Buildings & Sites
Finney's Meat Market (Peters Agency)

July 1999 photo by David Bangs

Peters Agency: 71 Front St N, (425) 392-6458, See Map

History

This 1910 building was built to house J. W. Finney's Meat Market. Finney’s original wood building on this site was lost in a fire that devastated most of this block in 1904. The Issaquah Independent reported that “Incendiarism was suspected as having started in the Issaquah Coal Company store next door to the market”. This was Issaquah’s only major business district fire.

This building is unusual in that it has only had two occupants since it was constructed in 1910.  The building was used for its original purpose as a meat market until sometime in the 40's, and has been used as the Peters Agency real estate office since then.

From The Issaquah Press, March 5, 1986:

Issaquah Historical Society Photo 72.21.14.33

This butcher's wares hang plump and unpretentious in this circa 1913 interior view of J.W. Finney's Meat Market on Front Street North in the building now occupied by Peters Agency, a real estate firm, and the law offices of Frank Cushman. Finney was open from about 1910 to the 1940's, according to his surviving son Ott Finney of Whidbey Island.

Issaquah Historical Society Photo 72.21.14.33

The four proud employees captured here are, from left, Frank Brown, Lawrence Smart, John Fischer and Andrew Hunter. Fischer eventually opened his own butcher shop, John Fischer's Cash Market, and the today's Fischer Meats now operates one store north of where Finney was. (see map)

From the 1998 "Issaquah Historic Property Inventory":

Physical Description

Original photographs of this small single story commercial building in Issaquah's downtown indicate that the building originally had a series of folding front doors. This was altered by the 1950's for a more typical glass storefront system and little has changed since. 

This is a smaller scale infill building, built to address the sidewalk. The building has had a marquee at the street since at least the 1940's. The building is characterized by its rusticated concrete block construction; the block is visible on the plain front parapet. 

The building is not grand; it is a vernacular commercial structure built to be utilitarian. It remains solidly intact in its current state and use.

Bibliographic References

King County Tax Assessor records
1986 Issaquah Press Article

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