A year ago, the demolition of the Twin Teepees restaurant on Aurora Avenue surprised and outraged many Seattle residents. The stealthy, sudden demolition brought attention to the fate of Seattle's beloved, quirky, commercial vernacular architecture, which includes the Elephant Car Wash, other fantastic signage, older Burgermasters, and Hat n' Boots. The latter, however, is in a class by itself, an example of a building type known by many names, including programmatic, mimetic, "duck," or oddball architecture. Hat n' Boots is more stage set than functional form, an architectural anomaly spawned by entrepreneurial spirit and the maturation of American car culture in the 1950s.

Hat n' Boots is now in the process of landmark designation - one more step on the road toward its ultimate reuse within a Georgetown park. Thankfully, local activists and government worked together toward its survival and reuse.

More Than Another Roadside Attraction

Car culture stimulated the rise of architecture that looked like something else. Hat n' Boots, like other mimetic buildings along our nations mid-century highways, were advertisements that drew motorists off the road like kitschy sirens. Washington state has a few of these still standing, including Bob's Java Jive in Tacoma (2102 Tacoma Way), the Teapot Gas Station in Zillah, and the Benewah Creamery Buildings in the form of milk bottles in Spokane. Seattle's small collection, which included the Igloos Restaurant at 6th and Denny Way and Twin Teepees has now dwindled to one, the Hat n' Boots, which has appeared in numerous books on the subject of roadside architecture.

While there are other teepees and milk bottles around the country's highways, there are no other cowboy hat and boots. This point (very well documented and articulated in the landmark nomination) makes Hat n' Boots not only a community and state landmark, but a national landmark as well.

Birth and Decline of the Boots

The Hat n' Boots early history is well-described in the landmark nomination submitted by DoCoMoMo.WeWa (the Historic Seattle volunteer committee that serves as the Western Washington chapter of the international group, whose acronym abbreviates "documentation and conservation of the Modern movement") and the Georgetown Community Council (visit their Hat n' Boots web site). :

"The Hat n' Boots gas station was to be part of a planned Western-themed development known as Buford Seals Frontier Village Shopping Complex. It was the cornerstone for the complex and its purpose was to grab people's attention and bring them into the complex. The gas station itself also served the many travelers along what was then US 99. The $2 million shopping complex was to include 185 independent businesses in addition to the gas station and a supermarket known as Foodville (6651 Corson Avenue South). Only Hat n' Boots, a warehouse, a display room, and Foodville were constructed on the 11-acre industrial site owned by King County."

"The land was leased to Seal's company, the Corson Corporation. The rest of the project was abandoned when the developer, Seals, could not finance the construction of the shopping complex. The giant cowboy hat and the pair of boots were the designer Lewis Nasmyth's (commercial artist) idea. He sketched both out on a napkin and presented it to Seals. Seals loved the idea immediately. Nasmyth came up with the design and architect Albert Poe executed the drawings for permitting purposes. Bruce Olsen served as the structural engineer and Bennett Campbell, Inc. provided contracting services."

"Hat n' Boots went on to become Washington State's highest selling gas station."

"The early years of Hat n' Boots were the most successful in terms of gasoline sales in Washington. Construction of Interstate 5 in 1962 significantly affected the traffic volume on US 99. With less vehicular traffic on US 99, business at Hat n' Boots decreased. From the late 1950s through 1960s, the interstate highways replaced the old highways as the faster means of transportation. Establishments related to gas, food, and lodging cropped up along the interstate highways at off-ramps. After a succession of different owners, Hat n' Boots closed in 1988."

Happy Trails

The landmark nomination for Hat n' Boots is more complete and well documented than most. The argument relates the building's significance (primarily) to its place within the history of roadside architecture, the creation of the state highway system, and America's "love affair with the automobile." The significance of the buildings as advertising is also important and bears mentioning.

America's mid-century (roughly 1930s to 1950s) fascination with cowboys and Indians, and the romanticizing of the West in film, television, and music eventually faded in the wake of another craze: the future, technology, and science fiction, sparked by the space race and the Cold War. Seattle's Century 21 exhibition, executed between 1961 and 1962, illustrated this popular interest in America's future. Though the technologically savvy future had been fantastically imagined for decades, starting in the 19th century, the popularization of the "space age" did not saturate the mainstream until the late 1950s and 60s. At that point, "futurism" entered commercial architecture with a Jetson's like flourish (sometimes merely applied, like a sputnik-inspired antennae, or wholesale, like the cylindrically-shaped Westin Hotel).

The Hat n' Boots, built in 1954 is, in its own kitschy way, a romantic, commercial reminder of the popular and mythic West, here at the northwestern edge of the frontier. The preservation of the Hat n' Boots pays homage to that "rootin' tootin'" chapter in American popular culture.

For the full landmark nomination, please contact Beth Chave, Landmarks Coordinator, at beth.chave@ci.seattle.wa.us

View last month's Pending Landmarks article

Back to Top