Jazz originated in the Black community of New Orleans around the turn of the 20th century and was brought to Seattle by African American musicians who migrated here. A trickle of Black migration to Washington State began in the late 1800s and by 1910, Seattle boasted 2,296 Black residents. Many came by railroad, so our tour of Seattle’s historic jazz district logically begins at the train station. Opened in 1906 as a joint terminus for the Northern Pacific Railway and Great Northern Railway, the great hall and clock tower of King Street Station were probably the first visual impressions of Seattle for Frank Waldron (1890-1955), who came up from San Francisco in 1907 and over the next decades taught several generations of Seattle musicians the intricacies of jazz. Porters and waiters working on the trains sometimes spent the night in town, looking for a bite to eat, a drink, entertainment, or simply a place to congregate. These men were some of the earliest customers for the night spots and social clubs that developed in the nearby Chinatown International District and, farther up the hill, the Central District commercial hub around Twelfth Avenue South and South Jackson Street. For a while, a club on that corner (the Black and Tan) was even known as the “Porters and Waiters Club” and another jazz venue on Seventh Avenue South near South Jackson Street, the Golden West, advertised “Special Rates to Railroad and Theatrical People."
King Street Station, 1944.
(Seattle Municipal Archives)
Kansas-born swing trumpeter Leon Vaughn (1915-2001), recalled “running on the Great Northern Empire Builder from Chicago to Tacoma. We’d catch the train in Minneapolis, go to Chicago, then come back and ‘walk across the country. We were waiters.”
One night, Vaughn dropped in at the Porters and Waiters Club and sat in. Impressed by how much other work he could get in Seattle as a musician – not to mention that roses were blooming in December – Vaughn decided to relocate to the Emerald City.
Today, King Street Station is home to the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, which funds arts projects, but it once was a major gateway to the Jackson Street Jazz District.
King Street
Station today.