Look up at Smith Tower, the tallest building west of the Mississippi when it opened in 1914, a record it held until 1931. Lyman Cornelius Smith, the typewriter and shotgun manufacturer from Syracuse, New York, commissioned the building as a monument to Seattle's ambition, though he died in 1910 before it was completed. At thirty-eight stories and 484 feet, the Smith Tower was the fourth-tallest building in the world when it opened, and it dominated the Seattle skyline for decades.
The building's exterior is white terracotta, still gleaming a century later; the lobby is lined with mosaics; and the thirty-fifth-floor observatory is topped with an ornate Chinese Room featuring a carved wood ceiling and bronze furniture, gifts from the Empress of China. For much of the twentieth century, Smith Tower had an elevator operator — one of the last manually operated Otis elevators in the country. The views from the observatory take in Elliott Bay, the Olympic Mountains, and the growing forest of towers that now surround this early skyscraper.
It was bought and restored in 2015 by a local family and now houses a speakeasy-themed bar at the top. On a clear day, you can see Mount Rainier floating above the southern horizon.