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Author: Valarie

Valarie was born in Seattle and is a volunteer neighborhood history writer.

Fremont Public Art: Saturn and The Rocket

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The corner of North 35th Street & Evanston Avenue North contains two art installations in an outer-space theme.

The Saturn building is topped by a twelve-foot-tall fiberglass replica of the planet Saturn. The planet is illuminated at night by solar panels in its 24-foot-diameter ring. The orb was created by Brian Regan, the owner of the Saturn building at 3417 Evanston Avenue North.

The newer (2013) Saturn complements the older art piece across the street, the Fremont Rocket at 3420 Evanston Avenue North. The Rocket, installed by the Fremont business association in 1994, bears the Fremont crest and motto “De Libertas Quirkas,” which means “freedom to be peculiar.”

The Rocket is purported to be made of genuine military surplus parts including the tail boom of a Fairchild C-119 transport aircraft. The Fremont Business Assocation bought The Rocket for $750 from an army surplus store in Seattle.

Fremont Public Art: The Berlin Wall Fragment

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The Berlin Wall divided East and West Germany and was torn down by its citizens on November 9, 1989, during the collapse of dictatorial rule of the Communist countries of Eastern Europe.   We remember this significant historical event at the Berlin Wall and what it represents, the freedom of self-rule.

The Berlin Wall was completely demolished at that time, and fragments were carried away as mementos. The fragment which has been installed as public art in Fremont, is located on Troll Avenue at North 34th Street, underneath the Aurora Bridge, at 744 North 34th Street.

The Fremont fragment of the Berlin Wall is twelve feet high and four feet wide.  It was originally installed in Fremont in the year 2001 close to the spot where it is now.  It was put into storage while the present building was under construction in 2016-2017, then was set up on the sidewalk.

The plaque explaining the fragment says: “This piece of the Berlin Wall arrived in Fremont in 2001 to commemorate the role of Seattle and Boeing’s C-47 in the Berlin Airlift of 1948.” The Berlin Airlift was the efforts of American, British and French cargo planes to supply the portions of the city which had been blockaded by the Soviet Union.

Fremont Public Art: Three Billy Goats

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Fremont’s famous Troll, built in 1990, is based upon the Norwegian folktale of three billy goats who wanted to get across a bridge where a troll lived below. Fremont’s Troll is underneath the Aurora Bridge at the intersection of North 36th Street and Troll Avenue.

In tribute to the Troll, on the corner of North 35th Street and Troll Avenue there is a metalwork group of three billy goats, created in 2015.

The three billy goats represent the work of one of Fremont’s volunteer groups, the Friends of the Troll’s Knoll. This group has done other artworks such as an arched garden gate, has done plantings for erosion control and they have periodic clean-up work parties.

The Fremont Neighborhood in Seattle is Founded in 1888

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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.

Continue reading “The Fremont Neighborhood in Seattle is Founded in 1888”

Charles H. Baker: Land Investor in the Fremont Neighborhood of Seattle

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The Fremont neighborhood has a lively history which parallels the story of the City of Seattle’s growth and development.  Just as in the beginnings of Seattle in what is now downtown, the earliest white settlers of Fremont were attracted by the availability of natural resources, most importantly water and timber.

Located just to the northwest of Lake Union, Fremont was on the banks of a stream which at first was called The Outlet, flowing westward through today’s Ballard and then out to Puget Sound.  The Outlet was also called Ross Creek and it was used to float logs to mill.  Eventually the creek became part of the route of today’s Lake Washington Ship Canal.

Charles H. Baker came to Seattle in 1887 as a single man determined to make his fortune and establish himself so that he could get married.  He worked as a surveyor for Seattle’s homegrown railroad corporation, the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern.

The survey work brought Charles Baker into contact with Seattle’s movers and shakers including Judge Thomas Burke, Edward C. Kilbourne and William D. Wood, and Baker’s name is seen on land investments with these men, including plats in Fremont and plats in the Wedgwood neighborhood in northeast Seattle.

Charles Baker lived in Seattle for about fifteen years.  During his time in Seattle his land investments failed partly because of the economic depression which began in the year 1893.  Another reason why his investments failed was because they were in lands which were slow to develop, such as today’s Wedgwood neighborhood, which was too far from downtown Seattle to be convenient.

In the 1890s Charles Baker built the power plant at Snoqualmie Falls, only to lose ownership of it because of legal issues when his father died.  In 1904 Baker gave up on Seattle and moved to Florida.  Even though the power plant which Baker built continues to supply electricity to Seattle today, few people are aware that it was Charles Baker who made this essential contribution to Seattle.

One of Charles Baker’s early investments (1888) was a plat of land at a high point in western Fremont at N. 43rd Street, which he named Palatine Hill.  The name came from Baker’s home in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois.

In later years the streets in the plat had to be renamed for clarity, but the name Palatine Avenue was used for the former Adams Court (on the far right on the plat map.)  On the left side of the plat map, Crawford shows the boundary with the Crawford family property, which became 3rd Ave NW.

One avenue formerly called Peck was later renamed Baker Ave NW between 2nd Ave NW (Harmon) and 3rd Ave NW (Crawford.)  Chicago Street is now 1st Ave NW.  What was designated as Palatine on the original plat map, is now called NW 43rd Street.  Some of these street name changes reflect Seattle’s 1895 ordinance to reorganize the street naming system.  It was required that north-south routes be called avenues, and east-west was called a street.  That is why plats earlier than the 1895 ordinance, like Baker’s 188 Palatine Hill plat map, have had name changes.  Plats filed from 1895 onward, had to conform to the street system and have unique names for their streets, not re-using common names such as Broadway.

Waldo B. Staples and the Canal Marina

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When the Lake Washington Ship Canal was constructed in 1911-1917, people hoped that the canal would benefit Seattle’s business environment.  It was difficult to foresee, however, all that might happen, and what would be the actual impact of the canal work.  In the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, Waldo B. Staples found that the new, deeper and wider canal caused problems at first, but then unexpectedly the canal created a new means of livelihood for him.

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The Fremont Bridge Collapse of March 13, 1914

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In 1914 work was ongoing to dig the present ship canal at Fremont. The original, narrow channel had already been made wider and had been spanned with a bridge called a trestle, meaning a flat, rigid structure supported by posts.  The trestle bridge was wide enough to support streetcar rails and had a lane for the increasing number of automobiles which were being driven in Seattle.  During the work of digging a much deeper and wider channel for the ship canal, the waters of Lake Union were held back by a timber dam at the northwest corner of the lake.

Continue reading “The Fremont Bridge Collapse of March 13, 1914”

Fremont and Seattle’s Ship Canal

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Looking west in Fremont during the ship canal construction in 1912. Photo courtesy of MOHAI 83.10.69.32

Seattle’s earliest white settlers saw immediately that it would be possible to connect its freshwater lakes to the saltwater Puget Sound by means of a canal.  At a Fourth of July picnic in 1854, Thomas Mercer proposed the name of Lake Union because that body of water was in the middle between Lake Washington to the east and Puget Sound to the west.

Seattle settlers of the 1850s Thomas Mercer and David Denny took land claims at the south end of Lake Union near today’s Seattle Center.  Two single men, John Ross and William Strickler, searched out the land and in 1853-1854 they took claims at the northwest corner of Lake Union, which today is the Fremont neighborhood.  It was not until 1916 that a ship canal was constructed which was large enough for industrial use. Continue reading “Fremont and Seattle’s Ship Canal”

Fremont History in its Houses

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The Fremont neighborhood has a lively history which parallels the story of the City of Seattle’s growth and development.

Just as in the beginnings of Seattle in what is now downtown, the earliest white settlers of Fremont were attracted by the availability of natural resources, most importantly water and timber.

Located just to the northwest of Lake Union, Fremont was on the banks of a stream which at first was called The Outlet, flowing westward through today’s Ballard and then out to Puget Sound.  The Outlet was also called Ross Creek and it was used to float logs to mill.  Eventually the creek became part of the route of today’s Lake Washington Ship Canal.

One way to outline the history of a neighborhood is by studying its houses: the design of the houses and the patterns of population growth.  In the month of May 2016 the Fremont Historical Society will have a display of house histories of Fremont’s early years, and a perspective of the development of the ship canal which greatly stimulated the growth of the neighborhood.

Charles H. Baker: land investor in Fremont and Wedgwood neighborhoods

The survey work brought Charles Baker into contact with Seattle’s movers and shakers including Judge Thomas Burke, Edward C. Kilbourne and William D. Wood, and Baker’s name is seen on land investments with these men, including plats in Fremont and plats in the Wedgwood neighborhood in northeast Seattle.Charles H. Baker came to Seattle in 1887 as a single man determined to make his fortune and establish himself so that he could get married.  He worked as a surveyor for Seattle’s homegrown railroad corporation, the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern.

Charles Baker lived in Seattle for about fifteen years.  During his time in Seattle his land investments failed partly because of the economic depression which began in the year 1893.  His investments were in lands which were slow to develop, such as today’s Wedgwood neighborhood, which was too far from downtown Seattle to be convenient.

In the 1890s Charles Baker built the power plant at Snoqualmie Falls, only to lose ownership of it because of legal issues when his father died.  In 1904 Baker gave up on Seattle and moved to Florida.  Even though the power plant which Baker built continues to supply electricity to Seattle today, few people are aware that it was Charles Baker who made this essential contribution to Seattle.

One avenue formerly called Peck was later renamed Baker Ave NW between 2nd Ave NW (Harmon) and 3rd Ave NW (Crawford.)  Chicago Street is now 1st Ave NW.  What was designated as Palatine on the original plat map, is now called NW 43rd Street.One of Charles Baker’s early investments (1888) was a plat of land at a high point in western Fremont at N. 43rd Street, which he named Palatine Hill.  The name came from Baker’s home in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois.  In later years the streets in the plat had to be renamed for clarity, but the name Palatine Avenue was used for the former Adams Court (far right on the plat map.)  On the left side of the plat map, Crawford shows the boundary with the Crawford family property, which became 3rd Ave NW.

Fremont’s early houses and immigrants

Fremont was officially founded as a separate area with its own name in 1888.  Its boosters were real estate men like Edward C. Kilbourne who, in addition to selling lots, also made sure that it was easy to get to Fremont — he controlled the earliest electric streetcar system in Seattle and he built a line to Fremont.  Fremont was soon settled by people who worked in lumber mills, carpentry and railroad work, and many of them were Scandinavian immigrants.

In 1908 Emil Nelson built a home for his family at 4407 2nd Ave NW in the Palatine Hill plat.  Perhaps Nelson intended the house to be a showcase for wood products from Nordquist & Nelson.  His house has unusual arched windows on the second floor, and decorative porch railings.  The barge boards and knee braces under the eaves are highlights of Arts & Crafts finishes to this Craftsman-style house.Swedish immigrant Emil Nelson worked in Fremont at the Bryant Lumber & Shingle Mill Company in the early 1900s.  In 1905 Emil Nelson and George Nordquist who had been a foreman at Bryant Lumber, left the company and went into business together.  They established Nordquist & Nelson which produced sash (window frames), doors, moulding and interior finishes for houses.

In the early 1900s as Fremont was developing, it was very common for a carpenter-builder to buy all of the lots on a block, build his own house and then begin building and selling additional houses.  The name of Emil Nelson was listed on the construction permits for other houses on his block which filled up with Swedish immigrants.

House history display in May 2016

Pondering the early photos of the ship canal

Pondering the early photos of the ship canal

All during the month of May 2016 at the Fremont Branch Library, 731 N. 35th Street, there will be a display of house histories of Fremont.  These mini-research projects into when the house was built and who lived in it, help to portray the life of the Fremont community as it grew.  The house of Emil Nelson as described above, is included in the display.  Houses were chosen for this display for their architectural interest, for describing the early residents, and to show what resources are available for research.

Also included in the display at the Fremont Library is a panoramic photo of The Outlet, the channel which existed before being dug out to become today’s Lake Washington Ship Canal.  In this centennial year of the Canal, many local-history groups are coordinating research projects in commemoration.    In the above photo, Susan (in blue), a historian with Friends of the Ballard Locks, confers with Judie, president of the Fremont Historical Society, about photos of The Outlet.  In the coming year the Fremont Historical Society will work to find stories of how the canal construction affected the Fremont community.  Canal-history research will be featured at Preservation Month in May 2017.