Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 7, Issue 8, August 2003
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Postcards from Seattle's past
By SUSAN PARK
For the past six years, John Coombs has been collecting postcards. Not just any postcards, mind you.
The 63-year-old Green Lake resident specializes in collecting rare postcards that chronicle the history of Seattle from 1900 through 1950.
"Collecting these postcards is a good way of seeing the history of Seattle," says Coombs, who retired last year from the Boeing Fire Department, where he worked for 25 years and held the title of crew chief (the equivalent of a lieutenant, he says).
The oldest card in Coombs' collection is from 1903, a scene of the old triangle-shaped Seattle Hotel on the corner where Yesler and James streets meet and which today is the famous "sinking ship" parking garage.
Another postcard, with a 1-cent stamp postmarked June 2, 1906, shows Second Avenue, which is filled with horse-drawn freight wagons, street cars and pedestrians. Among the businesses that can be seen in the photograph is a G.O. Guy Drug Store and another shop that says Johnston's Tailor.
Several postcards depict scenes of North Seattle, including one from 1907, which shows Green Lake, looking west, with a dock and marshes in the foreground, people in row boats throughout the lake, and on the far shore, several large houses.
A color postcard, postmarked July 23, 1925, shows a playground, complete with swings, wading pool and tennis court, at Woodland Park with a description that states: "There are 14 tennis courts similar to the one shown in Woodland Park, Seattle, USA."
A black-and-white postcard from either the late 1940s or possibly 1950, judging from the cars, shows the intersection of Lake City Way and 130th.
Coombs has a good reason for his interest in collecting historic Seattle postcards. He is a native of the area whose descendants have lived in Western Washington clear back to the 1800s.
His great-great grandfather on his mother's side, Steven V. Boyce, moved to what is now known as Friday Harbor in 1860. He became San Juan Island County's first sheriff, county assessor and liquor inspector and also worked as a surveyor.
His grandfather on his father's side, James W. Coombs, moved to Seattle in 1894 and became owner of a grocery store in the Roosevelt neighborhood who later sold the store to became a carpenter. He built a home for his family in 1914 where North Seattle Community College now stands.
As a kid, Coombs recalls visiting his grandparents' house, which was near a big pond called Donkey Pond. He also remembers fishing for trout in Thornton Creek along a section that used to run through the farm of one of his grandparents' neighbors, the Williamsons, whose property was located across from N. 105th and Meridian Avenue N.
Other favorite memories of growing up in North Seattle in the 1940s and 1950s included going to see movies at the old Arabian Theater, which is now a temple located along Aurora Avenue N, across from Green Lake Cycle. Admission was only 25 cents, which was the same price for popcorn.
Coombs, who stores his collection in a photo album, buys most of his postcards on eBay and other Internet auction sites. He says the most he has ever paid for a postcard was $25.