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Records in the archives are often used
for a different purpose than the one for which they were originally created.
One example we often use is photographs of the lighting system
in Pike Place Market from 1936.
The images are of interest many years later,
not because of the lights being used, but because of what they tell us
about the market: the atmosphere, the vendors, the produce.
Images taken by a Seattle City Light photographer of Olympic Foundry in 1965
were taken to illustrate one of the city's electrical customers.
The foundry also created hatch covers, or manhole covers, for the city,
and undoubtedly this was also part of the reason the photographs were taken.
The images illustrate a commercial business,
including the exterior and interior.
The most common
example City Light used to illustrate the uses of electricity in the 1950s
in 1960s was a commercial kitchens and all the appliances.
This industrial setting is interesting for many reasons.
These images of Olympic Foundry are a snapshot from 1965
showing the landscape in which the foundry was located,
the types of cars people drove as they are parked in the parking lot,
and dramatic photographs of the metal casting operation
within the foundry, as well as the people who work there.
A little research tells us Olympic Foundry is still in existence
at 5200 Airport Way South and is the oldest foundry in Seattle.
I love this glimpse of working people from 1965 and the photographers
successful attempt to capture the dramatic light of liquid metal.
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