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.
New communities on the north shore of Lake Union in the 1880s
The Seattle suburb of Fremont opened in the summer of 1888 and its developers had thought of everything that new residents would need. A lumber mill had been set up ahead of time, to provide lumber for housing. Lots were designated for businesses such as stores, and a boarding house for the mill workers.
Shorey House at 3400 Fremont Avenue circa 1890. UW Special Collections photo #44415.
Transportation was a big need as Fremont was on the north side of Lake Union and there were no roads to get there. Fremont’s developers hastened to build an electric streetcar line up the west side of Lake Union and they had it running on March 31, 1889.
In the meantime, before a streetcar reached the north shore of Lake Union, little steamboats plied the lake.
The steamer Maud Foster
For a newspaper article in 1941, Dr. E.C. Kilbourne, a dentist, told the story of his early years in Seattle:
Leilla Shorey as a young woman in the 1880s before her marriage to E.C. Kilbourne. Photo from MOHAI #2641.
Here is how I got into the picture. Having married a native-born girl, Leilla Shorey, and living with my uncle, Corliss P. Stone, one of Seattle’s early mayors….I naturally became imbued with the pioneer’s faith in Seattle’s future and fell victim to the real estate fever which later become epidemic.
Late in 1887 I bought forty acres of land from my uncle. It was located on the north shore of Lake Union, east of the present Gas Works. I bought the steamer, Maud Foster, from D.T. Denny and placed her on the run between my addition and terminus of Osgood’s horsecar line (at South Lake Union near Valley & Fairview streets). The fare was five cents. The Maud did a lively, profitable business. W.H. Clough was captain, engineer and treasurer.
David T. Denny
1832-1903
In the 1880s David T. Denny had a lumber mill at South Lake Union and he’d had the steamer Maud Foster built to tow logs to the mill.
I believe the origin of the name, Maud Foster, was to commemorate the 1882 birth of a daughter, Maud, in the Foster family of South Lake Union. The father, Abraham Foster, was a boilermaker who fabricated steel and other metals into large containers intended to hold hot gas or liquid. He would have worked closely with the steam-powered lumber mill, and with builders of steam-driven vessels. Maud was the eighth child in the Foster family and at the time of her birth, Maud had two older brothers who worked for David Denny at the mill.
After buying the steamer Maud Foster in 1887, Dr. Kilbourne had it modified with seats to accommodate twelve passengers.
The Latona
The Fremont neighborhood in Seattle is located at the northwest corner of Lake Union. Map courtesy of HistoryLink.
After his first real estate investment, Dr. Kilbourne went in with others to develop the suburb of Fremont at the northwest corner of Lake Union. In 1888 when Fremont opened, there was as yet no road or streetcar line to get to it, so Dr. Kilbourne began using the Maud Foster to carry prospective buyers across Lake Union to the new development.
The Maud Foster also continued carrying passengers to Kilbourne’s earlier development, the Lake View Addition, which was at 7th to 9th Avenues NE, between today’s freeway bridge and the University Bridge. This was quite a stretch, for the little Maud Foster to try to cover the two routes, from Fremont on the northwest corner of Lake Union to the Lake View Addition on the northeast side. Dr. Kilbourne determined to buy another boat to accommodate more passengers.
In his 1941 newspaper article, Dr. Kilbourne wrote that,
Fremont boomed (in 1888) and the Fremont traffic about swamped the Maud Foster. Taking in James A. Moore, we formed the Lake Union Transportation Company and bought the steam launch, Latona, from J.M. Colman.
The Latona Addition
Corliss P. Stone mayoral portrait of 1872
After Seattle’s Great Fire of June 6, 1889, the population exploded as people from all over the USA poured into the city to get in on the rebuilding of the downtown burned district. Real estate boomed as investors saw that there would be demand for lots for houses and businesses. This included areas farther away, such as the communities on the north shore of Lake Union.
On June 22, 1889, Corliss P. Stone (Kilbourne’s uncle) and co-investor William Ashworth filed a plat of land called Edgewater, located east of Stone Way. They had owned this property for some years and felt that 1889 was the right time to lay out lots and sell them.
On October 28, 1889, George Morris Haller and his wife Annie filed a plat called the Latona Addition, which was named for the steamer which carried passengers to the north side of Lake Union. The Latona Addition is from 1st to 6th Avenues NE, and as far north as NE 45th Street. On the plat map we see that the name of Latona Avenue has been retained, while the other original street names have been changed to the numbering system.
Just six weeks after filing the plat of the Latona Addition, George Morris Haller, age 37, and two companions drowned while canoeing over to Whidbey Island on a hunting trip.
Haller had been in-process of building a new office building on Second Avenue in downtown Seattle (site of today’s Norton Building at 801 Second Avenue, between Marion & Columbia Streets). His parents, Col. Granville Haller & wife Henrietta, finished overseeing the construction of the Haller Building. The Haller’s other son, Theodore, became a north Seattle real estate investor and namesake of Haller Lake.
The Haller Building was built in 1889-1890. The architect was Elmer H. Fisher who also designed many Pioneer Square buildings.
Evolution of neighborhood names in Seattle
Over many years’ time, north Seattle neighborhoods filled in and established their identities. Fremont’s identity remained strong and it absorbed the neighborhood to the west, Ross, which did not have a commercial center.
Some man-made barriers such as the ship canal, roads and bridges came to define north Seattle neighborhood boundaries. Before the creation of the ship canal in 1911-1917, areas on the south side of the existing little stream were still considered to be part of Fremont. The ship canal made a dividing line so that all of the south side is now considered to be on Queen Anne.
In 1891 the first Latona Bridge was built by David Denny to carry streetcars. This bridge was in the position of today’s I-5 freeway bridge. The Latona Bridge was removed in 1919 when the University Bridge opened. This was one of the transitions which may have lessened the “Latona” reference to the neighborhood.
The Latona Bridge circa 1915. MOHAI photo #1983.10.1383.2
In the 1920s, the name “Wallingford” rose in popular use and came to displace the name of Latona for the neighborhood. It may have been because of a streetcar line on Wallingford Avenue. Another passing of the name Latona was for the elementary school, which was renamed in the year 2000 for John Stanford, school superintendent.
Sources:
Find A Grave accounts with historical information:
George Morris Haller
#5216479 Captain William H. Clough, 1831-1911. (age 79)
#40833016 James Murray Colman, 1832-1906 (age 74)
#10773 David Thomas Denny, 1832-1903 (age 71)
#5232402 George Morris Haller, 1852-1889. (age 37)
#246159662 Edward Corliss Kilbourne, 1856-1959. (age 103)
HistoryLink essays:
#3328 The Latona Bridge opens July 1, 1891, by Pricilla Long, 2001.
#20389 The Latona Bridge and the University Bridge by John Caldbick, 2017.
Edward C. Kilbourne
#10542 Latona School, Seattle School Histories, 2024.
#22980 Corliss P. Stone, by Casey McNerthney, 2024.
Newspaper articles:
“Old Timers Will Pay Honor to Founders of Fremont,” The Seattle Times, December 13, 1931, page 9.
“Era in Seattle’s Car System’s History Closes,” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 13, 1941, page 51, by Dr. E.C. Kilbourne.
“Streetcars Origin Told by Founder,” The Seattle Star, April 8, 1946, page 11, by Ken Gilbert.
Pacific Coast Architecture Database: Haller Building, Elmer H. Fisher, architect. Built in 1889-1890, this building was demolished in 1957 and replaced by the Norton Building, 801 Second Avenue.
Seattle Times newspaper, December 13, 1931.
