Phalen's Hall by Josie

This is the building that I am doing lots and lots of work about for a project at school. It's the Bakery building in Columbia City, where Lauren works. This is what it looked like in 1909.


What kind of work have you been doing for your project?

Well, one day during vacation, after the snow, me and my dear mother went to the Archives of the City to do some looking up. We had to go to City Hall, which is this big building with big steps going up to this big entrance, and there was this sign with the Rules of Conduct:


And we scratched our chins, because we didn't even come there to lie down -- that is what your bed is for. We were there to look for things that were written in big leather books in very fancy writing that we cannot read, about the building.


For instance, this page says that the people that were in charge of Columbia City decided that the doorsill of the Bakery Building -- a.k.a. Pythias Hall -- was the starting point for the grading of the town. (The only problem with this is that doors do not have sills, that is only windows.

Yes, they do.

No, that doesn't sound right, nobody says that.) I think that means that when they made a map of the town, if there was a hill, they would say how many feet it was above the quote, unquote "doorsill" of the Pythias Hall.

Why did they call it Pythias Hall?

There was this legend about these two gay men called Damon and Pythias. It did not say they were gay, but I think they were -- they were very good friends, anyway. One day Pythias did something very very bad, so the King said that he was going to have his head chopped off. But Pythias was very sad because he wanted to say goodbye to his family. But the King was like, "No, no, no! If you go, you will probably just run away!" So then Damon was like, "If I stay here while he goes, and if he doesn't come back, I get killed instead of him, will you let him go then?" And the King was like, "Oh, such a good idea, you are very smart."

So Pythias went on home and said goodbye to his wife and children.

Wait, I thought you said he was gay -- why did he have a wife and children?

I was asking myself that same question. I don't know. But I think that back in Ancient Greece things were different. But anyway, on his way back Pythias was captured by pirates, and it took him a very long time to get back to the King, because all these terrible things happened to him. But he knew that if he didn't get there in time, his friend would get his head chopped off. So he kept going! When he got there, the King was like, "Wow, you guys are very devotionful! It would be very very sad to kill someone who was so devotionful." So then he let them both go.

And wait, what does this have to do with the bakery?

I am telling you! Gosh, be patient, lady. So. This one fraternal man saw a play about these two devotionful people. And evidently he was very inspired by them. So he started a fraternal organization full of fraternal men. And they were called the Knights of Pythias! See, I told you I'd get to that. And the Columbia City chapter of the Knights of Pythias built that building in 1892.

The Knights of Pythias still exist, and they have lots and lots of people in their club, still, but not in Columbia City anymore. I was doing some research on the internet, and I found their web site. And I watched the "Pythian Movie." There was this man telling us what they are all about, and he said they wanted "to get people to understand each other, to work together, to have fun together, to learn the differences that each of represents, and to learn the sameness that each of us are." That made me laugh. I think he was a little confused with his words. But it is a nice idea.

Here is a picture of the building in 1899, when the Knights of Pythias had just built it. They had meetings there, and upstairs there was a ballroom. It is the one to the right, across the street, with the crayon-shaped turrets. You can't see them very well in this picture, but they are there. It was very muddy in Columbia City then! Just like now.


Then, later on, in 1901, this man from New York moved here.


His name was Bill Phalen. He was a baseball player, but he stopped playing baseball as much when he moved here. Because, he bought that building! And he turned the bottom floor into a grocery store. And everyone called the building Phalen's Hall after that. And in the grocery store lived this little poochums named Growler. But he was not growly, he was very cute.

How do you know?

Because I can tell from the picture!


Phalen's grocery store was a big success. They would deliver food to people (wish they still did that, huh?) in these little wooden carts that were pulled by horses. The wagon went around to everyone and took orders every morning, and then delivered in the afternoon. Then telephones came along and people could call up in the morning and make an order. And the wagon would deliver it in the afternoon.

Upstairs there was still the ballroom, where dance lessons and parties were held. Most famous was the Rainier Valley Fiesta, which was organized by Phalen. People came from all over Seattle to come to this party. There was a Calithumpian parade during the day ("calithumpian" is not in the dictionary, but it means loud and joyful), then dancing in the street all night -- seriously, like, until the morning. We still have a parade on that day, but no party (which is sad).

Bill Phalen was a great community organizer. He started the Columbia City baseball team and the V.F.D. (Volunteer Fire Department). He was even the mayor in 1906, but he really wanted to have Columbia City be part of Seattle, and when they finally joined Seattle, Columbia City no longer needed a mayor.

Did you find out anything new about Bill Phalen at the archives?

Funny you should ask, because we did! We looked up Bill Phalen and his grocery store in all of these phone books, almost.


We had read an article that said he died in 1917, but he was still in the phone book until 1922, so we were like, "Hmmm...." and we scratched our chins again.


We looked up what was in the building after he left. Mom showed me this new way of looking things up, where you would look up the address in the back in these little pink pages and then you would see what business was there. At first I thought this was very useful. But after a while I figured out why they had that sign about no lying down.


It was not very fun. But we found out that after Phalen's grocery there was a bakery -- not the same one that is there now, but one that was owned by a man named McNabb. We already knew about the bakery, because we had read about the big fire that burned the whole top storey off in 1941, that was started in the bakery down below. It was very sad, but the dance floor was so strong it didn't burn, so they just put a roof on to keep the rain out.

Then thankfully we left all those little pink pages with small words, and we went downstairs to the bagel shop for a snack. I think they are very smart to put a bagel shop underneath the archives.

When we got back to Columbia City, we decided that it would be fun to see the roof of the bakery that used to be the dance floor. So we went to the bakery and Lauren let us go to the top, and we looked around.


There were lots of dead plants in pots there. And one live one. It was not very good for dancing.


We were still wondering about when Bill Phalen died, but then Mom's friend Karen sent us this page that had lots and lots of names and numbers on it.


It was the census from 1920. And we went down the page, and there was Bill Phalen, and he was still alive! We were like, "Huh! Whoever said he died in 1917 was very wrong." Mom said the census is a pretty reliable source -- they would not write Bill Phalen down if he had been dead for three years. The other thing we found out was that there was a little "D" next to his name, and that means he was divorced. We didn't know that!

That is all I have found out so far.