File:Illustration of Toklas, Singerman & Co building, Seattle, circa 1888 (MOHAI 10977).jpg

English:

In 1875 Polish immigrants Ferdinand Toklas (1845-1924) and Paul Singerman (1847-1915) moved to Seattle and opened what became the city's first department store. Originally located in Pioneer Square and named the San Francisco Store, it was later renamed Toklas, Singerman, & Co. In 1892 the founders sold the store to another partner, John B. MacDougall (1849-1931), who incorporated it as MacDougall & Southwick Co. The popular store at Second Avenue and Pike Street was operated by Mercantile Store Corp. from 1910 until it closed in 1964. This image show's an artist's rendering of the exterior of the store at Front Street and Columbia Street. Constructed in 1887, the building was one of the tallest and grandest business blocks in the city. An illustrated cross section of this building is visible in an 1889 map of Seattle (see MOHAI image SHS483B). Unfortunately the building was destroyed that same year during the Great Seattle Fire in June 1889.

Caption information source: The Seattle Sunday Times, October 30, 1955, p. 15 Caption information source: http://pcad.lib.washington.edu/building/16248

• Subjects: Business districts--Washington (State)--Seattle

Commercial streets--Washington (State)--Seattle Department stores--Washington (State)--Seattle

• Subjects (LCTGM): Business districts--Washington (State)--Seattle; Commercial streets--Washington (State)--Seattle; Department stores--Washington (State)--Seattle

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  Photograph of the Toklas, Singerman & Co building a year or so before it burned. In particular, no reason to think another story was added to it: it burned about two years after it was completed.
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  Photograph of Postal Telegraph Building

It would appear that this image illustrates the architectually similar post-Fire Postal Telegraph Building on the same site (which also housed Toklas and Singerman for several years, and then successor company Macdougall & Southwick for several more).