Wedgwood in Seattle History

The Ballard neighborhood in northwest Seattle was an independent city until 1907.  After annexation to the City of Seattle, Ballard’s street names were changed to be consistent with the City’s numbered system, with a few exceptions such as Ballard Avenue NW.

Artist Benson Shaw with street tiles

In a grant-funded project in 1995, old Ballard street name mosaics were installed at eleven intersections.  Artist Benson Shaw, who specializes in public art and historic restoration, did the work of creating the mosaics and imbedding them into sidewalks.

The blue-and-white tiles are so authentic-looking that many people have thought that the work was original to an earlier era.

The project was sponsored by the Ballard Historical Society .

Another source of Ballard street name info is the work of Seattle historian Rob Ketcherside.  Here is a link to Rob’s searchable table of street names in Ballard.  His webpage features street name lists for other neighborhoods and for downtown Seattle.

Here is an article about the original street tiles of 1904 on Capitol Hill.  The Ballard tiles of 1995 were modeled on these.

Studying Seattle Street names

The Writes of Way blog has lists of street names throughout Seattle, and you can request info about any which are not yet listed.

One of the most common inquiries I receive here on my blog page is about street names.  Here is my article about ways to find Seattle street name meanings. As test-cases of street-name searches, I used Aloha Street which crosses Seattle from Queen Anne to Capitol Hill, and Cleopatra Place NW in Ballard.

Here is my blog article about Sorting Out Street Names when duplicate names were removed, starting in 1895.