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N0KFQ > TODAY 13.12.15 15:55l 54 Lines 2396 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 78402_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Dec 13
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<F1OYP<F1OYP<N9PMO<NS2B<N0KFQ
Sent: 151213/1453Z 78402@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.65
2003
Seattle's Hat `n' Boots finds a new home
On this day in 2003, Seattle preservationists load the city's
iconic Hat `n' Boots Tex Gas Station onto a tractor-trailer and
drive it away from the spot where it had stood for almost 50
years. The hat, a 44-foot-wide Stetson, went first; the
22-foot-tall cowboy boots followed it one at a time. (The giant
hat had always been mostly for show-it had perched atop the
filling station's office, luring drivers off the highway. The
boots, on the other had, were eminently functional: The left one
housed the men's restroom and the right one housed the women's.)
The buildings were famous examples of mid-century roadside Pop
Art-eagle-eyed viewers can even see them in the opening credits
of the film "National Lampoon's Vacation"-and the move, to a
nearby park, saved them from demolition.
Developer Buford Seals intended the Hat `n' Boots (built in 1955)
to be the centerpiece of a gigantic shopping center that he
called the Frontier Village. It sat alongside Route 99, the
Pacific Northwest's major north-south highway, and Seals was
confident that people would flock to his mall if only he could
find a way to attract their attention. So, he hired artist Lewis
H. Nasmyth to design the enormous structure, and the two men
built it themselves out of steel beams, plaster and chicken wire.
It cost $150,000, almost all the money Seals had. After the
filling station was finished, he managed to scrape together
enough cash to build the (ordinary-looking) Frontier Village
Supermarket, but the mall's remaining 184 stores never
materialized.
For a while, the gas station had better luck than either the
shopping center or the supermarket, which quickly went out of
business. In fact, for the first five years it was open, the Hat
`n' Boots sold more gasoline than any other station in
Washington. Rumor has it that Elvis even pumped gas there! But
the completion of the bigger, more modern Interstate 5 just a few
miles away drained most of Route 99's traffic, and the Hat `n'
Boots became more of a tourist curiosity than anything else. It
closed in 1988.
When they reached their new home in Oxbow Park, the
disintegrating boots were restored almost immediately. In 2007,
Seattle city officials paid $150,000 to revitalize the hat as
well.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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