of Evanston Avenue, is an example of the evolution of businesses and buildings in Fremont. This site started out as a single-family home built in 1902. In early Fremont there was no zoning and as the district grew, homes were sometimes converted to commercial buildings. That is the case with this building which was expanded several times, beginning in 1928 when it opened as the Fisher-Kalfus Funeral Home. In 1955 the name became the Hoffner, Fisher & Harvey Funeral Home.

Like the Bleitz Funeral Home at the south end of the Fremont Bridge, the Harvey Funeral Home experienced a decline in business because of cultural changes in funeral preferences. The property has been sold and as of 2025 the site is slated for redevelopment. The building was presented at the Seattle Landmarks Board but it failed to win nomination for historic preservation.

Sources:

Landmarks Board nomination report, 2021.

Bleitz Funeral Home, 316 Florentia Street

Posted on by Valarie

The Lake Washington Ship Canal was completed in 1917 and the former small stream flowing westward past Fremont, was widened and deepened for the passage of larger vessels. Before that time there had been a much smaller channel and a bridge, and areas on the south side of the bridge were still considered part of Fremont. The new, wide channel caused a demarcation so that today, the south side of the Fremont Bridge is considered to be in the Queen Anne neighborhood.

In 1904 an ambitious young man, Jacob Bleitz, came to Seattle to set up his funeral home business. He had attended the Chicago College of Embalming in 1900, then set up business in Wichita, Kansas, for a time.

In Seattle, Jacob Bleitz gravitated to the Fremont neighborhood where he joined the Masonic group, the Doric Lodge. He accessed his business contacts there and opened his funeral home business in Fremont in 1906. Bleitz seemed to want to keep developing for better facilities. He moved to another intersection in Fremont and then, in 1921, he built his own building on the south side of the Fremont Bridge, at Florentia Street. The Bleitz building is today very visible in its location right next to the bridge.

Changes in cultural expectations of funeral services, such as a greater emphasis on cremation, have caused a decline in the number of mortuary facilities in Seattle. After the Bleitz business closed and the building was sold, a developer applied to tear it down and build a new office building there. This plan was stopped in part, by the historic landmarking of the building in 2017, under the City of Seattle Historic Preservation Program.

The Bleitz building was then sold to another developer who was willing to work with the historic preservation program. Permission was granted to demolish a “non-contributing” structure, a drive-up, on the west side of the building as it was not original. The western side of the property was available for a new building. The new building is joined to the Bleitz by a courtyard and the property has been renamed Fremont Crossing.

Sources:

Bleitz history:  company photos in the Now and Then column of June 16, 2022.

Historic Landmark Nomination, Bleitz Funeral Home, March 1, 2017, Seattle Landmarks Board.

South of the Bridge in Fremont, blog article about the Bleitz and other developments.

The Fremont Hotel Building, 3419 Fremont Avenue North

Posted on by Valarie

The Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889 made news headlines all over the USA and drew opportunity-seekers to Seattle. Skilled workers such as carpenters knew that they would have a good chance of finding employment in the rebuilding of the city. Others, including teachers, attorneys, bankers and businessmen also sought opportunities in the rebuilding of Seattle.

A young man, Charles Remsberg, came to Seattle in 1889 and settled in the newly created suburb of Fremont where he found a place as an active community member. He studied to earn a law degree and was elected Justice of the Peace in Fremont, so that ever after, he was referred to as Judge Remsberg.

Judge Remsberg became a business investor in Fremont real estate. In 1901 he built in the 3400 block on the west side of Fremont Avenue. The building had storefronts at the sidewalk level and some office spaces on the second floor, which also contained the Fremont Hotel. In June 1903 a fire started, possibly in the chimney flue of one of the businesses. The fire destroyed much of the building and Judge Remsberg determined to re-build with more fire-resistant materials. Remsberg’s next venture was as founder of a bank across the street at 3416 Fremont Ave, with business partner Samuel Dixon. The Remsberg & Dixon Bank also sold fire insurance.

In 1911 a new street, Fremont Place, was cut through on the diagonal at the corner of 35th, giving more space for traffic to and from Fremont Avenue’s approach to the Fremont Bridge. Judge Remsberg’s corner Fremont Hotel building was slightly sheared off by the creation of the street, so he commissioned architects to adapt the building to the remaining land. This created the curved facade of the Fremont Hotel building, very eye-catching at this prominent intersection. A prefabricated building material, rusticated concrete blocks, also made the building stand out from its surroundings of mostly wood-frame or brick-fronted buildings.

Today the Fremont Hotel building appeals to the eye with its curved front, unique rusticated facade and large windows into shops. In 1979 the building was nominated for historic preservation due to its “visual prominence that underscores its historical associations with long-term business and civic institutions in the Fremont District.”

Sources:

Caroline Tobin, Historical Survey and Planning Study of Fremont’s Commercial Area, Fremont Neighborhood Council, 1991.

“Destructive Fire in Fremont,” Seattle Daily Times, June 24, 1903, pages 1 and 2.

“People of the Ship Canal: Remsberg & Dixon, Fremont Businessmen.” Blog article, 2017, by Valarie.

The McKenzie Building at 3400 Fremont Avenue North

Posted on by Valarie

By 1927 Fremont was a well-established neighborhood with a busy commercial district along Fremont Avenue North and the side-streets including North 34th Street. In that year a pioneer building, Hotel Dixon, was demolished to make way for a new-era commercial building with storefronts at the sidewalk level and offices upstairs. There also is a basement which today still houses successful businesses.

The McKenzie Building at 3400 Fremont Avenue North was designed by Seattle architect John R. Nevins, a resident of the early Wedgwood neighborhood in northeast Seattle.

Today the building at 3400 Fremont Avenue North is still known as the McKenzie, with the name spelled out in decorative tile and brickwork. David McKenzie (1858-1929) was a business investor who came to Seattle in 1907 and had a varied career. Along with business interests he served as one of the three King County Councilmen, and he was director of the Westlake Public Market until 1925. In 1926 he was one of the investors in Fremont’s Queen City Bank which had been organized by Fremont businessmen including Bryant Lumber Company executives.

In the last years of his life David McKenzie’s occupation was listed as real estate investor. He may have intended to live in retirement supported by rental income from the new McKenzie Building.

A long-time tenant of the McKenzie Building was the Costas Opa Greek restaurant, which operated from 1981 to 2012. A Chase Bank branch later opened in the McKenzie Building. At this writing in February 2025 the ground floor of the McKenzie Building is vacant.

Hotel Dixon at 3400 Fremont Avenue North

Posted on by Valarie

Walter A. Shorey was one of the enterprising young men who came to Seattle to get in on its opportunities for growth. He arrived just in time for the opening of a new neighborhood, Fremont, in 1888. Shorey obtained a prime site at the main intersection of North 34th Street & Fremont Avenue, to build a large hotel/boarding house. Fremont’s founders had planned ahead to establish resources for the community, so they had already set up a lumber mill which provided jobs and materials to build houses. A boarding house was needed for temporary residents or single men like the sawmill workers.

After about ten years Walter Shorey sold the hotel to Samuel Dixon, another early Fremont businessman. Shorey continued to live in the area and listed himself as a real estate agent. Perhaps Shorey sold the boarding house business because he’d had to slow down due to poor health, as he died in 1903.

In the 1901 photo shown here, people on the veranda of Hotel Dixon are standing with their bicycles. The reason for this might be because hotel proprietor Samuel Dixon also owned a bicycle shop, right across the street. During his years as a businessman in Fremont, Dixon juggled several enterprises, including insurance, banking and real estate developments.

Hotel Dixon stood on this site, northeast corner of 34th & Fremont Avenue North, until 1927 when it was replaced by the McKenzie Building.

3400 Phinney Avenue North: the original trolley car barn

Posted on by Valarie

The red-brick trolley car barn in Fremont was built in 1905 as a home base for the five lines which traveled around the Fremont, Ballard, Phinney, and Greenlake areas. The parking area had pits below, used by mechanics who repaired the underworking of the cars. On the east side of the building was a yard with a wash tower for cleaning the cars.

The building was the first major streetcar service facility to be built in north Seattle, and it represented the heyday of trolley service under Stone & Webster ownership. The trolley era came to a sudden end in 1941 when the City of Seattle abandoned the system and converted to gas-powered buses. The last streetcar to operate in the City of Seattle stopped at the Fremont Car Barn on April 13, 1941.

During World War Two in the 1940s, the car barn was taken over by the Army and was used as storage space. After the war, the building was used by the Seattle Disposal Company to house garbage trucks.

In 1988 the car barn became the home of Redhook Ale Brewery, with the Trolleyman pub on the northwest corner of the building. From 2006-2025 the car barn was the production facility and retail store outlet of Theo Chocolate.

The Fremont Trolley Car Barn received historic designation in 1989 under the City of Seattle Historic Preservation Program. In 2025, with the departure of Theo Chocolate, the building owners received approval to do some modifications to entryways on the east side of the building. to facilitate new users such as retail shops. Read about it here on the Fremont Neighbor blog: Landmarks Board OKs changes to former Theo Chocolate building – Fremont Neighbor

3400 Phinney Avenue North: car barn

Posted on by Valarie

After nineteen years in Fremont, the Theo Chocolate Company announced closure of their store in February 2025, as well as the store in Bellevue.

The Theo Chocolate building at 3400 Phinney Avenue North which had also been used as their factory, was built in 1905 as a car barn for the trolley system. The centrality of Fremont and the convergence of tracks there, helped earn the designation of Fremont as Center of the Universe. The building was officially landmarked for historic preservation in 1989.

Read here about the expected updates to the building in 2025: Landmarks Board OKs changes to former Theo Chocolate building – Fremont Neighbor

The J.P. Dean Building at 3508 Fremont Avenue North

Posted on by fremont

The J.P. Dean Building at 3508 Fremont Avenue North was named for Mr. Joseph P. Dean, the original building owner. Mr. Dean was a millwright who lived at 1554 NW 50th Street. He worked at the Fremont sawmill in the 1890s but later moved to Ballard and worked at the Seattle Cedar Lumber Manufacturing Company. He was promoted from millwright to foreman to master mechanic during his career at Seattle Cedar Lumber. His handsome Queen Anne style 1902 house still stands prominently at the NE corner of 17th NW & NW 50th in Ballard.

The J.P. Dean Building was constructed in 1912 by Alex Carter, an English immigrant who lived in Fremont at 3611 2nd Ave NW. He specialized in house moving, but he may have had additional skills. The building permit was issued on March 5, 1912. The cost to build the two-story building was estimated at $8,000. The building has a rusticated cast stone façade similar to that of the Fremont Hotel. Numerous permits were issued to allow alteration of the building for various tenants in 1914, 1917, early-mid 1920s, and again in the 1950s and 1960s.

The J.P. Dean building has been in Linden family ownership since the early 1930s when Andy Linden bought the building as an investment. He was born in Sweden and came to the United States in 1901. He was listed in the 1910 census as a cabinetmaker, living at 317 E. Thomas Street. He operated Linden Furniture store from 1912 to 1948, when he retired. The furniture store was located close to the Fremont Bridge until the early 1920s and then moved to 940 N. 34th Street, close to the intersection of Stone Way.

At the time of the 1938 property survey photos, the Fremont Confectionery appeared to be the only tenant at storefront level in the 3508 building. Other storefronts were vacant during that 1930s time of economic depression. Fremont was economically impacted not only by the Great Depression, but also by the opening of the Aurora Bridge in 1932, which created a bypass and caused a decline in shopping in Fremont.

Mr. Klieros, proprietor of Fremont Confectionery, was born in Turkey. He came to the United States in 1914 and was a partner in a restaurant. He operated the Fremont Confectionery Company for 33 years. He lived at 722 N. 36th Street and later at 714 N. 46th Street. He was a member of St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church.

Today the storefronts along the 3500 block of Fremont Avenue are interesting and add to the nurture of local merchants in the Fremont business district.

Sources: Al Linden; Polk Seattle Directories; City of Seattle permit records; Historical Survey and Planning Study of Fremont’s Commercial Area, Carol Tobin, 1991; Theodore Klieros Obituary,10/24/1958 Seattle Times; Andy Linden Obituary, 10/4/1953 Seattle P.I.;U.S. Census, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940; Seattle Department of Neighborhoods website, Database of Historic Properties.