<p>Wisconsin-born C.C. Calkins arrived in Seattle in 1887 and bought a homestead at the north end of Mercer Island. By 1890, he had laid out the town of East Seattle and built an elegant resort hotel. The hotel flourished for a few years but closed during the national depression of 1893. After serving as a school, a sanatorium and a boarding house, the building burned in 1908.
This photo, taken around 1890, shows the Calkins Hotel on Mercer Island, Washington. Visitors could stay in one of the hotel's 24 guest rooms, converse in the large parlors or go dancing in the ballroom. With its turrets, deep porches and fancy spindlework, the large wooden Queen Anne-style building was typical of its time.</p>
<p>Caption on image (partially obscured): Asahel Curtis.

Caption on border: Asahel Curtis, Commercial Photographer, 625 Colman Block, Seattle.

Handwritten on mount: C.C. Calkins Hotel 1890.</p>
<ul><li>Subjects (LCTGM): Hotels--Washington (State)--Mercer Island</li></ul><hr>
If the date is correct, then it is very unlikely that this is by Asahel Curtis. He would only have been 16 at the time. The company he founded often bought rights to other people's older photos of Seattle and vicinity, and it seems likely that is what we have here.
<bdi><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Asahel_Curtis" class="extiw" title="w:en:Asahel Curtis"><span title="American photographer">Asahel Curtis</span></a>
</bdi>
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