Historic Sites

Tomato seeds are apparently indestructible, even after sewage treatment. When Seattle bought the Gas Works Park property to create Lake Union’s first park, the soil was too polluted to grow grass, so the city coated the site with sewer sludge. The grass grew well and, during the first summer, an added bonus of tomatoes sprouted in the park. Gas Works Park displays rusting remnants of a 1902 gasification plant that converted coal to liquid fuel for streetlights and cooking stoves. The last gas was made in 1957 when a new pipeline brought natural gas from British Columbia.

Virginia V – 125’ wooden double-decked passenger vessel built in 1922 powered by an 1898 oil fired steam engine. The last remaining steamer of the Mosquito Fleet, she provided passenger & freight service to & from Seattle, Tacoma, and many small communities until 1972.

Southern Lake Union once extended to what is today Mercer Street.

A visitor to Lake Union Park sees a lake buzzing with activity.

An 1889 fire that claimed over twenty-five city blocks, every wharf and mill from Union to Jackson Streets, and one million rats, spurred Seattle to ban wooden buildings in the business district downt

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.