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Category: Seattle History

Ross School in Fremont

Posted on by Valarie

Ross Park on Third Ave NW at NW 43rd Street is the former site of Ross School.  It was named for the family who were the earliest settlers in the western part of Fremont.  

The John Ross family took land in homestead claims on both sides of what is now the ship canal, including the present site of Seattle Pacific University.  Up until the ship canal was created in 1911-1917, there was a stream flowing westward toward Puget Sound. When the Ross family moved to a new house on the north side of the creek, they cooperated with neighbors to build a school for the community’s children at the site of what is now Ross Park.

The school population grew larger until a new building was needed. The building pictured here, was an eight-room schoolhouse which opened in 1903.  The school closed in 1940 and children were then sent to West Woodland Elementary.

The History of Fremont Baptist Church in Seattle

Posted on by Valarie

Fremont Baptist Church, 717 North 36th Street, was organized 132 years ago.

The church group first met in an American Baptist Society Chapel Train Car. Next the church services were held in several different buildings in Fremont, then our first wooden building was opened on this site in 1901. The current brick building opened in 1924.

The story of the founding of Fremont Baptist Church
Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Wooster were the founders of Fremont Baptist Church. After moving to Fremont in the early 1890s, the Woosters began looking for Baptists in the area.  When they found eight other local Baptists, the Woosters first arranged to meet in the Christian Church building on Latona. Then, they arranged for the chapel rail car “Evangel” to come to Fremont.  Mr. Wooster was the first Sunday School Superintendent and the first Church Clerk.

Fremont Baptist Church was established on March 20, 1892, when Rev. E. G. Wheeler and a small group of faithful met in the chapel car Evangel.  The chapel car was provided as a mission tool by the American Baptist Publication Society and was parked on a rail siding between Fremont Fire Station and the railroad depot on Ewing Street (North 34th Street). After the initial organization, the church met in rented storefronts and had eight pastors over the next seven years until Rev. Cairns came in 1899.
 
When Rev. Cairns came there were 28 Fremont Baptist church members at Fremont.  Under Rev. Cairns leadership the congregation bought property and began constructing a building in March of 1900.  The wooden structure was dedicated one year later on March 24, 1901.  When Rev. Cairns retired at the age of 85 in 1909, the church membership had grown to 145.  Over the next 15 years the church continued to grow under the leadership of Pastors Lamoreux, Reading, and Hicks.

By 1924 the congregation was bursting at the seams of the old wooden structure, and it was decided that a new building was needed.  More land was bought, the old wooden structure was demolished, and work on a new brick structure was started.  The present church structure at 717 North 36th Street was finished and dedicated in December of 1924.

The Family Works Food Bank was started in Fremont Baptist Church, originally known as the Fremont Food Bank, with church members volunteering.  Every year at the Fremont Fair, Fremont Baptist Church puts up the Orange Booth as it has for decades to give out free coffee, lemonade and doggie water, with all donations going to Family Works Food Bank. Fremont Baptist Church continues today with involvement in the Fremont community as a beacon of hope.

Fremont Public Art: The Berlin 1936 Crew Racer

Posted on by Valarie

The Data 1 office building at 744 North 34th Street was completed in 2017 and has outdoor artworks on each side of the building. At one side, underneath the Aurora Bridge, is a fragment of the Berlin Wall which tells of the triumph of the human spirit when Communism fell in 1989.

At the other corner of the Data 1 building (on the left as you look at it) is a metal sculpture of a man holding an oar, labeled Berlin 1936. This is a reference to the Olympic Games of that year, when the crew racers from the University of Washington in Seattle went to Berlin and came out of nowhere to win their race. The story of Seattle’s hardscrabble crew racers has inspired Fremont folks to nickname this metal sculpture, “Joe Rantz” for the main character in the book, The Boys in the Boat (2013).

Fremont Public Art: Saturn and The Rocket

Posted on by Valarie

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

Posted on by Valarie

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: The Lenin Statue

Posted on by Kathleen

In 1981, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia commissioned Bulgarian sculptor Emil Venkov to create a statue that portrayed Vladimir Lenin as a bringer of revolution.  Briefly installed in Poprav, Czechoslovakia, the 16-foot bronze statue was sent to a scrapyard after the 1989 fall of Communism.

The statue in the scrapyard was discovered by Lewis Carpenter, an English teacher from Issaquah, Washington, who was teaching in Poprav and knew the artist.  Purchasing the statue with his own funds, Carpenter mortgaged his house to ship it to the USA.

But the City of Issaquah refused to display the statue of Lenin and, after Carpenter’s sudden death, it was sent to a foundry in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, to be melted down.

The statue of Lenin was saved again, this time by the foundry’s founder, Peter Bevis.  He convinced the Fremont Chamber of Commerce to display it until a buyer could be found. The statue was unveiled in 1995 and moved to its current location, 3526 Fremont Place North, in 1996. It remains controversial, however, its hands frequently painted red to symbolize the blood on Vladimir Lenin’s hands. The statue is also still for sale.

Here’s more about “what was there before” Lenin:  a gas station.

Fremont Public Art: The Fremont Troll

Posted on by Kathleen

On North 36th Street, underneath the Aurora Bridge, lives the Fremont Troll.

The Norwegian folk tale about a large and ugly troll living under a bridge and the three hungry billy goats who are afraid to cross is forever immortalized in this iconic statue designed and executed by Professor of Architecture Steve Badanes and his students at the University of Washington, in response to a contest sponsored by the Fremont Arts Committee. Intended to fill up a “problem area” below the Aurora Bridge, the popular Fremont Troll was dedicated October 31, 1990 and continues to attract hundreds of visitors (and locals) with their cameras every year.

In the years before it was made into Highway 99, Aurora Avenue was an ordinary residential street.  Its last segment in Fremont is now underneath the Aurora Bridge.  In the year 2005 the City of Seattle passed an ordinance to rename this two-block segment of Aurora between North 34th to 36th Streets “Troll Avenue” to help people find the Troll artwork at the intersection of North 36th Street.

Fremont Public Art: The Fremont Guidepost

Posted on by Kathleen

“Center of the Universe” guidepost at Fremont Avenue and North 35th Street

Located just north of downtown Seattle beside sparkling Lake Union, the neighborhood of Fremont is known for its geographic centrality.

Since the 1960s Fremont has been known for its quirkiness, when an economic lull drove down rents and attracted more artists and students to the area. Although the local economy has improved since the arrival of several high-tech companies, the funky and eclectic vibe of Fremont has continued.

According to the Fremont Chamber of Commerce and “Fremont Scientists,” this “strangeness” exists because of an “odd gravitational pull” that places Fremont at the Center of the Universe. Here, a unique geophysical force also creates an overwhelming urge “to return again and again.”

Reasoning that Fremont’s “center of the universe” location could “neither be proven nor disproven,” residents set up a helpful “Center of the Universe” guidepost at Fremont Avenue and North 35th Street in the early 1970s. In 1994, this location was officially proclaimed the Center of the Universe by the Metropolitan King County Council.

Here’s more about how the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle became known as the Center of the Universe.

Fremont Public Art: Late for the Interurban

Posted on by Kathleen

East of the Fremont Bridge on North 34th Street, near Adobe Plaza, Seattle’s favorite clown, JP Patches, and his friend, Gertrude, are forever “Late for the Interurban” in these bronze statues created by Washington sculptor Kevin Pettelle. The Interurban was the train to Everett with its transfer point by the Fremont Bridge, referenced by the Interurban statue there.

Installed in 2008 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the J.P. Patches TV show, and viewable through a bronze “television” also created by the artist, the Late for the Interurban statues were funded primarily through donations from local fans who grew up watching the show.

Fremont Public Art: Waiting for the Interurban

Posted on by Kathleen

In 1978, a down year economically for the Fremont neighborhood, artist and local resident Richard Beyer was tasked with creating a “community focal point” in honor of Fremont’s centennial.

Known for his humorous and humanistic style, Beyer sculpted from rough aluminum six life-size figures and a dog with a human face and placed them at the site of the former station for the “Interurban,” the Seattle to Everett trolley line with a stop in Fremont that had greatly contributed to Fremont’s early growth and prosperity — and that had stopped running almost 40 years previous, in 1939.

At Waiting for the Interurban, the figures stand under a pergola designed by Peter Larsen from Environmental Works.  Installed in 1979, it mirrors the roofline slant of the original train station.

Over the years, Waiting for the Interurban has become both a popular tourist attraction and a favorite spot for locals to publicize events or celebrate holidays with signage or decorations draped over the figures.