Shearwater part five: the end of Shearwater and the death of the Wedgwood Community Club in the 1970s

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History
Billboard of April 1971 courtesy of Seattle Times newspaper

Billboard of April 1971 courtesy of the Seattle Times newspaper

In the early 1970s the USA suffered through an economic recession, made worse in 1973 when an energy crisis began because of a Middle East oil and gas embargo.  In the USA gas prices skyrocketed and it affected air travel, as well, making it more expensive to fly.

In the 1950s and 1960s Seattle’s economy had been very dependent upon the employment levels at Boeing Aircraft.  In the 1970s when demand for airplanes fell, Boeing cut employment levels by sixty percent.  The economy of all of Seattle was impacted in this era called the “Boeing Bust.”

During the Boeing Bust there were many abandoned houses as people left Seattle to look for work elsewhere.  Shearwater in Wedgwood, which was to have been a development of new housing, was abandoned, too.  In 1970 the developer, George Apostol, walked away from the project and the holdings reverted to the bank.

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Shearwater part four: the developer versus the Wedgwood Community Club, 1966 to 1970

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History
Government Real Estate Auction brochure of December 1965.National Archives of Seattle

Shearwater auction announcement brochure of 1965, courtesy of the National Archives of Seattle.

On December 16, 1965, all the Shearwater land parcels on streets near Decatur School were sold at a government-property auction, with the stipulation that the buyer must remove the old barracks buildings within ninety days of the sale.

The Wedgwood Community Club believed that the auction would be the end of the Shearwater story, and that the buyer/developer would fill the blocks with nice homes in keeping with house styles in Wedgwood.  But as of 1966 a new saga of Shearwater began: the community club went to war with the developer, George N. Apostol, over the zoning of the area and his building plans.

The years from 1966 to 1970 started another phase of the Shearwater conflict between neighborhood residents and the plans for what would become of the former Shearwater site.

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Shearwater part three: Shearwater victories and setbacks in the 1960s

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

The administrative wheels turned slowly but finally in 1959 the Navy got ready to release some of its property in Wedgwood for the site of a much-needed elementary school.   In September 1961 Decatur School opened at 7711 43rd Ave NE.   It was still surrounded on its block by Shearwater housing for Navy personnel, and the first students at Decatur were almost all from Navy families.

Other proposed plans for parts of the school site were resisted by the community, such as a post office to face 40th Ave NE or a city water tower at the corner of NE 80th Street and 40th Ave NE.   By 1966 an addition had been built to the school building and the rest of the block kept as a playground and sports field as it is today, for a total of ten acres on the Decatur School site.

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Shearwater part two: the Wedgwood Community Club fights Shearwater in the 1950s

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Shearwater barracks near NE 80th Street, north of the present site of Decatur School.  Photo courtesy of the National Archives of Seattle.

In the 1950s the very active Wedgwood District Community Club made its voice heard in issues such as the completion of streets, water and other utilities, business district development in Wedgwood, and trying to get the Seattle Parks Department to finish work on Dahl Field.

Since World War Two had ended in 1945, by the 1950s the Wedgwood community thought that military housing in the neighborhood had been there long enough.  After impatiently waiting ten years for the Navy housing in Wedgwood to be phased out and closed, in 1956 the community club took action.  Their goal was to get the Navy’s Shearwater Housing Project vacated and torn down.  This article is part two of the long-running story of the Shearwater fight in Wedgwood.

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Shearwater Part One: Navy Housing in Wedgwood in the 1940s

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History
"Stephen Decatur" is written beside the front entrance of Decatur School, but partially obscured by shrubbery.

“Stephen Decatur” is written beside the front entrance of Decatur School, but partially obscured by shrubbery.

Decatur Elementary School at 7711 43rd Ave NE in Wedgwood is on the site of what was Navy housing from 1945 to 1966.  The first part of the school building was completed in 1961.  With a later addition to the building and expansions of the playground, by 1966 the Decatur School occupied its present entire ten-acre site from 40th to 43rd Avenues NE, NE 77th to 80th Streets.

In addition to the Decatur School site, there was Navy housing on some, but not all, surrounding streets near NE 77th Street and 40th Ave NE.  See the map at the end of this blog article for the location of the Shearwater housing on the present school site and on nearby streets.

Shearwater Hall/the Decatur Annex was on NE 77th Street at the corner of 43rd Ave NE. It was the last Shearwater building and was demolished in 2019.

This is the first in a series of five articles about the Shearwater Navy housing and what happened to it.  Another article on this blog is about the Decatur School and the new building on the same site, the Thornton Creek School.  The two school buildings operate separately.

In July 2019 the last building from Shearwater was demolished.  The former office and community center, called Shearwater Hall, had later been called the Decatur Annex and was used like a portable next to Decatur School. The school district decided that it was no longer needed, and the building was replaced by open space and a gardening area.

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Walter Haines, founder of the Fiddler’s Inn, Wedgwood

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

The Fiddler’s Inn at 9219 35th Ave NE in Wedgwood has a history which dates back to the end of Prohibition on December 5, 1933, when beer and wine again could be sold to the public.  The founder and original owner of the Fiddler’s Inn, Walt Haines, grew up on a farm but dreamed of a life in the world of music and entertainment.  He had a successful career as a professional musician in Seattle until the economic depression years of the 1930s.  When Prohibition ended Walt Haines thought of opening a tavern as another source of income.

NOTE:  All rights reserved under Creative Commons Copyright.  Do not copy text or photos from this article.

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The Eastwood and Wedgwood Community Clubs

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History
The Welcome to Wedgwood sign on 35th Ave NE at the corner of NE 95th Street

In 1995 the Wedgwood Community Council placed two Welcome to Wedgwood signs using Dept. of Neighborhoods grant funds. In 2007 the matching sign was stolen from the corner of NE 70th Street. A police report was filed, so if you know where the missing sign is, please report it.

During the years of World War Two from 1941 to 1945 all Seattleites had some concerns about the possibility of bombing, since Seattle is a coastal city.  For this reason people took civil defense training and organized their neighborhoods to help one another in case of emergencies.  After the war was over and people began to get established in jobs and homes, they applied their organizing skills to the development of neighborhood groups.

The identity of the Wedgwood neighborhood evolved gradually in the late 1940s and at first, there was more than one community club.  Although they were still young, war veterans were highly respected and they were some of the leaders in the young community of Wedgwood in the 1940s and 1950s.

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Roy Erford and the Euphonious Election District Names

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Wedgwoodians of the 1940s may have been puzzled to learn that their voting district was called Sonora, which is a place name in Mexico.  Those living north of NE 85th Street and east of 35th Ave NE were in the Sand Point Precinct, and that made a little more sense – but not too much.  Before the era of precinct numbers, the King County Election Superintendent, Roy Erford, gave each voting area a colorful name.

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How Wedgwood came into the City Limits of Seattle

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

The neighborhoods of northeast Seattle gradually came into the city limits between 1941 and 1954.  The Seattle City Limits did not advance northward in a straight line, like water rising in a bathtub.  It was up to each voting precinct in northeast Seattle to petition for annexation into the city and then vote in favor at a special election.  Finally as of 1954 the present north City Limits were set at 145th Street.

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Wedgwood’s Bus Company Lawsuit

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

One of Wedgwood’s biggest controversies, a lawsuit over the ownership of a bus company, is remembered by few people because the dispute began back in 1937.

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