{"id":13386,"date":"2022-12-01T00:30:58","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T08:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/?p=13386"},"modified":"2026-02-19T17:57:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:57:55","slug":"edgewater-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/2022\/12\/01\/edgewater-history\/","title":{"rendered":"WSU Everett Students Document Rock History at the Edgewater Hotel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"View
The Edgewater Hotel on Pier 67 as it looks today.<\/em>
(Photos courtesy of the Edgewater\/Noble House Hotels)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Seattle\u2019s Edgewater Hotel has a storied place in rock and roll history. Since the Beatles\u2019 1964 visit during their first North American tour, the hotel has been associated with a long list of artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Beatles kicked it off, and Led Zeppelin made the Edgewater infamous,\u201d said Bob Peckenpaugh<\/a> (\u201803 Hotel & Rest. Admin.), noting the band was twice banned from the hotel for antics that included mudsharks in their suite and throwing furniture into Elliott Bay. \u201cThere are so many stories, so many bands, and so much rock and roll lore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Peckenpaugh was hired as Edgewater\u2019s general manager in 2016, a handful of employees with first-hand accounts of the bands\u2019 raucous heyday at the hotel remained, but they were nearing retirement age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To capture that history, Peckenpaugh enlisted the help of Mark Beattie<\/a>, associate vice chancellor at WSU Everett and assistant professor of hospitality business management<\/a> for the Carson College of Business. Beattie worked with Brett Atwood<\/a> at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication to set up an independent study for students to collect and archive information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over five years, WSU Everett students created an Edgewater repository with more than 3,000 files. The archive contains old photos, playbills, advertisements, employee interviews, news articles, and video clips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe archive is a \u2018Who\u2019s Who\u2019 of the entertainers who came through Seattle,\u201d said Atwood, a scholarly associate professor and former music industry writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the material\u2014including articles about the Beatles\u2019 visit and footage of Nirvana\u2019s Kurt Cobain\u2014was featured in a mini-documentary<\/a> prepared for the Edgewater\u2019s 60th anniversary this year. In the future, archived materials could be used for brand marketing, employee training, or even academic research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is where rock stars stayed and groupies hung out,\u201d said Lindsey Kirschman<\/a> (\u201918 Comm.), corporate marketing coordinator for Noble House Hotels, the Edgewater\u2019s parent company. \u201cWe don\u2019t want that authentic part of our history to be lost to time. Without that context, the Edgewater would just be another Pacific Northwest lodge hotel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bands and groupies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For Riley Gilbertson<\/a> (\u201919 Hosp. Busi. Mgmt.), the independent study brought together two of his interests: music and hospitality. He spent a summer researching the Edgewater, digging into Seattle newspaper archives from the early 1960s through 1970.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work took him deep into the music of his parents\u2019 era. \u201cThey grew up in Seattle, and they remember when the Beatles came to town,\u201d Gilbertson says. \u201cBesides understanding what was happening in Seattle in the \u201860s, the project allowed me to connect with family memories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Members
The Fab Four at the Edgewater in 1964<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

During the height of Beatlemania, other Seattle hotels balked at hosting the Beatles. Too much security and insurance was involved. But the Edgewater\u2019s general manager stepped up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gilbertson uncovered accounts of screaming fans descending on the property, hoping to spot band members through a chain link fence surrounding the hotel. While a decoy limousine approached the Edgewater, the Fab Four were secreted to the hotel in the back of an ambulance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Beatles\u2019 1964 visit also produced the iconic photo of the band fishing from their room. At the time, the Edgewater had a bait and tackle shop for guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Beatles stayed less than 24 hours during that first visit, but there are so many stories,\u201d said Peckenpaugh, who left the hotel in 2020, but remains interested in the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gilbertson\u2019s research also uncovered visits to the Edgewater by the Monkees, Dave Clark 5, and the Beach Boys. As the hotel\u2019s reputation among musicians grew, its star-studded guest list expanded to include the Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Stevie Wonder, Black Sabbath, Emmylou Harris, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the side stories fascinated Gilbertson. \u201cOne article described how a young man sporting flip-over hair similar to the Beach Boys got mobbed by fangirls outside the Edgewater,\u201d he says. \u201cThey were quite disappointed he wasn\u2019t part of the band.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of Seattle\u2019s nightlife<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Besides hosting big name bands, the Edgewater had its own musical venue, the Crown Terrace Room. \u201cIt was an important contributor to Seattle\u2019s night life, and it booked a diverse group of musicians and other entertainers,\u201d says EJ Olsen<\/a> (\u201819 Strat. Comm.), who also worked on the research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jazz singer Sarah Vaughan and singer and actress Eartha Kitt were among the notable Black artists who performed at the Edgewater during the 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you consider everything that was happening with the Civil Rights movement, this was very forward thinking for a club atmosphere in a fine hotel,\u201d Beattie said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students who participated in the independent study were either communication or hospitality business management majors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of five years, their archival collection covered nearly four decades of hotel history\u00ad\u2014from Edgewater events featured in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer\u2019s society pages to a student report on socially conscious themes in the Pearl Jam suite\u2019s concert posters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maddy Cone<\/a>, the final student involved, curated vintage photos and video footage from the project for the Edgewater\u2019s mini documentary. The timing was serendipitous for Kirschman, who had just started a marketing job at Noble House Hotels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was taking me forever to locate source material,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I found out WSU Everett students had created an Edgewater archive, it was the biggest win imaginable. Maddy was able to pull these really big names from the archive for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love rock history, and I knew a lot of the bands,\u201d says Cone, a hospitality business management major. \u201cContributing to the documentary was a perfect way to wrap up the independent study.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beattie hopes the video is the first of many projects to tap material from the collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe students built this trove of information now available for the Edgewater\u2019s use and for scholarly purposes. I would love to see a music historian\u2014perhaps someone from the university\u2014delve into it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"1962
1962 advertisement in the Seattle Times<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WSU Everett students created an archive of rock and roll history at the Edgewater Hotel with more than 3,000 files. Since the Beatles\u2019 1964 visit during their first North American tour, the hotel has been associated with a long list of musicians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":[634],"featured_media":18190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[612,425,611],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/634"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13386"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18647,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13386\/revisions\/18647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13386"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/author?post=13386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}