Search Results for: life of balch
A Farm Life in Wedgwood
Wedgwood didn’t acquire its identity until the 1940s when developer Albert Balch’s name for his housing development caught on as the name for the whole neighborhood. In the early 1900s when the future Wedgwood area was still outside the Seattle city … Continue reading
Growing Up with Balch
In the summer of 1953 sixteen-year-old Jon Jarvis, newly possessed of a driver’s license, enjoyed chugging around Wedgwood in a Model T Ford he had acquired. Lack of a driver’s license did not stop Jon’s thirteen-year-old brother Terry from driving … Continue reading
Hunter Tree Farm in Wedgwood in 2021
The Hunter family of the Olympic Peninsula farm, dating back to the 1880s, began growing Christmas trees in 1948. In the 1950s the Hunters began selling cut trees in Seattle. After the site in the present Northgate area closed, the … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
Aretha Curtis and Maple Leaf Gardens
In the years 1915 to 1945 the lives of Americans were bracketed by two world wars with an economic depression in the middle. For a few years in the 1920s, after the First World War and before the stock market … Continue reading
Laurette Stanley in Wedgwood
Laurette Augusta Young and Moses Terrell Stanley married in 1869 in Sweetland Township, Muscatine County, Iowa. Each had come to Iowa as children when their parents migrated from other states to take advantage of the rich farmlands on the expanding … Continue reading
Martha Hawks, Real Estate Agent in Morningside Heights
In the 1920s the (future) Wedgwood neighborhood first began to be known as Morningside Heights, the name of a real estate development. Growth was facilitated by the new Victory Way highway, today’s Lake City Way NE, which made it much … Continue reading
Names in the Neighborhood: Chelsea and Lake City
Seattle north of the ship canal has many neighborhoods which derived their names from plats of land development. Sometimes the naming was deliberate, such as Laurelhurst, in which the developers reconfigured the streets and promoted the sale of houses in … Continue reading
The Rosaia Family in Wedgwood
Immigrants are the lifeblood of America, bringing energy, enthusiasm and enterprise to their adopted land. On this blog I have highlighted some stories of immigrants who settled in Wedgwood in northeast Seattle and who became active participants in the neighborhood. … Continue reading
Along the Road: the Evolution of 35th Ave NE
From early years Wedgwood in northeast Seattle was a car-centric neighborhood because of the lack of other transportation options. Streetcar lines never reached Wedgwood, and there was no city bus service because the neighborhood was outside of the Seattle City … Continue reading
Wedgwood in Seattle History 