I took this picture of Seattle's iconic Smith Tower from the balcony of my sons' condo on Friday night.
When it was completed in 1914, it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi, and remained so until the Kansas Power & Light building was completed in 1931. Even so, Smith Tower remained the tallest structure on the west coast until the erection in 1962 of that other Seattle icon, the Space Needle.
Its namesake, Lyman Cornelius Smith, made his first fortune manufacturing hammerless shotguns, though he is not related to the Smiths of Smith & Wesson firearms fame. He is, however, the Smith in the Smith-Corona Typewriter Company, which still exists today as a manufacturer of thermal printing and labelling products.
What looks like a gray wall across the bottom of my picture is actually the top of the Seattle Fire Dept Emergency Communications Center across the street from my sons' building.
