File:Ballard - Bowie Bldg.jpg

English: The Bowie Building, located at 5348 Ballard Avenue NW, was originally built in 1895 by Norwegian immigrant and eventual Ballard mayor (1 term in 1901) John Johnson for his grocery store and residence in the Victorian style with protruding bay windows. Johnson was gone by 1908 and the ground floor was divided into two stores, with the northern half (5350) housing a grocery store then a hardware store for most of the 1930s. The southern storefront (5348) initially housed an unsuccessful theater then a succession of short-lived automobile related businesses until 1920 when it became the battery & electric shop of A.M. Arntzen and later the Sterling Electric Company. The building's current name comes from the longest lasting business at the address, Bowie Electric Co., started by Mitchell T. Bowie in 1916. Bowie bought out Sterling (and the building itself) in 1922 and not long after had the current facade constructed. He lived in the building's second floor apartment and by the late 1930s his store occupied the entire ground floor, sharing the space with Seattle City Light's branch office. The business lasted here well into the 1980s.