Category Archives: Immigrant heritage
A Picardo Perspective
In the Spring of the year our thoughts turn to gardening.
Seattle’s Immigrant Photographer: Werner Lenggenhager
Werner Lenggenhager (1899-1988) was a Swiss immigrant who lived in Australia and California before coming to Seattle in 1939 at age 40. A trip home to Switzerland in 1949 made Lenggenhager realize that historic buildings are not always valued until … Continue reading
Wedgwood’s Immigrants: the Akahoshi Family
Census records of 1920 show that there were quite a few immigrants living in the northeast Seattle neighborhood of Wedgwood that year. Germans who built their own houses and settled in Wedgwood included John Herkenrath, Gustav Morris, and William Voss, … Continue reading
A Gift from the Past
When I was growing up in the 1950s in Seattle I was fascinated by the stories my elderly relatives told of “the olden days.” It doesn’t seem possible that I could have known people who were born in the 1880s, … Continue reading
Seattle’s Nordic Heritage
The Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle is the only museum in the United States which recognizes the contribution of immigrants from the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. It is particularly appropriate for the Museum to be … Continue reading
A Sea Captain in Wedgwood
There were very few people living in Wedgwood one hundred years ago, and even fewer houses of that era in Wedgwood have survived in original condition. The hundred-year-old Wedgwood house at 7500 43rd Ave NE, built in 1910, is still … Continue reading
Gerhard Ericksen’s Good Road
In the 1880s Seattleites were fed up with being snubbed by railroad corporations. The last straw was the Northern Pacific’s selection of Seattle’s rival city, Tacoma, as the western terminus of the NP’s cross-country line. Under the leadership of Judge … Continue reading
The Fischer Farm in Meadowbrook
It is hard for us to imagine the leap of faith made by people who immigrated to America a century ago. In the 1800s, without the aids of television or radio, immigrants could not get a very clear idea of … Continue reading
Oriental Gardens in Meadowbrook
A massive earthquake struck the city of San Francisco in the early morning hours of April 18, 1906. But worse than the damage caused by the earthquake itself were the fires which raged through the city for three days afterward. … Continue reading
From Wedgwood to Meadowbrook
In the 1920s and 1930s the (future) Wedgwood area lacked a strong name association in part because it lacked a school to give the neighborhood an identity. But just to the north, on NE 100th Street at the corner of … Continue reading
