More Than 125 Years Woven Into Seattle
Learn more about us. From a lakeside tent on Lake Union to the Pacific Northwest’s most modern cleaning facility, this is the story of a family, two ponies, and an enduring Seattle institution.
The Englishman on Lake Union
In the spring of 1900, an English weaver named Joseph Ellison pitched his tent on the shores of Lake Union and began producing rag rugs. The enterprise prospered, and Ellison soon established Ellison’s Fuzzy Wuzzy Rug Factory at Westlake and Mercer, built directly on a dock over the lake with six feet of water beneath the floor.
Ellison perfected an efficient loom driven by an electric motor that turned out high-quality rugs at a modest price. When the rug-cleaning business next door went bankrupt, Ellison purchased it and added cleaning to his operation, setting the foundation for what the company would become.
The name “Fuzzy Wuzzy” came from Ellison’s deep admiration for Rudyard Kipling. Ellison was particularly fond of Kipling’s 1890 poem “Fuzzy-Wuzzy,” a tribute to the Hadendoa warriors of Sudan, and named his factory in its honor.
About the Name: Kipling's "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" (1890)
Kipling’s poem celebrated the Beja people of northeastern Africa, whose distinctive hairstyle and fighting spirit had made them famous throughout the British Empire. The poem made “Fuzzy Wuzzy” a household phrase in the English speaking world. For Ellison, a proud Englishman building a business far from home, naming his factory after a beloved Kipling poem was a natural choice.
Ralph W. Beymer and the Ponies
In 1906, Ralph W. Beymer, a recent Princeton graduate, bought the business from Ellison. Ellison stayed on long enough to teach Beymer the ropes, leaving him with a solid foundation that would sustain the company for generations. Beymer shortened the name to The Fuzzy Wuzzy Rug Company, planning to find something more dignified later. He never did. He tried other names many times over the years, but Seattle had already fallen in love with Fuzzy Wuzzy.
In the early years, deliveries ran on a single small wagon pulled by a pony named Susy. As demand grew, Susy was replaced by two range ponies the company named Fuzzy and Wuzzy, giving the brand name a life of its own. The horse-drawn wagon era gave way to large paneled trucks as the city grew, and Fuzzy Wuzzy established scheduled runs to specific Seattle neighborhoods on set days each week.
By 1912, Fuzzy Wuzzy had expanded beyond residential delivery routes and opened a downtown office and display room at Westlake and Stewart. The famous teddy bear logo was added in later years and became a staple of the brand, its cheerful face eventually visible to drivers on Interstate 5 at the Mercer Street exit.
Setting Down Roots in Eastlake
In 1924, Fuzzy Wuzzy moved to a two-story building at 2512 Fairview Avenue North in Eastlake. The building served Beymer well for over a decade, but business continued to grow and a larger facility was needed.
"For 42 years, the Fuzzy Wuzzy Rug Co. on Eastlake Avenue East cleaned and restored Seattle's carpets, the bear on its street sign a funny, familiar landmark."
– The Seattle Times, March 11, 1996
The Second Generation Builds
In 1937, R.W. Beymer’s sons Ralph V. and Dick Beymer joined the firm, formally organized as R.W. Beymer & Co. under the trade name The Fuzzy Wuzzy Rug Co. A decade later, in 1947, the sons opened a new state-of-the-art plant at 815 Eastlake Avenue East. Before building it, they toured cleaning facilities across the country to find the best design and technology available.
The resulting structure was built of concrete, stucco, and Roman tile at a cost of $150,000. It included a modern drying room with powerful circulating fans, spacious areas for mending and re-making rugs, and a concrete fireproof basement for storage. Nothing like it existed in the Pacific Northwest at the time.
Washington State Department of Ecology records independently confirm that Fuzzy Wuzzy operated at 815 Eastlake Avenue East from approximately 1947 to 1990, when the property was sold to the Seattle Mental Health Institute. The site was later incorporated into the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center’s Cancer Care Alliance project.
Dick Beymer and an Era of Innovation
Dick Beymer grew the business throughout the 20th century, adapting with the times and pushing the company to the front of the industry. In the 1940s, he developed a revolutionary dry-cleaning solvent that could clean the trendy twisted-yarn rugs of the era without loosening the twist. He also helped popularize hot-water dirt extraction for synthetic carpets and drapes and installed one of Seattle’s first truck-mounted steam cleaners.
Dick Beymer retired in 1979. His son Robert later described him as a hard worker who was also beloved by neighborhood children, an avid hiker, fisherman, and skier who taught people on the trail to leave everything as they found it. His wife Borhild put it simply: “He was just a wonderful friend, and so honest. There was no deceit in him at all.”
"Dick Beymer, Owned, Operated Fuzzy Wuzzy Rug Company"
Reporter Carole Beers documented Dick Beymer’s role in pioneering hot-water dirt extraction and his invention of a dry-cleaning fluid that cleaned twisted-yarn rugs without relaxing the twist. The obituary also noted that Beymer retired in 1979, was a founding member of the Trailblazers (a group that stocked mountain lakes with trout fry in the 1940s), took up downhill skiing at age 39, and did not give it up until he was 83.
A New Chapter
In 1989, Robert Beymer sold the company, closing out more than eight decades of Beymer family ownership. The company relocated from Eastlake to 2751 Fourth Avenue South for a period before demand again called for a new home.
Laurelhurst and the Modern Era
In 2005, Fuzzy Wuzzy moved to its current location at 4640 Union Bay Place NE in Laurelhurst. The facility is the most modern rug cleaning plant in the Pacific Northwest and operates Washington’s only Turkish-built cleaning machine. The company now serves customers from Bellingham to Olympia with 10 drop-off locations across the Puget Sound area and free pickup and delivery throughout King, Pierce, Snohomish, Skagit, and Whatcom Counties.
Services today include area rug and carpet cleaning, furniture and upholstery cleaning, drapery cleaning, wood floor care, tile and grout cleaning, air duct cleaning, and fire and flood restoration. A company that started as a rug maker on a Lake Union dock has grown into one of the Pacific Northwest’s most comprehensive cleaning and restoration services.