File:Cascade Basin looking southeast, Alaska-Yukon-Pacific-Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 1908 (AYP 908).jpg

English:

Caption on image: X34. Looking southeast over Cascade Basin.

Printed on verso: Portland Post Card Co. Seattle, Wash. and Portland, Ore. Official Post Card. Copyrighted 1908. A.Y.P.E. Co.

PH Coll 777 PPCC.34

• Subjects (LCSH): Frosh Pond (Wash.); Ponds--Washington (State)--Seattle; Reservoirs--Washington (State)--Seattle; Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (1909 : Seattle, Wash.)

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This postcard, drawn the year before the Exposition, is not easily reconciled with the facilities as built. It is certainly not "looking southeast". The best match (shown at right) would be looking northwest across the Geyser Basin with the Agricultural Building at left, and to the right of that the European Building. However, the brown building, next to the right in the postcard, would be in the location of the (white) Alaska Building in the photograph.

Perhaps the person who drew the postcard was imagining the Auditorium (later the first Meany Hall) where the Alaska Building eventually went?

Here's an image during construction that may explain what was going on: these structures are in place, but the Alaska Building and U.S. Government Building have not yet been started. In particular, the Auditorium is visible in more or less this position, not yet blocked by the Alaska Building. So perhaps the only inaccuracy of the postcard is that it imagines the water features complete, but omits the Alaska Building and U.S. Government Building that were actually completed before the water features.