It’s not Atlantis, but 10 feet below the #2 red nun buoy lies a submerged island. As Seattle prepared for the 1962 World’s Fair, an entrepreneur began filling the lake to build a waterfront hotel. Every day, dirt was dumped in the lake but it never seemed to fill in, until one morning an island appeared offshore. No wall was built to retain the dumped dirt and the hotel project was abandoned. A clan of college students claimed the island as their autonomous property and occupied it temporarily. Eventually, the island eroded back into the Lake.

Along the southern shore between the Aurora and Freemont Bridges, close observation reveals an old trestle overgrown with bramble and ivy. These are the remains of an electric streetcar line built in 1880 along the lake.

The entrance to today’s Ship Canal was once the outlet of a small stream that flowed from Lake Union to Puget Sound. The creek was dredged and channelized with the creation of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, providing passage between Lake Union, Lake Washington, and the Puget Sound via the Chittenden Locks.