Fremont History Articles
The Sunset Heights Plat in Fremont
In 1871 in Norway, 21-year-old Oline Anrud married Hans Onsum, and the couple set out to start new lives in America. They touched down briefly in Wisconsin before continuing the westward journey to Seattle in Washington Territory.
In the 1870s and 1880s the couple spent some time in Seattle, where Hans had a meat market, and some time in rural Snohomish County. Perhaps Seattle’s Great Fire of June 6, 1889, made the couple decide that they would settle in the city where explosive population growth post-Fire,
House History: 4202 Phinney Ave North
Captain Herbert E. Farnsworth made the classic Western migration of a Civil War veteran after the war. Born in New York State, after the end of the war in 1865, Captain Farnsworth married. The Farnsworth’s first daughter was born in New York and by the time of the birth of their second daughter in 1871, the family was living in the town of Kidder, Caldwell County, Missouri. It was a railroad town and Captain Farnsworth, who worked as a carpenter,
Fremont’s Pocket Desert
In Fremont, our neighborhood known for its eccentricity, a small mystery has been hiding in plain sight. The Fremont Neighbor blog has written the following inquiry:
“On the grounds of what is now the Fremont Foundry event venue, 154 North 35th Street, sits a modest postcard-sized plaque reading simply “Fremont Pocket Desert.” No one seems to know its origin story.
The plaque’s location is particularly intriguing given the property’s colorful history.
3400 Phinney Avenue North: the original trolley car barn
The red-brick trolley car barn in Fremont was built in 1905 as a home base for the five lines which traveled around the Fremont, Ballard, Phinney, and Greenlake areas. The parking area had pits below, used by mechanics who repaired the underworking of the cars. On the east side of the building was a yard with a wash tower for cleaning the cars.
The building was the first major streetcar service facility to be built in north Seattle,
The Fremont Neighborhood in Seattle is Founded in 1888
Each neighborhood of Seattle proudly waves the banner of its unique name, and yet many were named in a similar way: by real estate investors. Fremont in Seattle was also named by real estate investors. What made the Seattle neighborhood called Fremont stand out from others, was its good location, its jump-start after Seattle’s Great Fire of 1889, and its vigorous developers who utilized the growing streetcar system to advantage.
