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Metsker Map of Seattle

Seattle, WA

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Background

A folded full-color street map of Seattle's northwest quadrant, published by Charles Frederick Metsker under his self-styled trade name "Metsker the Map Man," with the Olympic Golf & Country Club still occupying open ground in what is now solidly residential Crown Hill.

Charles Frederick Metsker (1881–1966) started as a cartographer in Tacoma in 1901 and spent the next six decades building a Pacific Northwest map business. His store at 1020 Third Avenue in downtown Seattle became the public face of that enterprise — and this "Revised Edition" carries that address in the title block, below the tagline promising "the largest selection on the Coast" in city, county, state, or world maps.

The sheet covers Seattle's northwest corner: the Puget Sound shoreline from Shilshole Bay north through Meadow Point and Carkeek Park, then east through Ballard, Crown Hill, Greenwood, and up to Haller Lake. The Olympic Golf & Country Club appears as a large undeveloped green tract in the Crown Hill area. Green Lake anchors the right edge of the visible sheet, with Evergreen Cemetery nearby.

The color scheme follows standard mid-century commercial practice: parks and golf courses in green, street grids in yellow and orange, water in blue. A small inset labeled "Key Map for Street Names" in the lower left provides an alphabetical index keyed to the column-and-row grid printed along the margins — the standard tool for locating a street on a folded city map before searchable digital directories.

One small oddity: the address line reads "SEATTLE, WN" rather than "WA" or the older "Wash." — likely a compositor's error, since "WN" was not a recognized abbreviation for Washington state under any standard postal scheme.

Researched with claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 on May 24, 2026. AI-assisted — verify before citing.

Highlights

  • The title block reads 'METSKER'S REFERENCE MAP OF SEATTLE WASHINGTON / Published by METSKER THE MAP MAN' — the informal trade name Metsker used in advertising from the 1920s onward.
  • 'REVISED EDITION' is printed in red below the title, confirming this is not the first issue of the map but giving no publication date.
  • The address in the title block reads 'SEATTLE, WN' — an apparent misprint of the standard 'WA' abbreviation for Washington state.
  • The Olympic Golf & Country Club occupies a large green tract in the map's center, in the area now known as Crown Hill.
  • A 'KEY MAP FOR STREET NAMES' inset in the lower left shows a miniature overview of the city with an alphabetical grid index keyed to the margin coordinates.
  • Haller Lake is labeled in the upper-right corner of the sheet, with what appears to be Evergreen Cemetery shown as a distinct block nearby.

Further reading