With boxes of shoes stacked to the ceiling, John Nordstrom, far left, posed with employees in the early days of his downtown store. The business began as a shoe store in 1901 as Wallin & Nordstrom and has grown to 65 full-line stores around the country. Its new flagship store opened downtown in August 1998.


Mass transit was commonplace in 1908. Here a cable car crosses paths with a trolley at Second Avenue and Madison Street.


Farmers with horsedrawn wagons delivered produce to the public market in this photo that looks north across First Avenue and Pike Street in the early 1900s.


The Knights of Pythias Band (foreground) and the Uniform Rank of the order posed where Stewart Street and Olive Way converge, in front of the Times Square Building. It was a September 1918 gathering to send off "the boys" to World War I. Armistice was signed two months later.


Thousands of people lined Fourth Avenue in November 1961 as President John F. Kennedy visited Seattle. Riding with the president were Sen. Warren G. Magnuson and Gov. Albert D. Rosellini.


This photo, taken in 1859, is of an unidentified store at the corner of Front and James streets. Downtown is now home to 450 restaurants, 10 theaters, two museums, 77 art dealers and galleries, and about 2,000 shops.


The downtown Seattle JC Penney stre was open from 1931 to 1982. During the late 1980s it was remodeled into the mixed residential/retail Newmark Building.


In downtown Seattle the I. Magnin store was open from 1926 to 1993.


When the Woolworth opened its Third Avenue store in 1940, it was the largest in the nationwide chain. The store closed in 1994; the building is now occupied by Ross Dress for Less.


Littler, seen here in 1941, was a premier men's clothier downtown for more than 60 years before it closed in 1996.


John W. Nordstrom, left, founder of what is now a retail dynasty, stands in the Nordstrom downtown around the turn of the century.