Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 7, Issue 8, August 2003

Copyright 2003 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article and photos below in your research. Be sure to quote the Seattle Sun as your source.

AROUND THE HOME:

The early days of Seattle homes

By MATT MAURY

When driving around the Seattle area, folks often wonder why certain types of homes are located where they are.

Why bungalows in Wallingford? The larger homes on winding streets in Laurelhurst? The cottages on Lake Washington?

It's hard to realize that it was just in the past 100 years that most of Seattle's North End has been transformed from farms and timberland into the neighborhoods of today.

Transportation played an important role in the growth. Development took place along the rail, bus and trolley lines. Automobiles were not a factor until a number of years after 1908 when Henry Ford began producing America's first production-line car, the Model-T.

Beginning at what is now the Ship Canal, the population grew to the north. Starting at the waters' edges, shingle, shake and sawmills were an important part of the economy. On Salmon Bay, there were many shingle mills and a sawmill. On Lake Union were other mills. And, on Union Bay, south of Laurelhurst, was a lumber mill.

These mills provided both jobs and a place to utilize the timber that was being harvested as Seattle expanded. Early housing in these areas was for the workers, as, without cars, many walked to work.

A stroll today through the Wallingford and Ravenna neighborhoods will show many craftsman and bungalow homes. It is interesting to notice the large porches on many of the houses. At the time they were built, the social focus of a neighborhood was on the street in front of the house. Folks spent their evenings sitting on the front porch visiting neighbors or watching the people passing by.

Laurelhurst, and the areas to the north on Lake Washington, were reached primarily by boat until the early 1900s. A trolley ran from downtown Seattle to the end of Madison Street, where residents could take passenger boats to the north. The early residents had summer homes and orchards on the lake's shore.

In 1900, atop the hill in Laurelhurst, a 40-acre cow pasture was turned into the Seattle Golf & County Club. Soon the adjacent lands were being sub-divided for homes to take advantage of the views.

Without public transportation to the area, these nicer homes were built by those with the means to get to them.

Within a few years, the golf course was moved to a location above Puget Sound, north of what is now Northeast 145th Street, and the original property was developed as home sites.

Electric streetcars were critical in establishing housing patterns in the North End, so much so that property developers would pay for line extensions to their building sites. For example, trolley lines were laid to the east side of Green Lake in 1890, which allowed housing to mushroom where only a few homesteaders were in the years before.

By 1900, all the land around Green Lake and on Phinney Ridge was platted for homes and the harvesting of its timber began. With the extension of the trolley line to the west side of the lake, housing was quickly being built.

Going further to the north, where the water from Licton Springs drained into Green Lake through Becker's Creek, is the property that was purchased by David Denny in 1870 for a wilderness retreat.

After his death in 1903, the Olmsted Brothers (the Bostonians of park design fame) drew plans for a park with winding roads and home sites. Not all of the park plan was implemented, as the number of homes grew to nearly 600.

The history of Seattle's neighborhoods, along with the reasons for particular types of housing, has been documented at The Online Encyclopedia of Seattle/King County History at www.historylink.org.

It's a great resource to find out who Ballard, Phinney and Wallingford were. Or, why Lake Washington dropped nine feet in 1917. Or, the impact that Northgate Mall had on chicken & dairy farms around Haller Lake.

Or, just a little history about your neighborhood.