Ye Olde Curiosity Shop on the Seattle Waterfront in Seattle, Washington

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop on the Seattle Waterfront in Seattle, Washington


Ye Olde Curiosity Shop

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop is a store on the Central Waterfront of Seattle, Washington, United States, founded in 1899. It has moved several times, mainly within the waterfront area, and is now located on Pier 54. Best known today as a souvenir shop, it also has aspects of a dime museum.

As of 2008, the store has been owned by four generations of the same family. In recent times, the shop has about 1 million visitors a year.

On display are two mummified human bodies, "Sylvester" and "Sylvia". "Sylvester" (acquired in 1955) functions as an informal symbol of the shop. For years, the general belief has been that he was the victim of a late 19th century shooting in the Arizona desert, and that the extreme dryness of the desert naturally mummified the body. However, CT scans in 2001, 2005 and an MRI in 2005 suggest an embalmer injected an arsenic-based fluid shortly after death. The body is one of the best-preserved mummies known.


Story of "Sylvester"

While Sylvester is almost certainly what the shop claims him to be, other artifacts are of far more dubious origins. The shop makes no claim of comparable pedigree for its taxidermically stuffed mermaid.

Related:

How to know you're from the Pacific Northwest http://goo.gl/aHra

36 Hours in Seattle - NYTimes.com, 2011.