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NE 68th Street in Wedgwood, Then and Now
On 35th Ave NE at NE 68th in Wedgwood there is the Northeast Branch Library on the northwest corner, and an apartment building on the southwest corner.
In our minds’ eye we may imagine what was there more than a hundred years ago. As of 1915 this block of NE 68th Street between 34th and 35th Avenues NE had the buildings of three charitable organizations built to serve needy people. This blog article will tell about the three institutions and their buildings: The Children’s Home, the Theodora Home and the girls school/Ruth School.
NE 68th Street corner of 35th Ave NE, with the MOD Apartments (former Theodora Home) at left and the Northeast Branch Library on the right. Photo by Valarie, January 2026.
Posted in Neighborhood features, Seattle History
Tagged Neighborhood History, Seattle, WPLongform
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Who were Burke & Gilman?
The Evanston Steps in the Fremont neighborhood, leading to the Burke-Gilman Trail and providing a good view of boat traffic on the ship canal. Photo by Valarie, August 2025.
One of Seattle’s amenities is a trail which traverses the city and extends to the east side of Lake Washington. Sometimes called “Seattle’s longest park,” the trail is overseen by the Parks Department and serves those who walk, run, or travel by bicycle for exercise or to commute to work.
In the 1970s the name “Burke-Gilman Trail” was given to this former rail line when a group of Wedgwood neighbors advocated for its conversion to a trail. In another article on this blog I have told the story of how the committee came up with the Burke-Gilman Trail idea.
The members of that 1970s citizen-activist group suggested that the names of Thomas Burke & Daniel Gilman be given to the trail, because in the 1880s these men were the key movers-and-shakers in the creation of Seattle’s own railroad, called the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern. In this blog article I will explore some of the reasons why these men, Burke & Gilman, came to Seattle, what their lives in Seattle were like, and the legacy they left.
The Burke-Gilman Trail proceeds along the north shore of Lake Union and over to Lake Washington to the east.
Posted in Neighborhood features, Seattle History
Tagged Neighborhood History, Seattle, WPLongform
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Lake City’s Landmarked Buildings
Lake City in northeast Seattle has two historic buildings landmarked for preservation, which represent the neighborhood’s long record of community activism.
Lake City began forming as a community in the early 1900s and one of its first organizing efforts was to provide a school for its children. In 1912 residents collected signatures on a petition to the King County Superintendent of Schools to form their own Lake City School District.
Classes met in temporary locations until the new wood-frame school building opened in January 1914, on the north side of NE 125th Street between 27th to 28th Avenues NE, present site of the Lake City Branch Library.
In 1919 two more classrooms were added but by 1926 the Lake City School building was again too small. Lake City was growing, and with it, there were lots of children.
Lake City started its own school in 1912 on the present site of the library, NE 125th Street between 27th and 28th Avenues NE.
Illuminating Bryant
In the early 1900s Seattle neighborhoods were growing farther to the northeast, on the edges of communities such as Ravenna and the Town of Yesler.
Seattle Female College building as pictured in the 1890s, at 5702 26th Ave NE. Photo courtesy of University of Washington Special Collections.
Ravenna was a railroad stop at the intersection of Blakeley Street & 25th Ave NE. The Town of Yesler grew at the present site of Laurelhurst where, in the 1880s, another Yesler sawmill had operated in addition to the Yesler Mill of 1853 on the downtown Seattle waterfront.
One of northeast Seattle’s earliest church groups began in 1901, calling itself the Yesler Sunday School. Later it was called Ravenna Methodist Church when it met at the former Seattle Female College building at 5702 26th Ave NE. Then finally the group built a church building which still stands today on NE 60th Street in what is called the Bryant neighborhood.
Posted in churches, name of the neighborhood
Tagged Neighborhood History, Ravenna, Seattle, Village of Yesler, WP Longform
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Names in the Neighborhood: Bryant
In northeast Seattle most of the neighborhood names are those of real estate developments such as Wedgwood, which originally was only a plat name.
The builder of the Wedgwood group of houses, Albert Balch, did not deliberately set out to name the neighborhood. The name caught on gradually and gained popularity when businesses began using it.
Bryant is the neighborhood along the southern portion of 35th Ave NE, northeast of the University Village area.
Prior to Balch’s Wedgwood houses which he started building in 1941, there had been a Morningside real estate promotion which gave its name to the neighborhood in the 1920s. From the 1940s, the Wedgwood name became the strongest identifier of the neighborhood so that in 1954, the Seattle School District chose it for the new Wedgwood School.
Other real estate developments in northeast Seattle including LaVilla, Inverness, Laurelhurst, Hawthorne Hills, View Ridge (also by Albert Balch) and Lake City, all gave their names to their neighborhoods.
One neighborhood name, Meadowbrook, was derived from the golf course at the present site of Nathan Hale High School. This was a gradual process where the name seemed to “stick” while other, previously-used names faded.
Before Meadowbrook, a real estate development at NE 110th Street, Chelsea, had been advertised in the 1920s as an area of new homes for young couples. The name Chelsea faded in use as the Meadowbrook Golf Course became the most prominent identifying feature at NE 110th Street.
The name Meadowbrook had enough staying power to continue to be used even after the golf course closed and a new high school was built on the former golf course site. In 1961 area residents petitioned to have the new high school named “Meadowbrook.” But the school district applied rules of how schools were named, and chose “Nathan Hale.”
This blog article will tell about the designation of the name “Bryant” for the neighborhood near Bryant School at 3311 NE 60th Street, and the businesses that developed nearby, along 35th Ave NE in early years.
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.
The Golden Rule Bakery and Dairy in Fremont, Seattle
4450 Fremont Avenue
The Golden Rule Bakery and Dairy was a major employer in Fremont from 1918 to 1964. It started with one production plant at 4450 Fremont Avenue and later expanded into two more buildings, nearby on Stone Way.
The second building was at 3670 Stone Way, built in 1928 with a 1940 addition and designated as the “cake department.” The third building, constructed in 1945-1946, was at 3665 Stone Way and was exclusively the Golden Rule Dairy.
The Golden Rule company was a major employer in Fremont during the 1930s, taking the place of previous industries in Fremont such as the lumber mill. Continue reading
Posted in businesses, Fremont neighborhood in Seattle
Tagged Neighborhood History, Seattle
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The Bryant Lumber Company in Fremont, Seattle
When the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle was founded in 1888, its developers organized a business, Fremont Milling Company, at the small canal at the northwest corner of Lake Union. Timber was cleared from Fremont’s hillsides and skidded down to the water to await cutting into lumber for housebuilding. Cut lumber could be loaded onto the railroad and sent into downtown Seattle, or outward to the expanding communities along the rail line.
Before the present Fremont Bridge was built, the Fremont Mill had this office on Fremont Avenue. Photo of UW Special Collections, James Patrick Lee.
Seattle’s home-grown railroad, the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern, impacted the growth of the Fremont neighborhood, making Fremont a successful commercial site. Fremont and the railroad grew up together in 1888 as the tracks ran east-west parallel to North 34th Street, along the line of a small canal called The Outlet from Lake Union.
By the end of 1888 the SLS&E Railroad had reached Snoqualmie Falls, about thirty miles east of Seattle. The SLS&E organizers then set about to build a northern branch of the railroad. From Woodinville, northeast of Seattle, a new line was built northward into Snohomish County. It reached the towns of Arlington & Bryant near the Stillaguamish River in June 1890.
This blog article will tell how the Bryant Lumber Company came to acquire the Fremont Mill in Seattle in 1894.
The old Fremont Trestle bridge in 1915 before the creation of the new ship canal and new Fremont Bridge. Bryant Lumber is shown in clouds of steam at lower right. Photo courtesy of UW Special Collections, Hamilton #3959.
Posted in businesses, Fremont neighborhood in Seattle, Seattle History
Tagged Neighborhood History, Seattle
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Lake Washington: Keeping It Clean
The greater-Seattle area is bounded by the saltwater Puget Sound and freshwater lakes including Lake Washington. In summertime, Seattle sparkles with water activities including boating, fishing and swimming.
Over the past sixty years the greater-Seattle metropolitan water treatment program has led to better water quality in Lake Washington, and yet every summer there are some “closed beach warnings” because of high bacteria levels or toxic algae in the water.
This blog article will list the reasons for water contamination in Lake Washington and will describe the water-quality monitoring efforts of the metropolitan district (King County) and the citizen activist group, Thornton Creek Alliance. You can meet & talk with the volunteers of Thornton Creek Alliance at upcoming work parties.
Sailboats make their way around Lake Washington in the summertime.
Posted in Neighborhood features, Seattle History, Thornton Creek
Tagged Environment, Seattle
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The Coast Carton Company at 4133 Stone Way in Fremont, Seattle
In the past twenty years we have seen a complete transformation of Stone Way in Seattle from a light-industrial area to an avenue of modern apartment buildings, coffee shops and storefronts.
There are still a few old buildings like the original Coast Carton Company at 4133 Stone Way. Coast Carton was built as a box factory in 1912, one of the earliest industrial buildings on Stone Way. The building now has two retail storefronts.
Coast Carton Company photo of 1938.
Posted in businesses, Fremont neighborhood in Seattle
Tagged Neighborhood History, Seattle
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