Smith Tower (Seattle, Wash.)

Smith Tower is a skyscraper in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Completed in 1914, the 38-story, 462 ft (141 m) tower was among the tallest skyscrapers outside New York City at the time of its completion. It was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River until the completion of the Kansas City Power & Light Building in 1931. It remained the tallest building on the U.S. West Coast for nearly half a century, until the Space Needle overtook it in 1962. The tower is named after its builder, the firearm and typewriter magnate Lyman Cornelius Smith (unrelated to Horace Smith of Smith & Wesson), but its construction was largely overseen by his son Burns Lyman Smith after his father's 1910 death and would remain under the ownership of the Smith family into the 1940s. It was originally known as the L.C. Smith Building until the Smith Tower became its official name in 1929. It was designated as a Seattle landmark in 1984.