North Trunk Sewer Line

 

 Bridgehunter.com - 280032-L

Prior to the southern extension of the North Trunk Sewer Line to Pine Street there was no sanitary sewer in Madison Park.  Sewage was mostly piped into Lake Washington with the hope that lake water would dilute it to a safe level. A “Bathing Beach” on the southern border of what would become Edgewater Park Apartments had a sewage outfall on both ends of the swimming area. At that time Madison Park had few real houses but there were many rental cabins leased out by the McGilvra Estate.  If Madison Park was going to become the upscale neighborhood that developers aspired it to be houses would need toilets that didn’t flush into where the home owners went to swim.

c1915 - SMA - 944

Empty Chair

 

Empty Chair - Prologue

 

I was ten years old when I first set foot on that little islet in Union Bay.  It was about 150 yards northwest of the northern tip of Foster Island at the eastern end of the Lake Washington Ship Canal.  Channel traffic was crowded between the islet and Fox Point creating an obstacle for watercraft bound to-and-from Lake Washington.  Even to a 4^th grader it seemed oddly placed.

My sister, Ginger, and her friend Chris had gotten our mothers to write notes giving the University of Washington permission to rent us a canoe.  My “chaperones” were just three years older than me, so it was definitely a different time from a legal standpoint.  As I recall the rental fee was $1.25 / hour.  A totally reasonable cost when split three ways.  Chris had learned a bit about canoeing from her father who was a member of the Seattle Mountaineers and active in the outdoors.  Conversely, Ginger and I had never been in a canoe and we flailed about, as though as though both of us were paddling with a different intent.  Without Chris’s scant expertise it is doubtful we would have made it the 200 yards across the ship canal and back before exceeding our rental budget. 

Eventually Chris got us close to Foster Island and guided the canoe out to the islet.  After some discussion we decided to try to land so she drove the bow of the boat up onto the marshy mass of cattails and scrub willows. Stepping out we found that the island wouldn’t support our weight as it was just a blob of floating vegetation.  There were some boards, though, that distributed our weight enough that we could stand without sinking.  They seemed to have been placed in some sort of pattern.  Cattails and weeds were growing up between them, but we found an area measuring about 10’ by 10’ that was covered by boards and mostly clear.  In the middle of the clearing sat an old dilapidated wooden chair.  It was surrounded by weeds and bore the scars of being marooned for, who knew how long?  I sat down gingerly on it fearing that it would fail as its loose joints crackled and shifted under my slight weight.  I wondered how long it had been there.  A year or two.  Maybe three?  

The islet and the chair were the impetus for a whole series of misadventures that stretched over the next several years and I continued to think about them long after the mid-1960’s when the Corps of Army Engineers scraped them off the bottom of Union Bay to be added to the bulk of nearby Marsh Island.  I would have never guessed that the chair had been on the islet for a quarter of a century or how it got there.  If someone had been able to tell me I would never have believed them.

Then, four years ago, a friend showed me a newspaper article from the February 25, 1934 edition of the Seattle Post Intelligencer about an 81 year old Norwegian Immigrant who was living on the islet.  I was fascinated and determined to learn what I could about him.  His name was Martin Olsen Moen and this is his story.

The Lagoon

 

This image of Duck Bay is dated c1953 by the University of Washington Botanical Gardens.  I’m thinking it’s March because the first leaves are fleshing out on the Willows but the other deciduous trees are still bare.  There are no leaves on the ground and the invasive Blackberry bushes are dried and bare.  That one guy with the incredibly ugly short sleeve shirt is carrying his coat so I assume that the temperature isn’t too cool.  He was probably a UW jock with no sense of style.  

2021 – Same View 70 Years Later

Welcome to “The Lagoon”.  Located near the north end of the University of Washington Arboretum it is part of a series of connected bays and waterways that were envisioned by the Olmsted Brothers in the early 1900’s and constructed through filling, grading and dredging in 1939. 

1939 - MOHAI - 7375

In the mid-‘50’s through the early-‘70’s the shoreline was clear and the grass was finely coiffed by the Arboretum Maintenance Team.  

The original image predates my Montlake arrival but only by a few years.  The shoreline of “The Lagoon” near the Broadmoor North Gate looked like that in my first Montlake memories and up into the early 1970’s.  As kids, we didn’t know or care that this space between “Duck” and “Willow Bays” had been mostly created by garbage landfill and the deposit of spoils from dredging, grading and compacting that had shaped the lagoons and made this garden for us. 

It was just a very cool part of our territory that we used year-round and valued a great deal.  It didn’t matter about the season.  Ice skating (falling through the ice), rafting, rowing, paddling, swimming, fishing or just hanging out.  We could and did do it all.  It was our paradise.  We were kings and queens of the realm. 

Looking back, one of the experiences of Montlake that I love is shown in this photo and it is the men of color who are fishing and remembering the time I spent with them.  I had come from a place that was totally segregated and, while Montlake wasn’t the perfect melting pot, I could still choose to be with other races and religions.  

c1953 - University of Washington Botanical Gardens - crop

Do you see that man in the lawn chair?  He’s the guy that I would sit down next to and talk about fishing, bait, seasons, etc..  I could have probably talked to him about anything, but I didn’t know how to.  Still, we would sit together for hours and talk or not.  Maybe I was being tolerated because I was just an entitled white kid, but I really learned from him and enjoyed his company. 

It was a man like him who I trusted to teach my young niece (Sue Ann) how to catch Night Crawlers.  On summer nights he would be out at West Montlake Park after the sprinklers had shut off catching worms to fish with in the morning.  Those worms were fast and hard to pull out of the ground without damaging.  He showed us how to sneak up on them.  He coached us to use a drop of airplane glue and a touch of sand on our thumb and index fingers so that we could increase our grip while applying less pressure on the worm.  He said that we should try to find two worms mating and grab them both.  He taught us that we might have to hang onto them for five minutes or more until they contracted and then pull a bit more of them out of the ground.  Little by little until they could no longer grip the soil.  He said that landing great bait was like landing a great fish.  It took patience, practice, time and tools, in that order. 

Sue, being so small, would sometimes grab them with both of her tiny hands and apply the lessons learned. She would be on her knees in the wet grass hanging on for dear life while our mentor's smiling face could be seen in the glow of the flashlight, encouraging her and beaming like a proud Grandfather.

The Nowell Residence

 On the SW corner of 25^th Ave E and E Boston Street sits a neat and unassuming Colonial Revival Cottage built in 1920.  Its official name with National Register of Historic Places is The Nowell Residence named for it first owners, Frank and Elizabeth Nowell. 

While it’s easy to think of 1920 as “fairly recent” when discussing our historic neighborhood only about 20% of the available Montlake lots had been built on at that time.  The ship canal had opened just a few short years before but we wouldn’t see the opening of the Montlake Bridge for another 5 years.  Montlake School as we have known it wouldn’t open for another 4 years.  By the end of 1920 only 60 homes in Montlake had garages as we weren’t yet an automotive-dominated society and there was no end of convenient street parking available.  The Central Business District between Lynn and McGraw Streets consisted of only two buildings.  This was the Montlake that Frank and Elizabeth moved into at 2021 25^th E.  

1923 - Courtesy of Ron Edge 

Prior to settling down in Seattle Frank had done a lot of traveling and held a number of different jobs in Alaska where he developed an interest in life on the frontier and an appreciation of the indigenous NW cultures.  

1905 - UWDC - NOW132

He became adept at photography and began documenting his travels.  In 1909 he landed a great gig as official photographer for the 1909 Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition and, while there were several notable local photographers, Frank H. Nowell was responsible for some of the most iconic images that we associate with Seattle’s first world’s fair.  

1909 - SPL - AYP304

He opened a storefront at 1212 4^th Ave where he specialized in portraits and photographic services while producing most of the images documenting the building of the Smith Tower completed in 1914.  When the Montlake house was built, 6 years later, he and Elizabeth moved in and lived there through the 1930’s before retiring to their Crystal Lake “ranch” near Maltby.  

c1918 - UWDC - NOW260

In 1950 Frank H. Nowell passed and left us his photographic legacy.  I wonder if there are still any glass plates in the basement?

Frank Hamilton Nowell

1864 - 1950

The Gerrick Residence

 

Google Earth

The Gerrick Residence is located at 2208 E McGraw.  It is somewhat unique for Montlake as it is one of only twelve American Foursquare homes in the entire neighborhood.  Built in 1909 it was the second permanent home constructed in Pikes 2^nd Addition to Union City and it might be the fifth permanent home in Montlake, period, but there were four other houses built that year.  So, it is somewhere between the fifth and nineth house in the Montlake Neighborhood.  The 2 ½ story home is listed at 3690 square feet and has 5 bedrooms. 

Copyright City of Seattle

Imagine what it was like when the house was new and McGraw Street was just a slippery dirt road.  The area was thick with second growth trees and you were living out in the sticks.  At the bottom of the hill was 24^th N where a streetcar ran and the sidewalk was partially in place.  It took you just 15 minutes to walk to the south gate of the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition.  On the way you crossed the new bridge over the Log Canal and you passed no other homes, only buildings associated with the Log Canal operations or some dilapidated buildings that sat between the canal and where Roanoke would be pressed up against the foot of Montlake Ridge.  By 1912 the only addition was a single brick house at the corner of 22^nd and Roanoke.  Any kids living in Montlake who wanted to play in the woods didn’t have to go to the Ravine or the Arboretum.  They just stepped outside of their front door and they were there.  

1909 - UWDC - SEA1402

When I was in grade school my friend Bennett Minton lived in that house and I was in it a few times.  The front porch ran across the width of the house and around the southeast corner, Under the porch was a root cellar with an earthy smell and dusty wooden shelves holding glass canning jars.  At the top of the stairs on the second floor was a landing with doors leading off in all directions to multiple bedrooms.  It was a really cool house that seemed bright and airy but I only had my own Calhoun Street house to judge by. 

Copyright City of Seattle

In the 1930’s and early 1940’s the house was owned by Ruby Burshia and five bedrooms were more than she needed so she rented them out as room and board.  My favorite ad was in the August 22, 1940 edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer where she hoped to attract male tenants with the draw being meals prepared by a French Chef.  Classy.

NewsBank

 

The Shortcut

I suppose that it was around 1958 when Pip and Terry introduced me to “The Shortcut”.  None of us knew that the shortcut to the Yacht Club was part of a historic Native canoe portage or the remains of a log canal being reclaimed by the urban jungle.  Speaking of urban jungles, I was fresh out of Wichita and amazed at the neighborhood wilderness that surrounded my new home.  We were just kids interested in shortcuts, swamps and being where, maybe, we shouldn’t have been.  

The shortcut started up at Montlake Blvd. and followed a rugged dirt road down to Portage Bay where a half dozen or so houseboats were moored.  The road was rough as there weren’t many cars associated with the houseboats, hence, it wasn’t maintained.  These houseboat dwellers were typical of the time as many lived a hand-to-mouth existence so cars were a luxury that few could afford.  The road was mostly used as a foot path for the houseboat tenants.  

The dock providing access to the houseboats was adjacent to a small cove that had some wooden refuse poking up out of the water.  We skirted the cove and crossed the water where it was shallow, using wood and steel debris or scrub willows where they allowed us to clamber over.  Once past the cove we came upon a “pond” close to the Fisheries Building and crossed a “dam” that separated the pond from Portage Bay.  The pond was surrounded by Willows that flourished and provided luxurious shade.   I recall the walkway over the “dam” as being no wider than about two feet.  

When SR-520 was built through the Canal Reserve things changed dramatically.  The dirt road, houseboats, pilings, the cove and pond were removed.  Fill was added for the freeway and for additional parking at the Fisheries Building pushing the shoreline about 200 feet out into Portage Bay .  

As decades passed, I often thought about that shortcut, the houseboats, the mysterious debris and the urban Eden surrounding the pond adjacent to the Fisheries Building.  I pondered the origin of the rubble and what it had once been?  I assumed that it had been garbage fill but didn’t really know.  

Then, one day I was reading Don Sherwood’s history of West Montlake Park and it all fell into place.  I could look at old maps and photos with new eyes and parse old memories after I read:

“In 1929 the US Bureau of Commercial Fisheries was permitted to build a laboratory on the Old Canal property adjacent to the Yacht Club.  The Old Canal had never been filled in, except for Montlake Boulevard when the old bridge was removed.  So in 1932 Noble Hoggson, a landscape architect, proposed creation of an aquarium built in the “canyon” of the Old Canal adjacent to the new Fisheries laboratory.  It would have occupied the site of the old locks – by then lost in the jungle of trees and undergrowth.  Though highly endorsed, this plan never materialized”:  

Memories From The Mint

 

1968 - Seattle Municipal Archives - 191827

It’s possible that “The Corner Market” building at 1^st Ave and Pike Street has been photographed more than most Seattle landmarks and while it is a respectable place now that wasn’t always the case.  Built in 1912 it featured open storefronts along the 1^st floor perimeter while the interior featured other food specialty businesses including the Pacific Poultry Company on the 2^nd floor.  At that time it was an altogether decent place to conduct business, do your shopping and to see and be seen.  

The Corner Market went into a steep decline during the ‘60’s just as I was coming into the labor market with only 20% of the space was being utilized.  Heck, all of 1^st Ave was pretty seedy and quite sporty then and I chose the Corner Market for my first job that didn’t involve newspapers or lawnmowers.  The open storefronts along 1^st Ave had been closed in to house the “Modern Barber College” (nationally accredited), “The Taco House” (specializing in fish and chips) and “The Mint Restaurant and Dollar Room” where I first started my long climb to retirement. 

Robert Lewis Stevenson ~ Nazi Wolfpacks & the Montlake Cut

 

1934 - SMA - 9239 

On October 17, 1934 an Engineering Department photographer captured this image of the Puget Sound tug boat Equator towing the oil tanker Geo. H. Jones through the Montlake Cut and into Lake Washington.   At 429 feet in length and 59 feet wide the G.H. Jones filled The Cut on its way to the Lake Washington Shipyards for repairs and refitting.  The bustling shipyards at Houghton ensured that large oceangoing ships were not an uncommon sight in the Montlake neighborhood.  Both the Equator and the Geo. H. Jones had interesting histories and met, equally, interesting ends.  Not present that day in The Cut but part of the story was the Nazi submarine U-455 that would put one of them on the bottom of the ocean.

Red Letter Day

Gotta say that yesterday was a red-letter day for this local history nerd. 

I have been searching for an affordable copy of “Pig-Tail Days in Old Seattle” by Sofie Frye Bass for years.  Typically, decent 3^rd edition copies go for over $100 with 1^st edition copies in good condition between $250 and $350.  All out of my price range.  So, when I saw a copy for $40 I figured that it must be a beater.  That is the cheapest I had ever seen this book so hoping for the best but expecting the worst I ordered it,  

The description read “A nice hardcover with a missing dust jacket, a tight binding and an unmarked text.  1937 Former owner’s inscription.  From a private smoke free collection”. 

Yeah, well, we’ll see what $40 buys me.  I can only check this out of the library so many times, you know, and I really need it in my local history collection.

So, when it showed up a week before expected I was pleased and tentatively opened the package hoping that I wouldn’t be too disappointed.  To my surprise the book was in near-perfect condition sans the dust cover.  Clean with a nice tight binding.  

Opening the cover I saw that the appraiser had mistaken the author's signature for the "Former owner" as it read Sophie Frye Bass.

The Last of the Portage Bay Log Booms

Written May 14, 2022 

Sofie Sarah Frye Bass was born in 1867 and was witness to much of Seattle’s earliest days.  Since she was a granddaughter of Seattle Founder, Arthur Denny, she was well connected, knew everyone in town worth knowing and probably was all up in everybody’s business.  By recording her observations, she brought to us some of the most revealing yet brief vignettes of life in early Seattle.  Her descriptions of growing up in the places we grew up in and where we walk today sometimes tell of great change and other times paint pictures of folks doing the same things that we did at the same places. 

In her book “When Seattle Was a Village” she talks about picnicking at the log canal at The Portage.  She says…….”Logs were then run through this channel.  We liked to picnic at the canal and watch logs float into the booms at Portage Bay, and when no one was looking, we ran and played tag on the logs”.  

1895 – MOHAI – Sophie and Her Sisters

You'll Like Tacoma

 Originally published 12/9/2020

Credit - Clayton Kauslaric

The Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 offered Seattle a unique opportunity for growth and visibility on the World stage.  Folks heading north to make their fortune in the Alaskan goldfields bought their supplies and boarded ships in downtown Seattle which had eight years prior been totally reduced to ashes by the Great Fire of 1889.  Successful prospectors returning by ship disembarked at those same docks and left much of their new wealth with local businesses.  

Twelve years later, in 1909, Seattle hosted Washington’s first World’s Fair in order to promote growth by highlighting the connections between the city and local resources, riches to the north and the entire Pacific Rim.  It was called the Alaska, Yukon, Pacific Exposition or AYPE.  The event ran from June 1^st through October 15^th. 

During that 4 ½ month period special events were staged to draw fair-goers from far and wide, in part, by highlighting other cities and states.  On “Kansas Day,” Kansans were issued sunflower badges and treated to a giant picnic.  “Oregon Day” featured a performance by the “Portland Festival Chorus” a promenade and a dance.  On “Bellingham Day” souvenir postcards, fresh Whatcom County cherries and sample bags of rich soil the cherries had grown in were given out.

James Frederick Dawson and Trouble With the Curve

 

James F. Dawson

The Cultural Landscape Foundation

In 1902 the city contracted with the Olmsted Brothers to have a grand plan drawn up for a system of connected parks and boulevards.  Automobiles had come to Seattle just two years prior but the Olmsted Brothers were sophisticated in their thinking when compared to some others.  Their vision acknowledged that the horse drawn buggy was on its way out and that “pleasure drives” in automobiles were the future for Seattle.  The shoreline of Lake Washington was a great place to build yet-to-be-planned parks and to locate such a grand connecting roadway with its pleasing and complex curves.  In 1904 they sent partner James Frederick Dawson to Seattle to review plans, document progress and ground truth their planned visions for the city. 

1904 - ONHS - Image by J.F. Dawson

Madison Street Trestle Out of View To the Right - Lake Washington Blvd Descending On the Left

In August of 1904 construction began on the first section of roadway before the plans had even been finalized.  That road started at the east end of the Madison Street Trestle and descended north along the hillside that was tightly squeezed between the deep and wooded ravine to the west (today referred to as Washington Park Playfield) and previously platted land between what we refer to today as Washington Park Playfield and Broadmoor. 

Search for the Good Road Lunch Room

Courtesy of Gordon Macdougall

While Interlaken Blvd may “officially” be just outside of the Montlake Historic District you would be hard pressed to convince any Montlake Free Range Kid that Interlaken, Louisa Boren Park or any part of “The Ravine” was not their turf.  With that mindset I began trying to find the site where a Montlake icon, the Good Road Lunch Room, had stood. 

It’s well known that Interlaken Blvd follows the general route of the Seattle Bicycle Path that was laid out during the 1890’s.  Many have reported on that so I will leave you to sort through those resources.  The Good Road Lunch Room is mentioned in all of those narratives but the exact location has never been located to my satisfaction.  We know that it was somewhere between Roanoke and 24^th, but where? 

Ole Nissen - Tailor

 

Ole Andreas Nissen was born in Ansager, Denmark in 1887.  Like so many Danes at that time he worked the family farm.  He was a diminutive boy and when he was 14 years old and finished with school his Mother gave him the kind of advice that no boy that age wants to hear. 

“Ole” she said, “I want you to learn to be a tailor.  You have skinny wrists.  You won’t cut it as a farmer”. 

Being smaller than his peers must have been something that he had dealt with for all of his short life and to have his Mom confirm what he had struggled to deny was a harsh toke.  Then, the next thing he knew was that she had swung a deal with a tailor who lived in the next town and so off he went to serve an apprenticeship.  After 3 ½ years he and his skinny wrists came away with a paying profession that he actually liked and excelled at.  It turned out that Mother knew best.  

He saved his money and at age 20 immigrated to the US where he arrived in New York City, boarded a train and headed west.  Everywhere he went, though, tailors were not in demand so he picked up whatever work was available.  Carpentry, cooking, waiting tables, whatever and after a few months he arrived in Seattle.  Nobody was hiring tailors in the Emerald City so he traveled up and down the coast, California to Vancouver, BC picking up piecework sewing and other odd jobs.  Vancouver panned out for him and he was able to get steady work sewing.  At age 27 he was back in Seattle and opened his own shop where he sold his first suit for $29.  

The last Wednesday of each month was his night to play cards at the Danish Brotherhood and one Wednesday he was playing with the VP of Washington Mutual Bank who asked him to make a blue serge suit for his wife.  The suit was a hit and soon the banker’s wealthy friends and their wives were among his clientele. 

Looking to expand and upscale his business he bought a lot at 2805 E. Madison Street in Madison Valley.  The property was long and narrow with a house towards the middle of the lot.  

It had a nice front yard facing Madison Street and a large-ish back yard on E. Arthur Pl.  In 1925 he had the house picked up, turned 180 degrees and set on E Arthur Pl.  On the Madison Street side, he had a storefront built to house his new tailor shop and a tenant who ran a barbershop.  He operated at his Madison Street shop from 1925 until he retired in 1967.  He passed away in 1986 at the ripe age of 99.  

The house that he had picked up and turned around still stands at 2832 E Arthur Pl.  It is the home of “The Music Factory”, a music school that employs professional musicians who work with students of all levels in guitar, piano and voice.  

The storefront that he rented out and where he proudly displayed his own sign is a french restaurant called “Voila! Bistrot”.

You may have eaten there.  I think he would approve.

The Belltown Boys

“When you’re a Jet

You’re a Jet all the way

From your first cigarette

To your last dying day.”

 Conceived in the late ‘40’s “West Side Story” told of conflict between racial groups living in segregated neighborhoods of New York City, and like the Jets and the Sharks, the youth of Belltown and Seattle were at odds based on geographical separation. 

After William Bell’s claim grew to become “Belltown” it was its own entity packed up tight against Denny Hill.  Denny Hill, being enough of a topographic feature as to complicate easy northern expansion from Seattle’s core, fostered a sense of community identity and separation.  Two schools, North School and Denny School, were only ½ mile apart but on opposite sides of the hill.  Word has it that they didn’t get along. 

In her book, “When Seattle Was a Village” Sofie Frye Bass tells us of this conflict between the Belltown Gang and the Mill Street Gang who would meet to fight on the sawdust near Yesler’s Mill after the Belltown Boys rowed down to the Mill Street rendezvous.  Sheriff Lewis Wyckoff would show up to break up the fights, put the Belltown Boys back in their rowboats and send them back north beyond The Hill.

 

Montlake - The Real Birthplace of REI

Most of us know something about REI.  Some of us may know a bit of the history, or think that we do.  Some of us have heard about how it all started with an ice axe, etc. 

Some of us have been members for years, can recite our membership number (203xxx), bought our first backpack and hiking boots from Jim Whittaker above the Green Apple Pie and delight in regaling the cashiers who ring us up about our long association with the Co-op.  Some of us have been employees (#14xx).  Some of us may complain about the changes over the years or high prices, or Yuppie-gear, blah, blah, blah.  This post isn’t about any of that so no need to go there. 

It is about a critical bit of REI history that I bet you don’t know.  It’s about how the Co-op almost never came to be.  It’s about how 85 years ago a Montlake business deal-gone-bad set everything in motion so that today, in spite of Covid-19, REI is serving 5.5 million active members and how those members and guests open the doors to the stores by grasping handles made of ice axes.    

That’s right.  It all started with an ice axe in Montlake.

Symbolic Door Handles

What is well-known and undisputed is that Lloyd Anderson and his wife, Mary, were members of “The Climbers Group”, an offshoot of the “Mountaineers”.  In 1938 they founded Recreational Equipment Cooperative using the Rochdale Principles.  The purpose of the co-op was to provide a source of quality outdoor gear for their friends and fellow climbers.   

Mary and Lloyd Anderson