Ye Olde Curiosity Shop along Seattle’s waterfront has fascinated visitors for 110 years, starting the year Cuba was liberated from Spain, the word “automobile” was first found in print, and aspirin was patented.

It has entertained and provided souvenirs to countless visitors despite wars, pandemics and iPods, countering problems and progress with oddities as well as Northwest native art.

“Everyone is extremely interested in Sylvester” the notorious resident mummy, said general manager Alex Castas. “I may be the only guy with a business card with a dead guy,” Castas quips.

Sylvester was once owned by a doctor who kept him in a box with a glass top, hidden under the pillows of a couch.

“He had a great time at parties,” says Castas. “He’d tell the guests that sat on the couch to get up and look underneath the cushions, and there was Sylvester. His wife hated Sylvester.”

When Sylvester arrived at the shop in 1955, the story was that he had become mummified in an Arizona desert. That changed when National Geographic, creating the TV show “The Mummy Road Show,” chose Sylvester for the first episode.

Tests, including X-rays and CT scans, confirmed that Sylvester was human. The bumps on the side of his head are from shrapnel still close to the surface. The bullet that might have killed him entered his abdomen; a fragment is lodged in his shoulder.

“They learned that he hadn’t dried in the desert but was preserved with arsenic,” Castas says. “The only time arsenic was used to preserve bodies was during the Civil War.”

No one knows why his last resting place was a desert. But the show’s producers said that Sylvester “was the most interesting mummy they had ever seen,” Castas said.

At least six people have offered $1 million for Sylvester. “But he’s worth more to us than $1 million,” Castas said.

Robert Ripley — of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” fame — visited the shop in the 1930s when original owner J.E. “Joe” Standley was there.

“Ripley bought $40,000 in totem poles and called it the greatest shop he’d ever been in,” Castas said.

Castas has worked at the curiosity shop for 16 years.

“When I was a kid, this was my favorite store. It’s very unorthodox and free. It’s fun. People are always coming in here saying, ‘This was my favorite place as a kid.’ ”

Many curious items are donated.

“One man wanted to donate his body. He was terminal and his friend was an embalmer. He wanted to donate it instead of just put in a grave,” Castas said. It didn’t happen.

Fourth-generation owner Andy James, great-grandson of founder Standley, said his favorite donation was a rat.

“One day a guy came in and said that he worked for a lumber company and was cleaning up in the back of the warehouse and found a petrified rat and wanted to donate it,” James said.

“He was wearing a backpack and he reached back and pulled out this bag and handed me a rat. Maybe it was just stiff with old age and all dried out, but we put it on display with Sylvester.”

“One woman brought a box with a skull in it from 100 or more years ago,” Castas said. “It had six hinges so medical students could see the bone structure inside.”

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop has moved a number times but has always been on the central waterfront. Since 1988 it has been located on Pier 54 next to Ivar’s Acres of Clams restaurant. The current building is smaller than the previous version on the Colman Dock, which had an 18-foot Sasquatch (later donated to a Boys & Girls Club). Nearly every cubic foot is used for displays, walking and breathing.

Castas rattled off some of the more unusual items now there:

A Narwhal skull with two tusks instead of one, the second growing through its head.

A 2-inch-diameter ring that belonged to the tallest man in the world.

A pig with three eyes, two noses and eight legs.

A chick with four legs and a two-headed calf bought at an auction of the contents of Walter Potter’s Museum of Curiosity in England.

Shrunken heads, created by the Jivaro tribe in Ecuador, about 3 inches tall and made out of boiled goat skin, shaved and shaped.

Anyone wandering through the shop will see only a portion of what’s displayed at any one time because the collection can overwhelm the senses.

Items range from the average to the curious to the amazing, from sharks’ teeth and shells to a butterfly collection to a skull with an embedded arrow point.

You might spot the totem poles carved by master carver Ray Williams, a book called “Weird Washington,” T-shirts for $9.99, and the mounted heads of a cape buffalo, a giant eland, an Alaskan moose, and a deer-riere, the latter for sale.

Don’t let the eye-level items keep you from looking up. Spot the very old snowshoes, a giant crab from the China Sea, and a solid brass samovar.

Once, the shop had many ivory carvings for sale, Castas said, but he hasn’t had an ivory carver for several years. Now YOCS is buying (and selling) carvings from the tagua (TAH-gwa) nut from Ecuador.

When it’s carved, it resembles animal ivory.

One palm can produce 20 pounds of nuts, a renewable resource turned into fish, frogs, elephants and other subjects.

As a child, owner James often explored his father’s Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. “It was fun going down there because there were so many cool things,” James said.

“It was pretty easy to take for granted. I didn’t realize until later what a special place it was. It’s not until you get older that you realize what you’ve got.”

Travel writers Sharon Wootton and Maggie Savage are authors of “Off the Beaten Path: Washington” (Globe Pequot).

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop

Where: Pier 54, 1001 Alaskan Way, Seattle

Winter Hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Founded: 1899 as Standley’s Free Museum and Curio

GETTING THERE: Take exit 164A off Interstate 5 for Dearborn Street toward James/Madison Streets. Follow signs for I-5 north. Keep left at the fork, follow signs for Madision Street Convention Center. Keep right at the fork, follow signs for Madison Street and merge onto Seventh Avenue. Turn left at Madison Street. Turn right at Alaskan Way; the shop is on the left.

Information: 206-682-5844 or www.yeoldecuriosityshop.com