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Bigelow Avenue N
This street was named for developer Isaac Newton Bigelow (1838–1922). The Queen Anne Historic Context Statement, as we quoted in Newton Street, says: In the early 1870s, the Denny and Mercer families gradually began to systematically…
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Alonzo Avenue NW
This street was named for Alonzo Hamblet (1863–1937), son of Eli (1820–1905) and Mary Booth Hamblet (1840–1905), namesake of Mary Avenue NW. According to an article in the November 19, 1937 issue of The Seattle…
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Mary Avenue NW
This street was named for Mary Booth Hamblet (1840–1905), wife of Eli (1820–1905) and mother of Alonzo (1863–1937), namesake of Alonzo Avenue NW. The Hamblets were early Ballard settlers, and according to an article in…
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S Industrial Way
In 1930, Seattle City Light acquired a number of transmission line rights-of-way. The one immediately concerning us approaches the utility’s South Service Center from the southeast. East of Interstate 5, the Chief Sealth Trail runs…
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Colorado Avenue S
This street was created in 1895 as part of the plat of Seattle’s tide lands. As Seattle expanded to the south, it became obvious that Commercial Street (1st Avenue S) would not be the westernmost…
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NE Pacific Street
What is now Pacific Street was Harrison Avenue in the 1889 Latona Addition and Railroad Avenue in the 1890 Brooklyn Addition, corresponding to the eastern part of Northlake and to the University District, respectively. The…
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Joliet Avenue W
This street was created in 1895 as part of the Seattle Tide Lands plat (in full, Seattle Tide Lands as Surveyed and Platted by the Board of Appraisers of Tide and Shore Lands for King…
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Viewmont Way W
This street was created in 1915 as part of the plat of Carleton Park, a replat of much of southwest Magnolia (basically a triangle formed by W Raye Street, 34th Avenue W, and Magnolia Boulevard…
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W Blewett Way
This street is named for Edward Blewett (1848–1929), one of the developers of the Fremont neighborhood (named after his hometown, Fremont, Nebraska). “But,” you might say, “if he developed Fremont, why is W Blewett Way…
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Van Buren Avenue W
This street first appears in the 1875 plat of the Northern Addition to Seattle, W.T., filed by James Marston McNaught (1842–1919) and his wife, Agnes Martha Hyde McNaught (1856–1918). James was “a wealthy lawyer working…
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Albert Place W
Our first paper street, W Semple Street, was in Magnolia, and so is our second! In 1907, Anna Sophia Brygger (1852–1940) (NW Brygger Place, Brygger Drive W) filed the plat of Lawton Heights in Magnolia.…
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Brooklyn Avenue NE
This street was named after the Brooklyn Addition to Seattle, platted by James Alexander Moore (1861–1929) in 1890. The addition itself was named for Brooklyn, New York (see the history of the University District Paul…
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Diagonal Avenue S
This street in the Industrial District is so named because it cuts diagonally across the street grid, going northeast–southwest rather than east–west or north–south. But why is it there in the first place? In a…
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N Canal Street
This street appears to have been built sometime between 1908 and 1912. (It was established by ordinance in 1906, but that was legislation, not construction. [It was also originally named Ewing Street, the original name…
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S Riverside Drive
As you might expect, this street is so named because it runs along the west bank of the Duwamish Waterway. However, it only does so for about ⅖ of a mile, from S Webster Street…
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S Southern Street
Having covered E North Street, Eastern Avenue N, and Western Avenue, we now come to S Southern Street! This street originated in the 1891 plat of River Park, filed by Alexander Prentice (1820–1909) and his…
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Fremont Avenue N
This street is named for Fremont, Nebraska, hometown of two of the developers of the Fremont neighborhood: Edward Blewett (1848–1929) and Luther Henry Griffith (1861–1925). The city itself was named after John Charles Frémont (1813–1890). Fremont…
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Western Avenue
This street appears to originate in this 1871 plat made by Arthur A. Denny. Unlike with E North Street or Eastern Avenue N, no mystery here: originally named West Street, it was the first street…
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Thackeray Place NE
This street appears to be named for the British writer William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), best known for his 1848 novel Vanity Fair. As local historian Rob Ketcherside explains in his blog post on “Renaming streets of…
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Eastern Avenue N
Just as with E North Street, one question that should spring to mind with a street name like this is Eastern side of what? — especially considering that it’s not too far from being equidistant…