Expansive Pioneer Building

The Pioneer Building stands out with its heavy red brick facade, sandstone accents, and arched window openings that mark it as a signature work of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture. Completed in eighteen ninety-two, it rose on the former site of the home of Henry Yesler, a prominent pioneer who owned the city’s first steam-powered sawmill. The structure was a product of the massive rebuilding effort that followed the Great Seattle Fire of eighteen eighty-nine, which leveled the city’s business district.