A few holes in the KUBE 93 Haunted House 'Georgetown Morgue' story

October 24, 8:29 PMSeattle History ExaminerBenjamin Lukoff

Previous Next

10 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Seattle History Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

The purported Georgetown Morgue in 1983.

Carolyn Yuen writes in today's Daily about the former Georgetown Morgue in south Seattle, today home to the KUBE 93 Haunted House. She seems to have strong doubts regarding the building's supposed history, and for good reason.

After calling the Washington State Historical Society and the Museum of History and Industry, perusing historylink.org and going to the library and scanning through reel after reel of microfilm, there was nothing to prove that the morgue even existed.

  A close-up of the sign

But what about the history of the building as laid out by the Historic Morgue Society? They claim it was built in 1928 for Kolling Mortuary Services, then bought 11 years later by Broughton Brothers Funeral Services, who added two 110-foot-tall smokestacks for the crematorium. The city bought the property in 1969, converting the funeral home into a morgue, and using the crematorium to dispose of animal carcasses. In 1983, the new city morgue was built at 5th Avenue and Seneca Street, and in 1989 the Richland Processing Corporation bought the disused facility to serve as a "meatpacking transfer station." This history was supposedly written in 2000, at which time the Richland facility was still in operation, but evidently it has since gone out of business.

A close-up of the photo identifier

This all sounds vaguely plausible, except for a few issues:

1. The "Georgetown Morgue" sign on the building in the photograph is obviously Photoshopped.
2. There is no City of Seattle Department of Records.
3. As Yuen notes, the owner of the company putting on the haunted house is Scott Kolling. (Remember, Kolling Mortuary Services supposedly built this building in 1928?)
4. Crematorium smokestacks are never that tall. You don't see anything like that up at Evergreen-Washelli, do you?
5. What's at the corner of 5th & Seneca? The YWCA and the Olympic Hotel. The county morgue (note: not city) is in the King County Medical Examiner's Office at Harborview.
6. The only hits for most of the names mentioned in the purported history are for the page itself, or for items referencing the Haunted House.
7. Googling on 5000 E. Marginal Way S. brings up Totem Equipment Company, and the City of Seattle Property Finder shows the taxpayer as Totem Acquisition Company... absent from the HMS's history.
8. King County shows similar information and says the oldest building was put up in 1931.
9. Best of all, the HMS Web site is hosted on kube93.com... and the page for the Georgetown Morgue is the only one that's accessible.

All in all, a nice try, but sorry to disappoint — in this case, they're putting you on. Not to say the KUBE Haunted House isn't enjoyable — from all accounts, it is — but the history of the building isn't nearly as interesting as they'd have you believe.

 Comet Lodge Cemetery, from Historic
Seattle's Preservation Seattle

Now, if you're in a Halloweeny mood and would like to explore some truly historic Seattle sites, why not visit the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery (1895) on Capitol Hill, just north of Lake View Cemetery (1873 — why not visit Lake View as well), and, if you like dilapidated, the Comet Lodge Cemetery (1895) on Beacon Hill (just east of the Georgetown Morgue!)? I'm sure there are many more the Ghost Tour would love to take you to.