Writes of Way

Musings on Seattle’s streets, their names, and more besides.

  • Like Hunter Boulevard S, Mount Rainier Drive S, Mount St. Helens Place S, Mount Adams Place S, and S Mount Baker Boulevard, this street was created in 1907 as part of the Hunter Tract Improvement…

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  • The park at 7th Avenue S and S Cloverdale Street in the South Park neighborhood, formerly named after Cesar Chavez, finally has a new name: Parque Libertad. According to The Seattle Times: “Libertad (‘freedom’) is…

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  • This West Seattle street was created in 1937 as part of Forest View Tracts, an addition to the City of Seattle. At the time, it truly was in the middle of the forest, and still…

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  • This West Seattle street was created in 1911 as part of the plat of Fauntleroy, an Addition to Seattle, and named for the nearby Brace Point. According to HistoryLink.org, Brace Point was itself named in…

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  • This West Seattle street was created in 1936 as Ocean View Way, part of the plat of Ocean View Addition to the City of Seattle. Even though the Pacific Ocean is 92 miles to the…

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  • This West Seattle street was created in 1941 as part of Allan MacLean’s 1st Add’n to the City of Seattle, filed by Allan and Nellie MacLean; H.S. and Marie A. Kelsey; and, on behalf of…

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  • The dean of Seattle local historians, Paul Dorpat, has died. Below is the obituary on his own site, written by longtime collaborators Jean Sherrard and Clay Eals. I had the good fortune to make his…

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  • Last week, Seattle (which manages the park) and King County (which owns the land) announced they were removing Cesar Chavez’s name from the park at 7th Avenue S and S Cloverdale Street in the South…

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  • This street, created in 1931, was almost certainly named for Camano Island (known as ʔəw̓alus in Lushootseed), which is located, as Wikipedia tells us, in Puget Sound “between Whidbey Island and the mainland… by the Saratoga Passage to the…

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  • This West Seattle street was created in 1946 by Ordinance 75595 and expanded nearly 40 years later by Ordinance 112188. However, it was named after an earlier Parshall Place, created in 1909 as part of…

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  • This West Seattle street was created in 1920 as part of Homecroft, an Addition to the City of Seattle, filed by the Puget Mill Company, who once owned Washington Park (see Arboretum Drive E), Broadmoor…

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  • This short Montlake street, which runs just over 150 feet from E Roanoke Street between 24th and 25th Avenues E in the south to the alley to the north, was created in 1925 as part…

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  • This street was created in 1955 as part of the plat of the Lowrain Park Addition, filed by A.L. Wood and J.E. Wood of Lowrain Park, Inc. Their full names would appear to be Adlai…

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  • This street was created in 1919 as part of the plat of the Loch-Gilvra Addition to the City of Seattle, filed by Oliver C. McGilvra (1867–1955) and Charles L. Denny (1861–1919) as executors of the…

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  • This street was created in 1907 as part of Tronstad’s Addition to the City of Seattle, filed by Norwegian immigrants Nils and Bertha Tronstad and another couple. It appears to have been named after the…

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  • Thanks to “Operation Metro Surge” in Minnesota, the Insurrection Act of 1807 has been in the news lately. Today I learned that, of the 30 times the act has been invoked, two of them were…

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  • This cul-de-sac was created in 1984 as part of the plat of Valley Ridge, and was named after the nearby S Raymond Street. Raymond Street was itself named by and for Herbert R. Raymond (1862–1933),…

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  • This street was named in 1906 as Raymond Avenue, part of Replat Tracts 30 & 31 Sunnyside 5 Acre Tracts, by Herbert R. Raymond (1862–1933) of New Brunswick, Canada, and his wife, Minnie M. Raymond…

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  • This portion of E Olive Street was renamed E Olive Lane by Ordinance 100274 in 1971. It is unclear why. For some reason, as the quarter section map shows, the name change wasn’t extended into…

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  • E Olive Street between Melrose Avenue and Bellevue Avenue was renamed E Olive Place sometime between 1912, when it was recorded in the Baist Atlas as E Olive Street, and 1919, the first time it…

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Writes of Way © 2019 Benjamin Lukoff. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from Benjamin Lukoff is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Benjamin Lukoff and Writes of Way with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.