Category Archives: research resources

The Bentons of Ravenna Orchard in Seattle

The Benton family arrived in Seattle in the early 1900s and lived on 29th Ave NE in what is now the Ravenna-Bryant neighborhood, near Bryant School. Beginning in 1906, the Bentons became real estate investors who sold lots and built … Continue reading

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Writing the Ways of Seattle Streets

The Seattle street system provides endless opportunities for puzzling over the “whys” of street names, as it can be difficult to find out who a street is named for.  One north Seattle street is clear in its tribute to Roosevelt … Continue reading

Posted in Neighborhood features, research resources, streets | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Annexed Cities

One of the most common questions I receive on my blog is about the Seattle City Limits and on what date different areas came into the city. Some neighborhoods of Seattle such as Ballard and Ravenna started out as separate … Continue reading

Posted in boundaries, research resources, Seattle History | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Seattleness

Did you know that Seattle residents live under 240 days of gray skies per year?  The cover illustration of this wonderful book, Seattleness, is a histogram featuring color samples from the Seattle sky measured over a year’s time and laid … Continue reading

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Seattle Stream Names

The City of Seattle has at least fifty streams flowing across its ridges, through meadows and wetlands into bodies of water including Puget Sound and Lake Washington. There is no one source for a list of Seattle streams and their … Continue reading

Posted in Land records and surveys, Nature and wildlife, research resources | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Seattle Street Names North of Lake Union

Seattle historian Rob Ketcherside has previously cataloged the street names which were reorganized in a major City ordinance in the year 1895.  That was when the decision was made to have Seattle’s streets keep one name along their entire length, … Continue reading

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Discovering History through Digitized Newspapers

Washington State is rich in digital resources for historic research.  Many of the research collections of the Washington State Library are on-line.  The Washington State Library, a division of the Office of Secretary of State, has launched a new website … Continue reading

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Fremont Drug Company in Seattle, Part One: Beginnings

In the 1880s the City of Seattle had been growing slowly and was only the second-largest city in Washington Territory, after Walla Walla.  At the end of that decade, Seattle experienced a growth spurt from an unexpected source:  a major … Continue reading

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The Naming of Seattle

Along with the story of the naming of Seattle’s downtown streets, here on this blog I have also explored ways to find out the meaning of street names outside of the downtown area. The origins of the naming of the … Continue reading

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Searching for the Origins of Seattle Street Names

There is no resource list of the meanings of Seattle’s street names or how the street names were derived.  Even the granddaughters of Seattle city founder Arthur Denny were left to speculate on his choices of the names for twelve … Continue reading

Posted in Land records and surveys, Plat names, research resources, Seattle History, streets | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments