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John B. Agen’s Addition in Fremont, Seattle
John B. Agen (1856-1920) was a Seattle businessman who dominated the dairy products industry in Seattle from 1890 to 1916. He did not live in the Fremont neighborhood, but a three-block section of property came to be owned by Agen by way of B.F. Day. B.F. Day was an early resident of Fremont who was a community activist and who donated land for building the present B.F. Day School.
Like many people in Seattle, B.F. Day was badly affected by the economic crash known as the Panic of 1893. In a court case ten years later, Mr. Day was questioned as the whether he was hiding any money or assets such as real estate. He explained that during the 1890s some of the land he had owned, had been transferred into the names of other people so that Day would not lose the property. One of the people who helped B.F. Day at that time was John B. Agen. Agen later filed this plat map for the property in the 4100 block between Woodland Park Ave to Stone Way.
Posted in Fremont neighborhood in Seattle, Plat names, Seattle History
Tagged Neighborhood History, Seattle, WPLongform
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George Boman’s Edgemont Plat
After the Civil War (1861-1865) war veterans began migrating westward, and some made their way to Seattle. George Boman from Tennessee arrived in Seattle in 1875 and became a real estate investor.
Fremont was a successful early community because of its advantageous location at one corner of Lake Union.
In Boman’s home state of Tennessee, during the Civil War some men enlisted to fight with the Union, and some enlisted with the Confederacy. Perhaps feeling that his life might be in danger because he had fought for the Union, Boman did not go back home to live in Tennessee after the war. He went across the border to a Kentucky town which had been a Union stronghold. After a year or so he went to Nebraska where he exercised his right as a Union veteran, to a land claim.
George Boman stayed in Nebraska just long enough to complete the ownership process for his land claim, and then he came to Seattle in 1875. We don’t know how or why Boman chose this destination in the Pacific Northwest. We can speculate that he might have read of the possible coming of a transcontinental railroad to the West Coast. Boman’s Civil War service had included the battles in December 1864 around rail hubs of Franklin and Nashville, Tennessee, where he would have seen the importance of railroads. Civil War veterans knew that the coming of a railroad through a town would lead to economic activity and increased land values.
Posted in Civil War, Fremont neighborhood in Seattle, Plat names
Tagged Neighborhood History, Seattle
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Trees of Autumn 2026
In October & November 2026, colorful fall foliage is at its peak in the Wedgwood and Meadowbrook neighborhoods of northeast Seattle.
Flame ash street trees
Flame ash street trees line the arterial 35th Ave NE from NE 84th Street in Wedgwood, out to NE 137th where the arterial merges with Lake City Way NE.
The trees were planted in the early 1970s and today they are maintained by the Urban Forestry division of the Seattle Department of Transportation. A major storm in November 2024 caused about a dozen street trees to fall, between NE 95th to 105th streets. They are being gradually replaced with smaller varieties such as pin oak.
Here is the link to the Tree Inventory Map where you can find out the names of the varieties of trees which are planted along Seattle streets.
Flame Ash street trees along 35th Ave NE in October 2026.
Flame ash street trees along 35th Ave NE in October 2026.
The Motor Line Plats in Fremont in Seattle
The Fremont neighborhood in Seattle was opened in something like a land rush in the summer of 1888 when lots were first offered for sale. The original land area of the plat was from Florentia Street on the south side of the Fremont Bridge, as far north as North 39th Street.
Outside of that area originally set out as “Fremont,” beginning in 1888 other property owners rushed to have their land surveyed and laid out in lots to sell. They hoped to gain sales benefit from the coming of more people to settle on the north side of Lake Union with convenient shopping and transportation in Fremont. Several plat filers adjacent to Fremont, gave the name “Motor Line” to their land developments, as they knew that there were plans for a streetcar line on what is now Woodland Park Avenue North.
Posted in Fremont neighborhood in Seattle, Plat names, Seattle History, streets
Tagged Neighborhood History, Seattle
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The Latona Addition in North Seattle
The Latona Addition, a plat filed in 1889, has Latona Avenue at its center between 1st to 6th Avenues NE. In the process of standardization of Seattle street names to a numbered system, Latona Avenue was retained, a charming reminder of the days when this plat of land was founded as a new development.
Latona and its neighbor, the Edgewater Addition, are now called the Wallingford neighborhood. To the east, Brooklyn became the University District.
This map of 1894 shows the communities on the north shore of Lake Union. The proposed site of the ship canal at Fremont, had not yet been built.
The Sunset Heights Plat in Fremont, Seattle
The original land plat of Fremont extended as far as North 39th Street. North of that street, other investors filed land plats with layouts of streets and house lots to get in on the growth of real estate values.
A corner store in Sunset Heights, built 1912, is today’s Lighthouse Roasters.
In 1889 two Norwegian couples filed a plat which they called Sunset Heights, on the hill between North 42nd to 45th Streets, with Phinney Avenue as its centerline. We can still see the early development of Sunset Heights with corner stores located along the route of the streetcar line on Phinney Avenue.
This blog article will tell the story of the two Norwegian couples who named their real estate investment Sunset Heights. These immigrants met both prosperity and disaster in the struggle to achieve the American Dream.
House History: 4202 Phinney Avenue North in Seattle
The story of the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle is that of a sudden burst of development when the neighborhood opened in 1888. At that time there was no ship canal but there was a stream with a small wooden trestle bridge across it. Fremont’s developers soon constructed a streetcar line connecting Fremont to downtown Seattle along Westlake Avenue, and other lines going north to Green Lake. Fremont became a convenient place to live, with shopping/businesses and transportation lines.
This blog article will trace the family backgrounds of a couple, Oscar & Viola Heaton, who came to live in Fremont in the early 1900s. After being widowed, Oscar Heaton built a new house at 4202 Phinney Avenue North.
Fremont was a busy place in 1908. This photo looks northward on Fremont Avenue while a streetcar is coming from North 34th Street. Photo courtesy of MOHAI Item 10.729.1
Posted in Fremont neighborhood in Seattle, Houses, Seattle History
Tagged Neighborhood History, Seattle
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The People Behind the Street Name: Humes Place West
In January 1906 Seattle Assistant City Engineer James C. Jeffery announced another round of street name changes. He explained that changes were necessary because sometimes there were two streets with the same name in different parts of the city. Other streets had confusing names and the city engineering department decided that simplification was needed.
Seattle newspapers noted the street-name ordinance which City Council was to vote for, and printed the list of all the proposed changes. Among the changes to be made, were street names in what is now the area around Seattle Pacific University on north Queen Anne.
The listing of streets in the Ross Addition and Ross Second Addition, was plats of land on both sides of today’s ship canal, on land once owned by the Ross family.
The reference to the Victory Addition included the present site of the Seattle Pacific University campus. One of the streets in that area was to be renamed “Humes Place.”
Posted in Neighborhood features, Seattle History, streets
Tagged Neighborhood History, Seattle, WPLongform
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The Mayors of Fremont in Seattle
The Fremont neighborhood in Seattle is located at the northwest corner of Lake Union. Map courtesy of HistoryLink.
The Fremont neighborhood in Seattle was founded in 1888 by real estate developers. It was a “planned community” where the developers first set up a lumber mill to create jobs and provide lumber for housing. The developers laid out house lots and then advertised that the first one hundred lots would be sold for $1 each.
Fremont was settled by enterprising individuals who sought to establish homes and businesses in the new community, which was like a suburb with its own name, as it was outside of the Seattle City Limits at that time.
Some people who were already in Seattle moved to Fremont in 1888 to get in on the new development. Other people came from quite far away. One such, was the John Quincy Denton family of Quincy, Massachusetts.