Visitors to the historic
Pioneer Square are surrounded with many historical buildings and structures, many of which contain plaques and monuments strategically placed throughout the square to attest to this
plaza's volatile history over the decades. The Pioneer Square Totem Pole is one of those structures that stand tall but unobtrusive in the middle of this square. It is actually a replica of a previous totem pole that was
damaged by vandals in 1938 and then restored again in 1972. It is one of three structures that are listed as a
National Historic Landmark as well as being a contributing structure (ID #65) in the Pioneer Square Skid-Road District (listed on
FindTheData here and listed on
NPS.gov here. It's also, coincidentally, listed as part of three structures in the
National Register of Historic Places (you can waymark it
here). The following
text is taken from the National Park Service website and describes this pergola:
In the heart of Pioneer Square, the land from which Seattle's industrial base grew, stand the Iron Pergola and the Tlingit Indian Totem Pole. This property was originally the site of the city's first mill, built in 1853 by Henry Yesler. A massive street-straightening project in the 1880s led the city to condemn the land, and then turned it into a public square... The Totem Pole first appeared in 1899, after members of the Chamber of Commerce, vacationing in Alaska, stole it from Tlingit Indians. The men gave the object to the city as a gift, but the tribe justly sued for its return and $20,000 in damages. The courts found the men guilty of theft, but fined them only $500 and allowed the city to retain ownership. In 1938, the pieces that remained after vandals set the Totem Pole on fire were sent back to Alaska, where Tlingit craftsmen graciously carved a reproduction. The new pole was soon dedicated, with tribal blessings, at a Potlatch celebration and has since remained unharmed on Pioneer Square. It now stands as symbol of the complicated relationship between American Indians and European Americans.
___________________________________________________
The NPS.gov's PDF datasheet description for this contributing structure (page 111-112) says the following about the totem pole:
The history of the totem's origins and arrival in Seattle is the following: a group of Seattle businessmen and worthies, including Jacob Furth, J.W. Clise, James Hoge and Thomas Prosch and E. F. Blaine, (later honored as the "Father of Seattle's Park System"), took an excursion to Southern Alaska and went to the Tlingit village of Tongass. Finding few people in the village, because the able bodied men and women were working in the fields, the businessmen apparently surmised that the village had been abandoned. They cut down four totem poles as a souvenir of their trip and floated them back to their ship. While the Pioneer Place totem, repainted with garish paint, was placed in Pioneer Place, soon after its trip from Tongass, what happened to the other three poles apparently remains a mystery.
The Pioneer Place totem pole was officially dedicated on October 18, 1899. A January 29, 1910 article concerning the nearby Pergola described it as the "totem pole that made Seattle famous." Apparently, a federal grand jury in Juneau indicted eight of the party for the theft and sent a United States Marshall to Seattle to arrest them, but he was unsuccessful. A second envoy from Alaska, upon arrival in Seattle, was wined and dined at the Rainier Club. The indictments were dropped, while the original fine of$ 20,000 was reduced to $500.
The totem stood in Pioneer Place until October of 1938, when it was damaged by fire. In 1938, Tlingit tribesmen, (under supervision of the "U.S. Forest Service Division"), carved a new totem. The Tlingit craftsmen were Charles Brown and his father, who used special adzes to carve the new ·totem pole. Although the current totem dates from 1938, it is a replica of the original totem which has been an integral part of Pioneer Place since 1899; therefore it should be considered a contributing resource.