Chief of the Suquamish – Chief Seattle
sculpture in Pioneer Square, Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Chief of the Suquamish – Chief Seattle, also known as Bust of Chief Seattle and Chief Seattle Fountain, is a bust depicting Chief Seattle by artist James A. Wehn. It was commissioned by the Seattle Park Board to accommodate the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, and initially sat on a fountain for men, dogs and horses.
Versions
The bronze installed at the intersection of First Avenue and Yesler Way in Pioneer Square, Seattle, was created in 1909. It was surveyed and deemed "treatment needed" by the Smithsonian Institution's "Save Outdoor Sculpture!" program in March 1994.
Another version of the bust is installed at Seattle University.
“Chief of the Suquamish – Chief Seattle” enters the record as sculpture in Pioneer Square, Seattle, Washington, U.S. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chief, Suquamish and Seattle can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Chief of the Suquamish – Chief Seattle” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Chief, Suquamish and Seattle provides the most credible route into that argument.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23091843. Authority coordinates are 47.602, -122.334. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1909 and 1994.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Chief of the Suquamish – Chief Seattle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.