4039 Whitman Ave N
This lovely 1904 house is located at Whitman Ave N. and N. 41st, a block east of Aurora Avenue. We were unable to reach the present owners, but decided to include it in the display because it dates from an early period of the neighborhood’s history when there were numerous fancy houses located along Whitman Avenue between N. 38th and N. 46th. This home and a Victorian-style home a block north remain as the only intact reminders of that era. There are two other similar homes, but they have been largely altered. The houses were probably built here because of the excellent view of the Cascade Mountains and across Wallingford, which would have been woods and farmland at that time. The development of Aurora Avenue as a highway is most likely the reason many of these more expensive old homes are gone now. Aurora Avenue dates as far back as the 1880s but was built wide, 66 feet, with the intention of using it as a highway. It did not become an actual highway, however, until improvements such as a cut-through Woodland Park and the Aurora Bridge (George Washington Memorial Bridge) were made in the early 1930s. Additionally, zoning has not been kind to the preservation of the homes. This house stands as a reminder, a marker for the early history of residential development immediately east of Aurora.