University of Washington
Northeast Campus Parkway, Seattle, WA, USA

National Register of Histo (Canoe House/Shell House)

Statement of Significant:

Constructed by the U.S. Navy as a seaplane hangar in 1918, the Canoe House is significant to the state as a rare, if not unique example of an architectural type developed in the early years of aviation. Because the airplane hangar was a response to new technology, its efficient form was essentially without historical precedent. No other examples of the hangar type dating from the period of the First World War are known in Washington. (A dirigible hangar at Fort Worden on the Olympic Peninsula dating from ca. 1922-1923 has an iron or steel frame with corrugated metal cladding. The oldest hangar at Paine Field south of Everett is reported to have been constructed in 1942.) Moreover, no other early hangars are known to have survived in the vicinity of Seattle, which has figured prominently in aviation history since the founding of the Boeing Company in 1916.

In 1917 and 1918 portions of the University of Washington campus were taken over for war preparations. Army Training Corps activities were relegated to the upper campus, and the U.S. Naval Training Camp extended along lower ground fronting Lakes Union and Washington and the ship canal connecting the two bodies of water. Among facilities of this cantonment area were officers' quarters, barracks, miscellaneous store rooms, and tents for the rank trainees. One of the largest of the temporary frame structures, apparently a mess hall and PX, had a roof truss profile similar to that of the Navy's seaplane hangar, but its walls were straight rather than raked. The seaplane hangar was a late addition to these facilities. Completed in 1918, it evidently was never used for the pilot training exercises it was intended to shelter. After the War, indications are that the hangar remained essentially empty, except for the unauthorized storage of a private plane, until it was relinquished to the University around 1922, reportedly for the transactional token of $1.00.

Rowing started on the University campus as early as 1902 and 1904. Speed racing did not become an official sport, however, until 1907, when direction of such activities was assigned to Hiram Conibear. During these early years the Pocock Brothers were brought to campus to fabricate racing shells according to a revolutionary, light- weight design which contributed to the varsity crews' success and subsequent recognition nationwide. Having been interrupted during the emergency, crew racing was resumed under Coach Connibear's successors after the War. George Pocock returned to the campus from a wartime job building seaplane pontoons for the Boeing Airplane Company. All crew activities, including Mr. Pocock's shell-building shop, were housed in the former Naval Military Hangar from 1922 to 1949, when activities were shifted to a new facility designated the Conibear Shell House. During the years they were quartered in their make-shift facility the University's varsity crews compiled a distinguished record, of which a high point was competing in the World Olympic Games of 1936. During this time also George Pocock was permitted to fill orders for the superior laminated racing shells from Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Syracuse and other universities around the country.
Shortly after the hangar was vacated by varsity crews in 1949, it was converted for use as the University's Canoe House. Presently fulfilling a traditional function on the campus, the Naval Military Hangar is the second or third boat-rental facility operated under university auspices since the turn of the century. The predecessor canoe house, a much re-located building in use for nearly forty years, was torn down in 1950.