Arthur Goodwin

The brightly-colored flowers that today poke from boxes above the main arcade were his idea.

The cozy arrangement of stalls with their orderly cornucopias of edibles was his work.

Even having troubadours to serenade patrons was his concept.

But as the market nears its 75th anniversary, little is remembered of this merchandising pioneer who made Pike Place what it is today.

His name was Arthur E. Goodwin, and from 1925 to 1933 he owned the collage of stalls that today is one of Seattle's top tourist attractions.

That Goodwin was so powerful might come as a surprise to the many market patrons who associate Pike Place with Joe Desimone, the bigger-than-life Italian farmer who called to customers from beneath his handlebar mustache.

But John Turnbull isn't surprised. "Arthur was very much the promoter and Joe was the manager, and that's why Joe was remembered," says Turnbull, formerly of the Pike Place Market Historical Commission.

"Arthur put Joe up front because Joe had the color and the personality, but Arthur was the one who got the market on good solid feet and set it up as an institution."

Although Goodwin hailed from New York City, his was almost to the market born. His uncle and mentor, Frank Goodwin, built the first market stalls in 1907 using part of the $50,000 in gold he mined in Alaska's Klondike region.

Arthur Goodwin, born in 1887, came here the year the market was built, bringing talent for business and a flair for the dramatic.

His father was a Shakespearean actor and producer who entertained Arthur by speaking Elizabethan English. Goodwin, although never an actor, loved the stage and was one of the founders of the Seattle Repertory Theater.

He regularly entertained friends by mimicking with deadly accuracy the Swedish, Japanese or Italian accents of market farmers. For his daughter, Ann Elizabeth, and other children he also pertormed magic tricks.

"Uncle Artie was the most personable guy I ever met," remembers his nephew, Ed Boulton. "He knew how to talk nice to people and flatter them. He never berated them or ran them down."

But he didn't let them take advantage of him, and he was a stickler for honesty.

In 1925, the year Goodwin took over the market from his uncle Frank, one of his first moves was to standardize the merchants` scales. "He believed in very good equipment," says Alice Shorett, who, with Murray Morgan, wrote the just-published book, "The Pike Place Market, People, Politics and Produce" (Pacific Search Press). "He talked about placing the scales in visible places so customers could actually see they were getting 2 pounds of potatoes," Shorett continues, "There were signs all around saying 'Check Your Weight.'"

"He wasn't really an architect, but he worked with them in everything from where to put sanitation facilities to where to put drains in the floor," she adds. Under Goodwin, the market grew from 76 stalls to 175; in 1927 rentals brought in $5,000 weekly."

A meticulous record keeper, Goodwin in 1929 put his analytical talents into a volume that still is considered the bible of public-market operation. "Markets Public and Private" outlines his management philosophy, and he used it to advise public markets in Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, plus Jamaica.

Goodwin believed, for instance, in having merchandise displayed out front, He believed in offering a "loss leader," and for years the market lured customers by offering sugar at wholesale prices. He believed in advertising, and put together a weekly newspaper ad offering the best prices from the various vendors.

And he believed in doing nearly anything to lure the customers, most of whom he figured were women.

Thus it was that he hired vaudeville entertainers from what was known as "the fruit-and-vegetable circuit.

And thus it was that he decorated the market with flowers.

But if Goodwin had a failing, it was his love of the good life. He built himself a lavish, mahogany-paneled office almost directly above the present DeLaurenti market, and his home, purchased in 1929 for the then astronomical sum of $65,000, was a showplace. He once entertained a Shah of Persia (Iran).

"Joe Desimone. ended up owning the market, and there's a reason why," recalls Ed Boulton. "Uncle Artie lived extravagantly, and when things went bad (in the 1930s and he couldn't meet the mortgage on the market), he still lived extravagantly. Joe Desimone had money because he never spent money. He put every dime he made in a coffee can. Uncle Artie sold his stock in the market to Joe until (in 1933) Joe owned the controlling interest in the market."

"But I don't believe that he bore Joe any ill will because Joe took the market away from him. I think the Desimone family was fair."

Arthur Goodwin continued to work at the market until 1941, the year he sold his remaining market stock and moved to Salt Lake City. He died in the mid-'50s.