Although Washington State did not send troops to the Civil War (1861-1865), after the war veterans from all over the USA chose to come to the Pacific Northwest to start new lives.
Cemeteries all around the Seattle area contain graves of Civil War veterans who chose to spend the rest of their lives here. Civil War Seattle is a project to highlight and honor these veterans. Here is the wonderful story of how the grave of Captain Hoyt of the Iron Brigade was located and now commemorated.
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 crash of 1929, there was relative prosperity and economic opportunity in the USA. After the First World War and the ending of the flu epidemic of 1919, everyone looked forward to starting a new phase of life in a peacetime economy.
During the 1920s a young couple, Percy & Aretha Curtis, moved from Spokane to Seattle to start out their married lives. They became residents of northeast Seattle where Aretha started a flower sales business.
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 Western frontier of the USA.
Sweetland Township, Muscatine County, Iowa, with the Mississippi River at right (map of 1899)
Muscatine County, and the name of Iowa itself, were derived from Native American names for the plains and rivers of the state. Muscatine was advantageously located on the Mississippi River, Iowa’s eastern border, with Illinois across the river.
Laurette, born in New Hampshire, was only a few months old when her parents decided to move to Iowa. Laurette would live in Iowa until she was 55 years old, when she became a resident of Washington State.
At age 70 Laurette moved to the future Wedgwood neighborhood in northeast Seattle, where she nurtured the natural environment along the Maple Creek Ravine. Laurette lived at the eastern end of NE 89th Street until her death at age 95 in 1945.
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 easier to reach what is now the Wedgwood area in northeast Seattle.
The promoters of Morningside Heights laid out streets and house lots on the west side of 35th Ave NE between NE 90th to 95th Streets. The developers printed a promotional brochure, and they advertised Morningside Heights in the newspapers. They had one or more representatives on-site, including the Walter Wood family at 9428 25th Ave NE whose house was the first one drivers would see, when they turned from Victory Way eastward onto NE 95th Street.
In the year 1900 Alexandrina McKenzie was a 43-year-old farm wife in Bingham Township, Huron, Michigan, with five of her six children still at home.
The Big Green House at 7321 35th Ave NE was demolished on February 17, 2015.
Ten years later, Alexandrina was a widow in Seattle, supporting herself and her children with income from real estate sales. Alexandrina was a woman in real estate transactions in the early years of what would become the Wedgwood neighborhood of northeast Seattle.
Alexandrina lived in the 7301 block of 35th Ave NE near what would become the site of the Big Green House. We don’t know for sure if she was the one who had the house built and lived in it, but the Big Green House story, part of neighborhood history, is still a source of fascination even though the house has been demolished.
In this blog article I will trace Alexandrina’s origins and how her activities paralleled the growth of northeast Seattle.
Establishment of the Naval Air Station on the shore of Lake Washington in 1927 was the catalyst for street improvements and commercial development along Sand Point Way NE. The City of Seattle officially named Sand Point Way and coordinated with King County in efforts to complete the road and pave it, for better access to the naval base. With roadway improvements came more access to the area, and then little stores and gas stations sprang up along the way.
Photo of 1960, looking southward on Sand Point Way NE we see the entrance of the NAS at left and Dooley’s Restaurant at right. Photo from Seattle Municipal Archives.
Today, Sand Point Way NE is a very wide arterial from its point of origination at 45th & Union Bay Place NE, northward as far as the gate of the former Naval Air Station at NE 74th Street (present Magnuson Park).
North of the present Magnuson Park, Sand Point Way NE suddenly narrows down to only two lanes. With the aspect of a country road, Sand Point Way winds its way along, parallel to the lake shore, until ending with a curve onto NE 125th Street.
In the 1930s gas stations and corner stores were built along the road north of the naval base, but most of these commercial enterprises only lasted a few years.
This blog article will note stores and gas stations which were on Sand Point Way NE but which are gone now.
The establishment of the Naval Air Station at Sand Point in the 1920s caused Sand Point Way NE to become an arterial street. Even though the naval base grew slowly at first, its presence caused northeast Seattle to hope for economic benefits of jobs at the base and commercial growth nearby.
The entrance of the Naval Air Station was at NE 74th Street on Sand Point Way NE
The City of Seattle officially named Sand Point Way NE in 1927 and worked with King County to pave the road. Today, Sand Point Way NE is a wide arterial from Union Bay Place/NE 45th Street out as far as the gate of the former Naval Air Station at NE 74th Street. North of there, the road narrows to one lane in each direction.
Sand Point Way NE marked in blue at right
In the 1920s and 1930s little corner stores and gas stations sprang up along Sand Point Way NE out as far as NE 125th Street. Due to the narrowness of the roadway north of the naval base and low population density in northeast Seattle, the little stores retained a rural aspect.
In this blog article we will look at the stores and the gas station which were at the NE 97th Street intersection on Sand Point Way NE. Nothing remains of these now, except for an auto repair shop on one corner.
The little corner groceries only lasted about twenty years or so until other kinds of food outlets, such as 7-Eleven convenience stores or large, multi-department groceries won out in the competition for customers.
Part of the fun of blogging is being able to network with other writers. Here I am sharing a wonderful article written by Zach about the northeast Seattle neighborhood of Hawthorne Hills.
In the years before a real estate company named and developed Hawthorne Hills, the area was the land claim of a man who was determined to live there even without the legal right to do so.
When Seattle author David B. Williams started his most recent project he never could have imagined that the research, writing and publication of his latest book would take nearly five years. Now Mr. Williams is able to share his wonderful discoveries of the human and natural history of Puget Sound in his book, Homewaters.
Here is what Mr. Williams has written about Homewaters:
“It weaves the stories of people and place across more than 10,000 years of history. This includes warfare, transportation (canoe culture and mosquito fleet), and resource extraction. In addition to addressing salmon and orca, I also explore lesser known, but ecosystem-critical species such as rockfish, herring, kelp, Olympia oyster, and geoducks. Ultimately, my goal is to create a more nuanced and complex picture of this beautiful place and to illustrate that we are at a critical moment where we can work together to make it more habitable for all.” (Quote from the author’s website geologywriter.com)
Homewaters can be borrowed from the public library and copies of the book can be purchased from the website of David B. Williams or from any University of Washington Press books outlet.
In these pandemic days we can’t yet attend in-person books talks but the author is giving a number of free presentations via Zoom. By going to his website or to that of the UW Press Events Page, you can see the author’s list of upcoming book talks about Homewaters. The Zoom meetings are free (though sometimes phrased as “purchase a ticket” when you register.) By registering for a Zoom meeting, a link to the meeting will be sent to you.
From the University of Washington Press Blog Page, here is David B. Williams’ story of how he wrote the book Homewaters:
Sand Point map of 1894
There was not yet a road called Sand Point Way NE when the first commercial activities began at about NE 70th Street on Lake Washington. In the 1880s Edward F. Lee had a boat-building shop there, and Osborn M. Merritt had a shingle mill. Merritt was from Pontiac, Michigan, and the name he chose for his business, Pontiac Shingle Mill, “caught on” as names sometimes do, as a name for the area.
The next business to open was named Pontiac Brick Company, a brickmaking plant owned by the investors group of Thomas Burke, Morgan J. Carkeek and Corliss P. Stone.
With fortuitous timing, the brick plant at Pontiac was set up and ready to operate just before Seattle’s Great Fire of June 6, 1889. The Fire burned a wide swath of downtown Seattle business blocks which had almost all wood-frame buildings. In the rebuilding after the Fire it was ordered that new structures must be built of brick and stone. The Pontiac Brick Company roared into production to make bricks for new buildings in Seattle.
Judge Thomas Burke was an attorney, real estate investor and civic activist in Seattle.
The Pontiac Brick Company was sited for access to clay for making bricks and it was also alongside the tracks of the new Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad (SLS&E) which had just been put through in 1887.
Thomas Burke and his railroad co-developer Daniel Gilman planned the railroad line for this very purpose, to access sites of natural resources and commercial production. The SLS&E route has been preserved as today’s Burke-Gilman Trail.
Pontiac at Lake Washington had a lot of activity for a few years, most especially during the years of the brick plant. Mr. Lee of the boat building shop served as postmaster for the mail which came by train. There was a Pontiac School for the community’s children from 1908-1911. The school closed as there was not much activity in the area any more after that.
This blog post will tell how Sand Point Way NE developed as an arterial road because of the Naval Air Station at about NE 74th Street on Lake Washington.
Wedgwood in Seattle History 