Quality

553 1st Ave S.- Pioneer Square
Currently occupied by Triangle Pub

There looks to be at least three ads here, two of which are for beer. The words I can make out here are "...mrich Bros beer Sign of Quality". Under or over that was painted some fancy swirly lettering that I can't make out, though one of the words looks like it could say "today". From "Vanishing Seattle" by Clark Humphrey: "Andrew Hemrich opened the Bay View Brewery in South Seattle in 1878. It Merged with two larger firms in 1893 to form the Seattle Brewing and Malting Company, who's flagship brand was Rainier Beer. Rainier became Seattle's most popular beer and was shipped as far as Alaska. Its Georgetown main plant was the worlds sixth largest brewery by 1916, when Prohibition shut it down. Upon repeal, Canadian Fritz Sick and his Tacoma-born son Emil bought Rainier's old Airport Way plant, the acquired the Rainier name from a California firm that had picked it up."

My opinion is that this advertisement was painted sometime between 1910 when the building was built and the beginning of Prohibition in 1920.


















From trianglepub.com:
"Originally a hotel and bar, this flatiron building, home of the present-day Triangle Pub, was built at a cost of $22,000 in 1910. In the 1920s, the hotel closed as the city grew north. The bar closed during this time due to prohibition and the war against alcohol.

Western Union occupied a part of the building from its inception in 1910 until 1940. The top floors of the building are said to have served as a brothel until as recently as 1945.

The National Park Service granted this building landmark status in 1976. The tavern re-opened in 1981 to its current name of the Triangle Pub."