Hotel Washington decorated for visit of President Theodore Roosevelt, Seattle, 1903. Museum of History & Industry Photograph Collection Image Number SHS 7921.
If you live between NE 85th to 90th Streets, 30th to 35th Avenues NE in Wedgwood, the legal description of your home is in the Earl J. McLaughlin plat. Who was Earl J. McLaughlin?
The Big Green House at 7321 35th Ave NE awaited demolition in 2015.
A house which is one hundred years old can hold a lot of history – and some mystery. Although we have traced the ownership history of the Big Green House at 7321 35th Ave NE, researchers have not been able to answer the question of why the original owner built it. Built in about 1910, the house would have been the biggest structure in the Wedgwood area at that time.
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 the Model T as well. To their surprise the brothers soon spotted another Model T in the neighborhood, with another thirteen-year-old at the wheel: Bert Balch of View Ridge.
In the summer of 1959 I (Valarie) was among a group of Wedgwood neighborhood children who clustered on the sidewalk to watch a house being moved, maneuvered and set into place. The house went onto a sloping lot at the corner of NE 90th Street with the front of the house facing 25th Pl NE. The back was positioned for access to the basement garage from 25th Ave NE. The house was given the address 8921 – 25th Place NE. Like Dorothy’s house which flew from Kansas to Oz, the 8921 house seemed to have flown in from another world. The house’s age, composition and design were completely different from the 1940s and 1950s houses around it in Wedgwood.
It is a startling experience to come upon Wedgwood Rock for the first time. More than 19 feet high, the Rock looms up out of a parking strip on 28th Ave NE at the intersection of NE 72nd Street.
Wedgwood Rock is located at 7200 28th Ave NE in Seattle. Photo by Valarie.
How did the Rock get there? Certainly, it was not put in place by Albert Balch, the developer who platted the surrounding streets and built the houses!
Research on Wedgwood Rock has been done by Dr. Terry W. Swanson, Department of Geological Sciences and Quaternary Research Center at the University of Washington in Seattle. The term “quaternary” refers to the time period of the most recent Ice Age, when glacial ice extended down into Washington State as far south as Olympia and Spokane.
This glacial movement is called the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, from a Spanish word meaning cord or string of parallel mountains. The geography of the Puget Sound region has a north-south orientation as though long fingers reached out and pressed down into the earth. The “dough” of the land oozed up between the glacial “fingers” to form mountain ranges, and the depressed areas became Puget Sound, lakes and lowlands.
As the Ice Sheet moved down from the north into the Puget Sound area, rocks, sediments and boulders were carried along by the glacier, then were left behind when the ice retreated. Testing done by Dr. Swanson has shown that the mineral composition of Wedgwood Rock matches a site on Mt. Erie, Fidalgo Island, near Anacortes in Skagit County, about 75 miles north of Seattle. Wedgwood Rock is classified as a “glacial erratic,” meaning that its composition does not match its present surroundings and that it was deposited by glacial action (not by Albert Balch!)
For more Wedgwood Rock articles on this blog, go to the Category List.
Sources:
“Determination of Cl-36 Production Rates Derived from the Well-Dated Deglaciation Surfaces of Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands, Washington.” Swanson, T.W., and Caffee, Marc L. (1999) Quaternary Research 56, pages 366-382 (2001.)
Washington’s Glacial Geology,” Washington State Department of Natural Resources.
This property card from the tax assessors office is meant to show the house at 7200 28th Ave NE, but of course we are more impressed with the view of the Rock in 1948. Photo courtesy of the Puget Sound Regional Archives, repository of the property records of King County.
Ted & Gerry Valaas were married on December 6, 1941 — the day before the Pearl Harbor attack which plunged the United States into World War Two. As a pharmacist Ted was exempted from military service, and Gerry went to work as a dental assistant at Ft. Lawton, taking the place of men who had gone to war.
The young couple had a difficult time finding a place to live. Seattle was flooded with war workers and all new housing construction was allocated to them.
3164 NE 82nd Street
On a drive one day through the new Wedgwood area, longing to find a place in this charming new development, the Valaases came across a house for sale at 3164 NE 82nd Street. The house was only three months old.
The owner of the house at 3164 NE 82nd Street had fled from the terror that gripped the entire West Coast following the Pearl Harbor attack: the fear of bombing. The owner had moved to a place of perceived safety in eastern Washington, and Wedgwood builder Albert Balch was handling the resale. Since the house was technically not “new” anymore and therefore not reserved for war workers, Ted & Gerry Valaas were delighted to be able to buy the house.
At first, Wedgwood neighbors were slow to get to know one another. Neighborhood activities were almost non-existent because Gerry and many other women were working full-time during the busy war years. It took the heavy snowfall of January 18, 1943, to bring neighbors together and begin the Wedgwood tradition of community cooperation.
The temperature dropped to six degrees above zero and Wedgwood’s tall Douglas fir trees, top-heavy with snow, began breaking off. The snapping of tree limbs could be heard all night long as huge snowflakes continued to pile on. Falling branches broke the electrical wires, and Wedgwood was without heat or lights.
In the spirit of the wartime ethic of making do without complaint, for the next three days Wedgwood neighbors gathered around fireplaces and shared their food and blankets. Rather than just waiting for utility workers to come, Wedgwood neighbors cut the fallen trees and cleared the streets themselves.
This can-do spirit was the foundation of the Wedgwood Community Club which formed in 1946, a few months after World War Two ended.
Sources:
Gerry Valaas 1920-2016
“Once Upon a Time,” by Doug Clyde, March 25, 1960 edition of the Wedgwood Echo community club newsletter.
Interview with Gerry Valaas in 1992.
The Wedgwood neighborhood in Seattle was created by a bold and optimistic developer, Albert Balch. On July 31, 1941 Balch filed a plat for forty acres of land from 30th to 35th Avenues NE, NE 80th to 85th Streets, which became the first section of Wedgwood houses that he built.
The Seattle City Clerk’s on-line map of the Wedgwood neighborhood spells it with the extra “e.”
Balch did not deliberately set out to name the whole neighborhood “Wedgwood.” As Balch added more houses in other nearby sections of land, local businesses began calling themselves by the name Wedgwood.
By the mid-to-late 1940s Wedgwood began to be recognized as the name of the neighborhood, with the community club naming itself Wedgwood. The name choice was solidified on April 16, 1954, with the official naming of the Wedgwood Elementary School, even though the school building was still under construction.
Shown here is the Seattle City Clerk’s neighborhood map with the current “boundaries” of Wedgwood, meant to give people a sense of place and concern for community.
Copyright notice: text and photos in this article are protected under the Creative Commons Copyright. Do not copy without permission.
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.
Wedgwood in northeast Seattle is a residential neighborhood with a vibrant commercial district along its central north-south arterial, 35th Ave NE.
The neighborhood did not have a specific name until after World War Two ended in 1945. The area still had large tracts of vacant land when developer Albert Balch began building in the 1940s. Then the area began to be built up with housing for young couples who were starting out new lives after the war.
The concept of “neighborhood boundaries” is a bit arbitrary. The boundaries were emphasized by Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods when it was formed in the 1980s, to help give a sense of identity and involvement in local issues.
Wedgwood in Seattle History 