Category Archives: Plat names

Names in the Neighborhood: Sand Point Country Club

The Sand Point Country Club and Golf Course in northeast Seattle sits on a high northeast-facing bluff with a view out over Lake Washington and to the mountains beyond.  The golf course opened on July 4, 1927, and took its … Continue reading

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Names in the Neighborhood: from Keith to Hawthorne Hills

Some of the neighborhood names in northeast Seattle started out as plat names, then gradually became the identifiers for whole areas.  Wedgwood started as a plat name filed by developer Albert Balch in July 1941, from NE 80th to 85th … Continue reading

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Wellsdale in Wedgwood

In the 1930s the residents of the Wellsdale plat were typical of the life of northeast Seattle in that time period. The (future) Wedgwood area did not yet have an official name, it was outside of the Seattle City limits … Continue reading

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Albert Balch, Part Six: Architecture and Neighborhoods

Albert Balch, developer of Wedgwood, constantly watched trends and looked ahead to anticipate “the next thing” in the building of houses and neighborhoods. Balch saw that in the period following the end of World War Two, people were spreading out … Continue reading

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Albert Balch, Part Five: Spreading Wedgwoods Everywhere

In November 1888 two young men, employees of the Post-Intelligencer newspaper in Seattle, quit their jobs and went into real estate. They didn’t have any formal training in such work but their knowledge of the city and their belief in its potential … Continue reading

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Albert Balch, Part Three: Learning Real Estate in View Ridge

As of January 1936 Albert Balch and Ralph Jones were on their way: they had started a new real estate development called View Ridge and had been able to get some buyers.  Although Balch & Jones had experience in advertising … Continue reading

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The House in the Road

The years 1945 to 1955, from the end of World War Two until the Wedgwood neighborhood came completely into the city limits of Seattle, were years of rapid change.  The population of Seattle had swelled with war workers in the … Continue reading

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Names in the Neighborhood: from Pontiac to Wedgwood

In 1887 the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad was up and running, a line now followed by the Burke-Gilman Trail.  The railroad paralleled streetcar lines from downtown Seattle as far as Fremont which was a major transportation hub for … Continue reading

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Names in the Neighborhood: from Decatur to Thornton Creek

Author’s note: This article is about the name of a school in the Wedgwood neighborhood.  If you are looking for an outline of the history of the Thornton Creek watershed and The Confluence at Meadowbrook, go here. The US Navy … Continue reading

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The Wedgwood That Never Was: Charles H. Baker’s Land Investment

Charles H. Baker (1864-1924) is a little-known early Seattleite though his legacy affects every person living in Seattle today.  Baker conceived of and built the electrical generating plant at Snoqualmie Falls which began producing electricity on July 31, 1899, and … Continue reading

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