One of the delights of the autumn season in Wedgwood in northeast Seattle is the colorful display of pumpkins for sale by Scout Troop 151. The pumpkin sales support the Scouts programs throughout the year.
In the early 1900s Seattle neighborhoods were growing farther to the northeast, on the edges of communities such as Ravenna and the Town of Yesler.
Seattle Female College building as pictured in the 1890s, at 5702 26th Ave NE. Photo courtesy of University of Washington Special Collections.
Ravenna was a railroad stop at the intersection of Blakeley Street & 25th Ave NE. The Town of Yesler grew at the present site of Laurelhurst where, in the 1880s, another Yesler sawmill had operated in addition to the Yesler Mill of 1853 on the downtown Seattle waterfront.
One of northeast Seattle’s earliest church groups began in 1901, calling itself the Yesler Sunday School. Later it was called Ravenna Methodist Church when it met at the former Seattle Female College building at 5702 26th Ave NE. Then finally the group built a church building which still stands today on NE 60th Street in what is called the Bryant neighborhood.
View Ridge map courtesy of HistoryLink.org
The years of World War Two (1941-1945) marked a major turning point in the development of neighborhoods in northeast Seattle. Up until that time northeast Seattle had been very rural. There were some real estate investors and builders of houses before the 1940s but northeast Seattle’s boom years of housing growth did not happen until after 1945.
As of the 1940s, neighborhoods like View Ridge and Wedgwood were unnamed and still had vast areas of vacant land. These neighborhoods acquired their identities during the rapid-growth years of the 1940s and 1950s.
This blog post will tell how a pasture became a playfield in northeast Seattle, as the area transformed from rural to urban after World War Two. View Ridge Playfield at 4408 NE 70th Street, is a field where cows once grazed.
Those of us who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in northeast Seattle lived in a world of shopping malls like University Village, fast food outlets like Taco Time, drive-ins like Burgermaster, and multiple gas stations which seemed to thrive in commercial districts. The block of NE 45th Street from 25th Ave NE eastward to Union Bay Place NE was like this. University Village Shopping Center opened in 1956, and to the east of it there were gas stations, a car wash, Taco Time and Burgermaster.
In February 1957, workers on the NE 45th Street Viaduct looked out over University Village and the Carnation Dairy plant. Seattle Municipal Archives item #54114, Engineering Dept., colorized photo.
Our 1950s-1960s memories of NE 45th Street are of the second phase in its development. Its first phase began in the 1920s when the site of University Village was farmland, and to the east was a gas station and a corner market. In a photo of the NE 45th Street Viaduct under construction in 1939, looking eastward, we see the farmland and a couple of gas stations and stores beyond it.
In 1939 during the original construction of NE 45th Street Viaduct, we look out over the farmland which became University Village in 1956. Photo of May 1939, colorized; Seattle Municipal Archives item #38898.
Residents of northeast Seattle called it “the Baskin-Robbins corner.” The five-way intersection of Union Bay Place NE is at the east end of a long block, east of the University Village shopping center on NE 45th Street.
One branch of the intersection is called NE 45th Place. The roadway angles up toward the northeast and passes under an old railroad trestle. That railroad line has been preserved as the Burke-Gilman Trail.
The former train trestle, now the Burke-Gilman Trail, over the roadway from Union Bay Place up to 35th Ave NE. The Exposition Heights real estate development is on both sides of the road.
Those of us who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s can remember the small stores and the gas stations at the crossroads of Union Bay Place NE. In addition to the nearby train trestle as seen in the photo above, the most outstanding landmark at Union Bay Place was the Baskin-Robbins ice cream store, one of the small buildings in a commercial district of one-story storefronts.
Today we see that the character of the Union Bay Place intersection is being transformed with the construction of one much larger building, Aegis Laurelhurst, taking up the whole block of the former Baskin-Robbins and other storefronts.
Aegis Laurelhurst under construction as of December 2022, replacing the Baskin-Robbins corner at Union Bay Place NE. Photo by Valarie.
This blog article will trace the evolution of the intersection from the first buildings built in the 1920s and 1930s.
Lest we forget…. That has been the motto since the close of the American Civil War in 1865. Today’s Memorial Day, observed on the last Monday in the month of May, evolved from the desire of Civil War veterans to remember the cost of war and share their memory of fallen comrades.
“Doughboy” statue at the military section of the Evergreen Washelli Cemetery in north Seattle. Photo by Valarie.
The time has come to say goodbye to the present building at John Rogers Elementary School, 4030 NE 109th Street in Seattle.
In the summer of 2023 the present school building will be demolished. Over the next two years, construction of a replacement building will be done on the same site.
Demolition in progress, August 8, 2023. Photo by Valarie.
The “farewell to the building” on June 6, 2023, was a successful event with many alumni returning for a final walk-through at the present building. I will continue to post news of the rebuilding of the school over the next two years. In the meantime, the school community will continue in a temporary site 2023-2025 and will return to a new John Rogers building in September 2025. In the interim, consideration is being given to changing the name of the school. I’ll update this as the process becomes clearer.
The Lobberegt grocery store opened in 1925 on 35th Ave NE at the corner of NE 60th Street.
In 1910 a group of Dutch immigrants began to settle in what is now the Wedgwood neighborhood in northeast Seattle, building their houses on or near 35th Ave NE. They worked in carpentry, painting, and in small businesses such as tailoring.
As the neighborhood grew in the 1920s, some of the Dutch immigrants, such as the Lobberegt brothers, opened gas stations and small markets on 35th Ave NE.
This blog article will tell about the evolution of houses in the 7700 block of 37th Ave NE where the first house was that of newlyweds Ryk & Anna Spoor of the Dutch immigrant group.
The newly-built Eckstein Junior High School, 3003 NE 75th Street, as seen circa 1950. In the foreground we see that the arterial NE 75th Street had not yet been paved. Photo courtesy of Seattle Public Library.
In the 1950s the Wedgwood neighborhood in northeast Seattle was in a growth spurt with the demand for housing following World War Two, and the generation of children, called the Baby Boom, born in that post-war era. In the photo above we see the newly built school, Eckstein Junior High at 3003 NE 75th Street, a symbol of the new era of post-war neighborhood development.
In the foreground of the above photo we see a car bumping along on the yet-unpaved NE 75th Street. The unpaved road was a sign of the rural conditions in Wedgwood which was just then, in the 1950s, coming within the Seattle City Limits. We may chuckle at the thought of an unpaved NE 75th Street, but we may also ponder whether the roadway was in some respects safer in those days, as excessive speed was not possible.
This blog article will reflect upon the tenth anniversary of a horrific crash which took place on NE 75th Street, almost in front of the Eckstein school building, on March 25, 2013. Two pedestrians were killed outright, and two more were permanently disabled. We may ask: have the sacrificial deaths and injuries of that day, led to improved traffic safety conditions now?
In 1939 a newlywed couple, James & Bonnie May Burnett, moved into a new house on NE 88th Street in northeast Seattle. Their block of new houses was occupied mostly by other young couples. This was only the Burnett’s first house, as they moved to newer houses twice more, following the real estate trends in northeast Seattle.
James Burnett was an up-and-coming real estate salesman who had moved to Seattle for its more hopeful economic outlook. Seattle was beginning to pull out of the long down-period of the 1930s and houses were beginning to be built again. James Burnett’s career as a real estate salesman and as a developer, followed the growth of northeast Seattle.
Wedgwood in Seattle History 