MIKE SIEGEL / the SEATTLE TIMES South Lake Union 1882
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Photo credit: MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES South Lake Union 1882 http://pauldorpat.com/seattle-now-and-then/seattle-now-then/ Westlake 1902 Top, Westlake 2013 The Club Stables earlier home on Western Ave. north of Lenora Street: Photo Credit MOHAI Reported in the Seattle Times Sept. 26, 1909, read the headline, "Club Stables Now In Finest Quarters in West." Article describes the scene "in the very heart of the city . These up-to-date stables contain ample accommodations for 250 horses, with every safeguard and comfort in the way of ventilation, cleanliness etc. that modern sanitary science can provide . An elaborate sprinkler system of the most approved and efficient type . is practically an absolute guarantee against serious damage by fire. The management solicits an inspection at any time." Development Western Mill, early 1890s, at the south end of Lake Union and the principal employer for the greater Cascade neighborhood Development accelerated after David Denny built the Western Mill in 1882, near the site of today’s Naval Reserve Center, and cut a barrier at Montlake to float logs between the lakes. Homes soon began to appear on the Lake Union’s south shore, ranging from the ornate Queen Anne-style mansion built by Margaret Pontius in 1889 (which served as the “Mother Ryther Home” for orphans from 1905 to 1920) to humble worker's cottages. The latter housed a growing number of immigrants from Scandinavia, Greece, Russia, and America’s own teeming East, attracted by jobs in Seattle’s burgeoning mills and on its bustling docks. Beginning in 1894, their children attended Cascade School -- which finally gave the neighborhood a name -- and families worshipped on Sundays at St. Dimitrios, St. Spiridon, and Immanuel Lutheran as the “Old World” settled into a new way of life. Thanks to the introduction of privately operated cable cars and electric streetcars in the 1880s, Seattle’s population began to push northward to Lake Union and beyond. Eager to link downtown Seattle to the burgeoning towns and suburbs north of Lake Union, the city held a “build off” in October 1890 between companies competing for the coveted rail transit franchise. While cable car operators opted to follow the established street grid, entrepreneur L. H. Griffith quietly bought up the route of the old Lake Union coal railroad. His electric streetcars were running along future Westlake Avenue just five days after construction began. What was then called Rollin Street was finally paved for wagon and auto traffic in 1906. Streetcar The year was 1890. Built in just five days, the Lake Union line became part of a 70-mile collection of electric and cable-car lines that put Seattle on the cutting edge of transit innovation when the 20th century arrived. The streetcar age ended in 1941, when the system succumbed to money shortages, new highways and buses. On October 14, 1890, the Seattle City Council approves a “provisional” franchise for a new streetcar line between downtown and south Lake Union. Eight alternative routes are authorized with the final franchise to be awarded to the first company to establish service. The Seattle Electric Railway and Power Company, guided by Luther Henry Griffith (b. 1862), wins the race by laying track in just five days along today’s Westlake Avenue. Steel Cable or Electric Wire? Griffith and associates had previously won city franchises for streetcar lines along Western Avenue between Pike Street and Lake Union before joining forces with Frank Osgood’s Seattle Street Railway Company, which built the city’s first horse-drawn line in 1884. The new Seattle Electric Railway and Power Company inaugurated Seattle’s first electric service along 2nd Avenue on March 31, 1889, but it faced stiff competition from cable car lines serving 1st Avenue (then Front Street) and Yesler Way. The city government was eager for a line to link the downtown with south Lake Union’s docks and lumber mills, and Seattle Electric Railway and the Front Street Cable Railway Company were equally eager to build what would be a heavily used and profitable route. Griffith proposed that the City approve a “provisional” franchise with the permanent franchise to be awarded to the first company to offer service. Shortest Distance Between Two Points The Front Street Cable Railway Company accepted the plan, not knowing that Griffith had quietly acquired 53 lots along the abandoned route of the Seattle Coal & Transportation Company’s narrow-gauge railway (Seattle’s first railroad) running diagonally between Pike Street and Lake Union’s south shore. The cable line, in contrast, planned to follow the established street grid and zigzag its way to the lake. According to transit historian Leslie Blanchard: “One hundred men and nine gang plows tackled the construction job under Griffith’s personal supervision; and the cars were running out to the lake in the incredible time of five days. The cable company, dumbfounded by this terrific feat, made no attempt at building a competing line and, in fact, never did reach Lake Union.” Seattle Electric Railway later extended its line to Fremont over a planked trestle hugging Lake Union’s western shore, and the line’s southern terminus at 4th Avenue and Pike Street became downtown Seattle’s major transit hub. We know the route today as Westlake Avenue, which was paved for mixed traffic in 1906. Westlake long marked the border between the two phases of the Denny Regrade, which was completed east of the boulevard between 1929 and 1931. End of the Line Streetcar and Interurban service on Westlake ended in the late 1930s and early 1940s with the shutdown of the city's streetrail system. Much later, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels (b. 1955) and Paul Allen’s Vulcan organization proposed to restore streetcar service more than a century after Griffith’s coup. Ground was broken to build the tracks for the new streetcar on July 7, 2006. About a year and a half later, on December 12, 2007, the new South Lake Union Streetcar began its first run from a point not far from Westlake Center to South Lake Union. Denny Park Seattle establishes its first public park, Denny Park, on site of the city's first municipal cemetery on July 10, 1883. In July 10, 1883, the Seattle City Council formally accepts a donation of approximately six acres from David Denny (1832-1903) for use as Seattle's first public park. Denny had granted the city use of the tract in the early 1860s as Seattle's first municipal cemetery, but most of the remains were relocated to Capitol Hill's Washelli Cemetery (now Volunteer Park) in the 1870s. The park was officially named to honor David Denny in 1887, and the administration building for the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation was built there in 1948. Denny Park is bordered by Denny Way on the south, John Street on the north, Dexter Avenue N on the west, and 9th Avenue N on the east. Andrew Tertocha (2010) Denny Park, 1903 (Seattle Manicipal Archives) Transfer Development Rights Building Height controversy Seattle Coal and Transportation RR The Seattle Coal and Transportation Company simplified the problem in 1872 by building a narrow-gauge railroad -- Seattle’s first -- from the south shore of Lake Union to present-day Pike Street. To avoid the obstacle of Denny Hill (since flattened) the line followed a diagonal route along today’s Westlake Avenue to Pike, then turned west to end in a giant coal dock. After completion of a new southern railway to Seattle’s waterfront, the coal line and its Pike Street dock were abandoned in 1877. Mayor Gideon Weed proposed paving its Westlake route, but this was not accomplished for another 30 years. In her memoir of Pig-tail Days in Old Seattle, Sophie Frye Bass recalled taking childhood walks “down the grade,” which was “lined with all kinds of shrubs -- wild roses, red currant and squaw berry bushes,” and encountering elderly Duwamish men and women who still dwelled on the lake’s southern shore. History On July 4, 1854, the hundred or so citizens of the new town of Seattle collected on the south shore of what their Duwamish neighbors called meman hartshu, or tenas chuck in the Chinook trading jargon. Thomas Mercer, who had laid claim to the area around this “little lake” along with newlyweds David Denny and Louisa Boren, addressed the community’s first Independence Day picnic. First, Mercer proposed that they rename the larger lake to the east, called hyas chuck in Chinook and Lake Geneva by a romantic few, “Lake Washington” to honor the nation’s first president. Then he advocated that the smaller lake be named “Lake Union” because it was only a matter of time before a great canal would unite it with Puget Sound on the west and Lake Washington on the east. The crowd roared its approval and map makers quickly adopted Mercer’s proposal. The ship canal, however, took another 80 years to complete. It was the first great notion inspired by Lake Union, but hardly the last, and offered a cautionary lesson in patience for the dreamers and developers who would follow Thomas Mercer. Back in 1854, Lake Union was the backwater of a backwater town. A natural dam at Montlake sealed it off from the higher Lake Washington, while only a tiny stream through Fremont drained it into Salmon Bay. The discovery of coal near Issaquah also fueled new interest in the lake, but it was no easy matter getting it from Lake Washington barges and wagons over “Portage Bay” to Lake Union and then overland to Elliott Bay.