This mystery RPPC is a recent acquisition from a dealer in Minnesota. Based on the CYKO back, the postcard dates from circa 1907 to the 1920s, but based on clues in the image, I estimate that it dates from circa 1910 to 1916 and was taken in Seattle, Washington. Here are some of the clues:

The Seattle Ice Cream Company was in operation between the late 1890s and about 1916.
Advertisements for Lowney’s Chocolate, a national brand of confections, appeared in the Seattle newspapers from the early 1900s to about 1920.
The streetlight base matches those used in Seattle, which were first installed in 1909 and 1910.
I swear that I’ve seen historic photographs of old buildings in Seattle that had deep recessed entryways like the one in the image, however, I can’t quite seem to track down the images I am thinking of.
I think that the sign in the background at the second story reads “Ideal Laundry”, but this seems to be a dead end, since Seattle directories place that business at 2713 Jackson Street during the estimated time period of the image.

The really curious thing about this image is that the fruit and vegetable stand looks like it is a pressed concrete block structure that was glommed onto a two-story wood framed building, but so far, I’ve not been able to locate such a configuration using the Sanborn fire insurance maps.

I hope that a reader of this post may be able to help me solve the location of this mystery RPPC and hopefully find the location in Seattle where the photograph was taken.

This mystery RPPC is a recent acquisition from a dealer in California. It was sent to Miss Annie Nelson, 2728 Green Street, San Francisco, California, and postmarked Seattle, Washington, May 19, 1915. I’ve been trying to figure out the link between the sender and the recipient, who I think worked as a domestic for the family who lived at 2728 Green Street in 1915. I think that the sender might have been a sibling to Miss Annie Nelson, but so far, I’ve not been able to decipher the sender’s name. I’ve tried using various online translation tools, but the Swedish script is really challenging to parse out.

**Detail of the handwriting on the back of the RPPC.**

In researching RPPCs of places in Oregon and California, I’ve had some remarkable success in identifying unknown places and people using automobile license plates, since Ancestry has searchable records for both states. However, the Washington license records from this time period are only available at the Washington State Archives, and you cannot search those records with a license plate number, making it impossible to link a person’s name with their automobile license plate number.

I hope that a reader of this post may be able to help me solve the identification of the sender and help me establish the link between the sender and the recipient. Hopefully, if I can figure out the sender’s name, I can figure out exactly where in Seattle this photograph was taken.