Schwabacher Bros & Co employees posing outside store, Seattle, 1889 (MOHAI 10988)

The Schwabacher Brothers, Louis Schwabacher (1837-1900), Abraham Schwabacher (1838-1909), and Sigmund (Sig) Schwabacher (1841-1917), were pioneering Bavarian-born Jewish merchants, important in the economic development of the Pacific Northwest. They owned several businesses bearing their family name, and opened an branch store in Seattle in 1869. Within a short time, the firm became Puget Sound's major wholesaler of canned goods, dry goods, and other materials to the logging camps, mill towns, farming communities, and, after 1897, to departing Klondike gold miners.
This image of Schwabacher Bros. & Co. employees standing outside a wooden building may have been taken after the Great Fire of 1889 destroyed the 1872 Schwabacher building at Commercial Street (1st Avenue South) just south of Mill Street (Yesler Way). The nearby Schwabacher wharf was not damaged in the inferno so the business was able to reopen immediately in the wharf warehouse. That warehouse may be the building in this photo.
Caption information source: http://pcad.lib.washington.edu/building/4654
Caption information source: "The Schwabacher Family" by Jean Roth. Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington State website.
Subjects (LCTGM): Business people--American--Washington (State)--Seattle; Pioneers--Washington (State)--Seattle; Schwabacher Bros. & Company (Seattle, Wash.)