When I first moved to Seattle in 1975, Hat n’ Boots was a working gas station. Along with The Dog House and Twin Teepees restaurants, it was one of the city’s more idiosyncratic architectural icons. In an odd way, Hat n’ Boots symbolized the anything-is-possible spirit that attracted me to Seattle in the first place. In 2003 the city’s architectural preservation organization relocated the structures to a park south of downtown. I photographed Hat n’ Boots years earlier in its original location, soon after I saw the film Bagdad Cafe.
