Members of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, circa 1904 (MOHAI 12983)

The Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce was founded on April 17, 1882, by a group of 26 business and community leaders, to devise a way to win a $12,000 annual mail route to Alaska over a competing San Francisco steamship company. The Chamber's first decade was dominated by the fight to obtain a railroad for Seattle. Chamber founders Thomas Burke, Orange Jacobs, and John Leary led Seattle's bid for adequate rail facilities, which ended in success in 1893 when workers drove the last spike into the Great Northern Railway track and opened transcontinental travel to Seattle. The organization is still in existence, and as of 2019 remains the largest and most diverse business association in the Puget Sound region.
The photograph was taken in the early 20th century, by which time membership in the Chamber appears to have tripled. None of the individuals are identified, but note on the back of the photo indicates that several prominent Seattleites were included in the portrait: Judge Thomas Burke (1849-1925), chief justice of the Washington State Supreme Court from 1888-1889; George Fletcher Cotterill (1865-1958), mayor of Seattle from 1912-1914; and R. H. (Reginald Heber) Thomson (1856-1949), Seattle city engineer from 1892-1912, and later chief engineer for the Port of Seattle.
Handwritten on print: Seattle 1904?

Handwritten on verso: R. H. Thompson, Judge Burke, Mayor Cottrell, and other old timers, Seattle Chamber of Commerce Photo

Caption information source: https://www.seattlechamber.com/home/about/history/the1880s
Caption information source: "Burke, Judge Thomas (1849-1925)," by Junius Rochester, HistoryLink.org Essay 2610.
Subjects (LCTGM): Business people--American--Washington (State)--Seattle; Group portraits; Seattle Chamber of Commerce