B HistoryLink.org Lake Union Walking Tour | Page 1 b Introduction: Lake Union the level of Lake Union. Two years later the waters of Salmon Bay were raised behind the his is a Cybertour of Seattle’s historic Chittenden Locks to the level of Lake Union. South Lake Union neighborhood, includ- Historical T As the Lake Washington Ship Canal’s ing the Cascade neighborhood and portions Walking tour Government Locks (now Hiram of the Denny Regrade. It was written Chittenden Locks) neared its 1917 and curated by Paula Becker with completion, the shores of Lake Union the assistance of Walt Crowley and sprouted dozens of boat yards. For Paul Dorpat. Map by Marie McCaffrey. most of the remaining years of the Preparation of this feature was under- twentieth century, Lake Union was written by Vulcan Inc., a Paul G. Allen one of the top wooden-boat building Company. This Cybertour begins at centers in the world, utilizing rot- Lake Union Park, then loosely follows resistant local Douglas fir for framing the course of the Westlake Streetcar, and Western Red Cedar for planking. with forays into the Cascade neighbor- During and after World War I, a hood and into the Seattle Center area. fleet of wooden vessels built locally for the war but never used was moored Seattle’s in the center of Lake Union. Before “Little Lake” completion of the George Washington ake Union is located just north of the Washington, Salmon Bay, and Puget Sound. Memorial Bridge (called Aurora Bridge) in L geographic center and downtown core A little more than six decades later, Mercer’s 1932, a number of tall-masted ships moored of the city of Seattle. Westlake Avenue links prediction was finally fulfilled. on Lake had to be towed out before the center it to the downtown retail center then runs The lake lay outside of Seattle’s borders span was put in place. Last to depart was the along Lake Union’s western shore, and Fair- when the city incorporated in 1869, but it view Avenue serves the same function along was fully annexed by 1891. One year earlier, a the eastern shore. Lake Washington lies to streetcar line was installed from downtown to the east of Lake Union, and Puget Sound to the lake’s southern shore along present-day the west. Carved by the receding Westlake Avenue and later extended Vashon Glacier some 14,000 to Ballard. years ago, Lake Union was To the west, a narrow called “meman harishu” (Lit- stream at what would become tle Lake) by the Duwamish Fremont emptied Lake Union people who lived along on into Salmon Bay. To the steel-hull bark Monongahela, a four-mast- the lake’s southern shore, east, a natural dam at ed vessel built in Glasgow in 1892. or “tenas chuck” in Chinook Montlake separated Flattening Out Trade Jargon. Indians fished and Lake Union from Lake and Filling In caught waterfowl by raising nets on Washington. In 1861 Har- nearby bluffs. vey Pike excavated a narrow canal he regrading of Denny Hill Seattle pioneer David Denny and bride for logs at this dam site. After 1863 T(which peaked at 3rd Ave. and Louisa Boren filed the first claim on the south coal from Newcastle was transport- Stewart St.) and areas north flat- end of Lake Union in January 1853. Thomas ed by barge across Lake Washington tened the hills between which South Mercer filed the second area claim north of and Lake Union and then portaged to Lake Union had nestled and transforming the Dennys’ (north of Mercer Street), settling the Seattle harbor. In 1872, the Seattle Coal a gentle valley into an open plain. Between here with his four daughters in 1853. At the & Transportation Co. built a narrow-gauge 1928 and 1931 as much as 20 million gallons settlers’ Fourth of July picnic in 1854, Mercer railway, Seattle’s first, from south Lake Union of water a day were sucked from Lake Union proposed calling the lake “Union” because he to Pike Street. The line was replaced by a bet- and shot through fire hoses to sluice Denny was sure a canal would soon link it to Lake ter rail link in 1877 and Mayor Gideon Weed Hill down. Some of the resulting dirt was proposed paving the route we know today as used to fill in wetlands along Lake Union’s Westlake Avenue, but this was not done for southern shoreline, including the area under- another quarter of a century. neath the Westlake trestle. Boatyards and Bridges From top: Lake Union in 1891 “Bird’s onstruction of the Lake Washington Ship Eye” map; Salish canoe; Louisa and CCanal required that Lake Washington and Dave Denny with children ca. 1855; Lake Union be at equal elevations. Between Thomas Mercer; Denny home during July and October 1916 the level of Lake 1911 regrade. Washington was lowered nearly nine feet to B HistoryLink.org Lake Union Walking Tour | Page 2 b Lake Union’s industrial poten- Linking Past and tial increased dramatically when the Future Ship Canal and Hiram Chittenden n March 2005, the University of Locks opened in 1917. Factories, Washington announced plans to automobile dealerships, and I triple its biomedical research space other industry both light and heavy in South Lake Union, joining the crowded into the area southeast Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research of Lake Union, called the Cascade Center, ZymoGenetics, the Seattle neighborhood. Biomedical Research Institute, The Cascade Neighborhood Seattle Cancer Alliance, and several South Lake Union’s Cascade other biotech companies in further Neighborhood was an ethnic melt- cementing the South Lake Union ing pot of immigrants from Scandinavia, When the Seattle Freeway (now Inter- neighborhood’s status as a major center for Greece, Russia, and the Balkans, a comfort- state 5) was completed in the 1960s, Mercer biomedical research. Group Health Coopera- able middle-class neighborhood of modest Street became a major access road, effec- tive will open its new administrative center houses and small farms that took the name tively cutting off from the city Lake Union’s in the neighborhood in fall 2007, and Chil- “Cascade” despite the fact that nearby Capitol south shore. A large swath of buildings in the dren’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center is Hill obstructed any view of the Cascade Cascade neighborhood also fell when establishing a new research center nearby. Mountains. Poorer families the Seattle Freeway right-of-way South Lake Union is expected to serve as the moored their houseboats was cleared. In 1972 Seattle cradle of Seattle’s burgeoning biotechnology between mills, canneries, voters rejected a plan to sector for decades to come. and shipyards along the build the Bay Freeway con- Continued public enjoyment of the western and eastern Lake necting SR 520, I-5, and lakeshore is being assured with development Union shorelines. During SR 99 along Mercer Street. of South Lake Union Park, which includes the the 1950s many single-family If built this project would former U.S. Naval Reserve Center, a landmark homes were torn down as land have destroyed the Cascade structure designed by B. Marcus Priteca in use increasingly shifted toward neighborhood and further walled 1942, the Center for Wooden Boats, the NW the commercial. off South Lake Union from downtown Seaport’s collection of historic vessels, and South Lake Union’s long tenure as utili- Seattle. an adjacent Indian Tribal Center. The Seattle tarian home to mill and coal wharf, commer- Parks Foundation has pledged $10 million to cial laundries, building-material suppliers, The Commons Idea support the park’s development, for which and automobile dealerships may lack glam- he Seattle Commons, first proposed ground was formally broken on February 28, our, but the neighborhood has a history of Tby architect Fred Bassetti and Seattle 2007, and the Museum of History & Industry inspiring grand plans. An early twentieth-cen- Times columnist John Hinterberger in plans to move to the Navel Reserve Center tury real-estate company dubbed the south 1991, envisioned as a vast 60-acre civic lawn from its Montlake facility in 2011. end of Lake Union the “Big Funnel,” implying framed by high-tech laboratories, condos, that it was the strategic route for Seattle’s bistros, and tree-lined promenades. The plan rapid expansion northward. Seattle municipal entailed substantial public cost to turn a planning director Virgil Bogue targeted the working-class neighborhood in to an upscale Cascade neighborhood for dramatic change “urban village,” and Seattle voters rejected in his 1911 Plan For Seattle. The Bogue Plan the Seattle Commons levy on November 7, called for the creation of a large apartment 1995. Skeptical voters also rejected a second, district, a civic center complex in the Denny smaller-scale Commons levy on May 21, 1996. Regrade area, a Grand Central Station (sited Although the Seattle Commons plan roughly at Dexter and Valley), a rapid-transit failed at the polls, it drew attention to the tunnel to Kirkland, and a major ferry terminal neighborhood’s potential and spurred sub- at the south end of Lake Union. Seattle voters stantial property assembly and investment by rejected the plan in 1912. Paul Allen’s Vulcan Real Estate Co. and oth- Finally, construction of a new Westlake ers, setting the stage for South Lake Union’s Streetcar line was initiated in 2006 to link current twenty-first century revival. the neighborhood with the downtown core. It roughly follows the route of Seattle’s first rail- road, and when it enters service in fall 2007, the line will constitute the city’s first street From top: Western Mill ca. 1912; railway (not counting the vintage Waterfront Closing gap in Aurora Bridge, 1932; Streetcar line, temporarily suspended) to op- (left) South Lake Union ca.