Another one of the “university” streets in the Hawthorne Hills subdivision, created in 1928, Stanford Avenue NE was named for Stanford University in Stanford, California. It runs ⅓ of a mile in a semicircle from NE 60th Street near 45th Avenue NE in the west to NE 60th Street at 50th Avenue NE in the east.
Oberlin Avenue NE
Oberlin Avenue NE is another one of the “university” streets in the Hawthorne Hills subdivision, created in 1928. It was named for Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, and runs around ⅕ of a mile from 45th Avenue NE in the northwest to Princeton Avenue NE in the southeast.
Wellesley Way NE
Wellesley Way NE is another one of the “university” streets in the Hawthorne Hills subdivision, created in 1928. It was named for Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and runs around ⅕ of a mile from NE 65th Street in the north to NE 60th Street and Ann Arbor Avenue NE in the south.
Vassar Avenue NE
Vassar Avenue NE, another one of the “university” streets in the Hawthorne Hills subdivision, created in 1928, was named for Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. It runs almost ⅖ of a mile from NE 65th Street in the northwest to Stanford Avenue NE in the southeast.
Street sign at corner of University Circle NE and Vassar Avenue NE, October 6, 2010. Photograph by Benjamin Lukoff. Copyright © 2010 Benjamin Lukoff. All rights reserved. Ann Arbor Avenue NE
Another one of the “university” streets in the Hawthorne Hills subdivision, created in 1928, Ann Arbor Avenue NE was named for the University of Michigan, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It runs nearly ½ a mile from Pullman Avenue NE in the south to NE 65th Street in the north.
Purdue Avenue NE
Purdue Avenue NE is another one of the “university” streets in the Hawthorne Hills subdivision, created in 1928. It was named for Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. It runs almost ½ a mile from NE 58th Street and 45th Avenue NE to from NE 60th Street and 51st Avenue NE.
NE Tulane Place
Another one of the “university” streets in the Hawthorne Hills subdivision, created in 1928, NE Tulane Place was named for Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. It runs diagonally a mere tenth of a mile from NE 57th Street and 45th Avenue NE to NE 55th Street.
Pullman Avenue NE
This is another one of the “university” streets in the Hawthorne Hills subdivision, created in 1928. It was named for Washington State College, now Washington State University, in Pullman, Washington.
Pullman Avenue NE begins as an extension of NE 55th Street east of Princeton Avenue NE and goes ⅓ of a mile northeast to NE 60th Street, where it becomes 52nd Avenue NE.
Princeton Avenue NE
This is one of the “university” streets in the Hawthorne Hills subdivision, created in 1928. It was named for Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.
Princeton Avenue NE begins in the south as a bridge crossing the Burke–Gilman Trail just north of Sand Point Way NE, and goes ½ a mile north to NE Princeton Way.
Princeton Avenue Bridge, January 28, 2003. Courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives, identifier 141197 
Street sign at corner of University Circle NE and Princeton Avenue NE, October 6, 2010. Photograph by Benjamin Lukoff. Copyright © 2010 Benjamin Lukoff. All rights reserved. University Circle NE
An article in the July 8, 1928, issue of The Seattle Times describes the new subdivision of Hawthorne Hills thus:
The property is situated on a “hogback” between East 55th and East 65th Streets just east of 35th Avenue Northeast.… It is the largest single piece of undeveloped residence property in the city limits.… Because of its proximity to the University of Washington a community center at the highest point on the property has been designated “University Circle.” At this point, 200 feet in diameter, the principal thoroughfares, named after well-known universities and colleges, converge.
University Circle park is ringed by 400-foot-long University Circle NE, which is approximately 125, not 200, feet in diameter. Vassar Avenue NE, Ann Arbor Avenue NE, and Princeton Avenue NE converge on the circle, while Wellesley Way NE, Stanford Avenue NE, Purdue Avenue NE, Pullman Avenue NE, NE Tulane Place, and Oberlin Avenue NE curve through the rest of the neighborhood. (There does not appear to be any organizing concept behind the selection of schools other than the fact they are institutions of higher education. Pullman and Ann Arbor represent state schools; Princeton, Stanford, Purdue, and Tulane private schools; and Vassar and Wellesley women’s colleges; but why these in particular were chosen, I am not sure. Incidentally, Dartmouth, Harvard, Cornell, Yale, Columbia, and Amherst were already in use elsewhere.)
Hawthorne Hills sign, January 28, 2003. Courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives, identifier 141197 Unfortunately, Hawthorne Hills — named for Hawthorne Kingsbury Dent, founder of what is today Safeco Insurance — was among the subdivisions in Seattle to which the developers attached racially restrictive covenants. In fact, according to the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, “Seattle’s first known racial restrictive covenant was written in 1924 by the Goodwin Company,” which also developed Hawthorne Hills, and
No property in this subdivision could be “sold, conveyed, rented, nor leased, in whole or in part, to any person not of the White race; nor shall any person not of the White race be permitted to occupy any portion of said lot or lots or of any building thereon, except a domestic servant actually employed by a White occupant of such building.”
Two good articles on Hawthorne Hills are “Names in the Neighborhood: From Keith to Hawthorne Hills,” by Valarie Bunn, and “Squatting in Hawthorne Hills,” by Zach van Schouwen.
Turner Way E
This 275-foot-long diagonal street connects 23rd Avenue E to 24th Avenue E between E Ward Street and E Helen Street, allowing the arterial that begins at Jefferson Park on Beacon Hill to have “an easy grade to the Boulevard and Washington Park,” as the advertisement below for the Capitol Hill Addition, Division No. 6 in the October 28, 1905, issue of The Seattle Times explains. (The prediction that “in the near future there is almost sure to be a street car direct to the University” along this route was an accurate one.”
Advertisement for Capitol Hill Addition Division No. 6 in October 28, 1905, issue of The Seattle Times The plat was filed at the request of H.S. Turner on May 25, 1905. Herbert S. Turner (1866–1941) was also involved in developing parts of Montlake, the International District, and the University District.
This was a route I took often as a child, and my working theory then was that it was called Turner because, well, you turned onto it when going from 23rd to 24th, or vice versa. Now, 40 years later, I know better.
Street sign at corner of Turner Way E, E Helen Street, and 24th Avenue E, August 24, 2009. Note that 24th Avenue E is incorrectly labelled 24th Avenue. Photograph by Benjamin Lukoff. Copyright © 2009 Benjamin Lukoff. All rights reserved. Florentia Street
Florentia Street is the last in a series of streets, created in 1888 as part of Denny & Hoyt’s Addition to the City of Seattle, Washington Territory, that appear in alphabetical order and have the common theme of being locations in Italy. From north to south, they are Aetna, Bertona, Cremona, Dravus, Etruria, and Florentia. As can be seen in the plat map below, Florentia is not only the last in the series but the southern boundary of the plat itself.
Florentia is the Latin name of the city of Florence, known in Italian as Firenze.
Portion of plat map of Denny and Hoyt’s Addition to the City of Seattle, Washington Territory (1888) showing Aetna, Bertona, Cremona, Dravus, Etruria, and Florentia Streets Some detail in addition to that gone into in the post on Dravus Street:
- Aetna Street no longer exists, portions having been vacated in 1973 and 1974. Seattle Pacific University’s Royal Brougham Pavilion and Wallace Field now occupy the old right-of-way. Its name referred to Mt. Etna in Sicily, known in Latin as Aetna.
- More than half of Denny and Hoyt’s Addition is in what is now Fremont, north of the Fremont Cut of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which was not finished until 1917. In a sense, this part of Queen Anne is more Fremont than Queen Anne. In the plat map above, the two are separated by Ross Creek and the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway; the modern quarter section map covering the area shows nicely how the canal sliced through.
Florentia Street begins in the east at 4th Avenue N (the southern end of the Fremont Bridge) and goes ½ a mile west to 3rd Avenue W.
Etruria Street
Etruria Street is another one of those streets created in 1888 as part of Denny & Hoyt’s Addition to the City of Seattle, Washington Territory, part of a series — Aetna, Bertona, Cremona, Dravus, Etruria, and Florentia — that appear in alphabetical order and have the common theme of being locations in Italy. Etruria, the land of the ancient Etruscans, was located in what is now the regions of Tuscany, Lazio, and Umbria, northwest of Rome.
Etruria Street begins in the east at the Ship Canal Trail and 3rd Avenue N, and goes just over ⅖ of a mile west to 3rd Avenue W. It resumes east of 8th Avenue W at a Seattle Pacific University parking lot and goes a further ¼ of a mile west to 10th Avenue W.
Cremona Street
Cremona Street is another street created in 1888 as part of Denny & Hoyt’s Addition to the City of Seattle, Washington Territory, part of a series of streets — Aetna, Bertona, Cremona, Dravus, Etruria, and Florentia — that appear in alphabetical order and have the common theme of being locations in Italy. Cremona, or Cremùna in the local dialect, is a city in Lombardy, perhaps best known for its luthiers, most notably Antonio Stradivari.
Cremona Street begins in the east at the Ship Canal Trail and goes ¼ of a mile west to 3rd Avenue W and the entrance to Seattle Pacific University. On the other side of campus it goes a further ⅕ of a mile west from 6th Avenue W to 9th Avenue W.
W Bertona Street
This street, as with Dravus Street, was created in 1888 as part of Denny & Hoyt’s Addition to the City of Seattle, Washington Territory, and is also is part of a series of streets — Aetna, Bertona, Cremona, Dravus, Etruria, and Florentia — that appear in alphabetical order and have the common theme of being locations in Italy. Montebello di Bertona (Mundibbèlle in the Abruzzese dialect) is a small town in Pescara, Abruzzo, located near Mt. Bertona.
Technically, W Bertona Street begins as Bertona Street at the Ship Canal Trail around 80 feet east of Queen Anne Avenue N, but both streets there are little more than parking aisles nestled up against Seattle Pacific University’s Wallace Field. W Bertona begins in earnest at W Nickerson Street and goes ¾ of a mile west to 14th Avenue W, where it becomes a block-long stairway to 15th Avenue W. On the other side of 15th, it goes two more blocks before being stopped by the BNSF Railway tracks at 17th Avenue W; on the other side of the tracks it goes ⅗ of a mile west from 20th Avenue W to 30th Avenue W, becoming a stairway again for a block just about halfway. As with its Magnolia partner W Dravus Street, it’s ⅓ of a mile from 31st Avenue W to 36th Avenue W, where it becomes a stairway for a block, and then ½ a mile more from 37th Avenue W to 45th Avenue W. There is finally a 300-foot-long segment west of Perkins Lane W, where the roadway ends. (There is a shoreline street end beyond that, but it is currently inaccessible.)
Bertona Street east of Queen Anne Avenue N, November 2021. The 2 Nickerson Street office building is at right; the row of trees is between the Ship Canal Trail and the Fremont Cut. Fremont and the Aurora Bridge are visible in the distance. Photograph by Benjamin Lukoff. Copyright © 2021 Benjamin Lukoff. All rights reserved. Dravus Street
This street was created in 1888 as part of Denny & Hoyt’s Addition to the City of Seattle, Washington Territory by Edward Blewett and his wife, Carrie, of Fremont, Nebraska, who had purchased the land a few months earlier from Arthur Denny and John Hoyt. According to Valarie Bunn in her article “Fremont in Seattle: Street Names and Neighborhood Boundaries,” Edward Corliss Kilbourne may have done much of the actual naming of streets as attorney-in-fact for the Blewetts.
Portion of plat map of Denny and Hoyt’s Addition to the City of Seattle, Washington Territory (1888) showing Aetna, Bertona, Cremona, Dravus, Etruria, and Florentia Streets As can be seen in the plat map above, Dravus is part of a series of streets — Aetna, Bertona, Cremona, Dravus, Etruria, and Florentia — that appear in alphabetical order and have the common theme of being locations in Italy, which had been unified 17 years earlier. I have yet to find a connection between Denny, Hoyt, the Blewetts, or Kilbourne and Italy. The closest I’ve come is an item in the February 28, 1903, issue of The Seattle Mail and Herald, which reports that “on February 27, the Woman’s Century Club met and discussed the subject ‘Italian Art and Literature.’ Mrs. Bessie L. Savage and Mrs. E.C. Kilbourne [Leilla Shorey] prepared papers relating to these subjects.” I would love to find out if there’s anything more solid!
The Drava River, which originates in the Italian region of the South Tyrol, flows from there through Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia, forming much of the border between that country and Hungary, and joining the Danube on the Croatia–Serbia border. It was known as Dravus in Latin and Δράβος in Greek.
Dravus Street begins in the east at Nickerson Street and goes ⅗ of a mile west to 8th Avenue W and Conkling Place W. It resumes for half a block at 10th Avenue W, is briefly a foot path and stairway, and then is an arterial connecting Queen Anne and Magnolia via Interbay, going just over a mile from 11th Avenue W to 30th Avenue W. (This section was originally known as Grand Boulevard, and indeed W Dravus is double the width of the other streets in the area, though it features wide planting strips instead of a central median.) It’s ⅓ of a mile from 31st Avenue W to 36th Avenue W, where it becomes a stairway for a block, and then ½ a mile more from 37th Avenue W to just west of Magnolia Boulevard W, where the roadway ends. (There is a shoreline street end off Perkins Lane W, but it is currently inaccessible.)
W Armour Street
This street was named in 1890 as part of Gilman’s Addition to the City of Seattle, which, as noted in Gilman Avenue W and other articles on streets in that addition, was associated with Daniel Hunt Gilman and the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway (SLS&E).
In the below excerpt from Thomas W. Prosch’s A Chronological History of Seattle from 1850 to 1897 (1901), some of Gilman’s fellow investors are listed, including Judge Thomas Burke (Burke Avenue N, Burke–Gilman Trail), James D. Smith (W Commodore Way), and Herman Ossian Armour. (The D is a typo, perhaps because of his brother, Philip Danforth Armour’s, middle initial.) The brothers founded the Chicago meatpacking company Armour and Company in 1867.
Paragraph on establishment of Puget Sound Construction Company in 1886 In his article “The Orphan Railroad and the Rams Horn Right of Way,” in the April 1923 issue of The Washington Historial Quarterly, C.H. Hanford writes of the SLS&E, “A number of Seattle men… subscribed to the capital of the new company to the extent of their means, and having gained so much, Gilman and Judge Burke were successful in inducing Philip D. Armour of Chicago to advance the money required to start the enterprise.” So it is unclear just which Armour brother the street is named for — perhaps it is named for them both.
W Armour Street starts at 1st Avenue N and goes two blocks west to 1st Avenue W, where it is stopped by Rodgers Park. It makes it two more blocks, from 3rd Avenue W to 5th Avenue W, before again being stopped, this time by Mount Pleasant Cemetery. From there it exists in a number of short segments, including paths and stairs, before being stopped, once again, by the Interbay Golf Center at 15th Avenue W. Once across the railroad tracks in Magnolia, there is a nearly uninterrupted ¾ mile stretch from Thorndyke Avenue W to the West Magnolia Playfield at 32nd Avenue W, and then a few more short segments west of 34th Avenue W, ending for good at 46th Avenue W. (There is a shoreline street end off Perkins Lane W, but it is currently inaccessible.)
W Commodore Way
W Commodore Way, which runs 1⅓ miles along Salmon Bay from 21st Avenue W to 40th Avenue W, obviously has a nautical name, but is its backstory as simple as that, like NE Boat Street along Portage Bay? Or does it honor a particular person?
The only online mention I’ve seen of a possible specific referent of Commodore is in the Don Sherwood Parks History file for Commodore Park:
Who was particularly in mind when the street was named Commodore Way is not recorded. However, the choice of Commodore Peary’s flagship [the SS Roosevelt]… to participate in the dedication of the [Ballard] Locks is significant. Peary must have sailed from Seattle as the port nearest Alaska and the Arctic.
It’s a reasonable theory on its face, but there are some major flaws. The street was named in 1890 as part of Gilman’s Addition to the City of Seattle, when Peary was a lieutenant — 19 years before he reached the North Pole (supposedly) and 27 years before the Ballard Locks were dedicated. In addition, Peary’s port of departure was New York, not Seattle. It doesn’t seem possible Commodore Way was named for Robert E. Peary.
Rather, I think there’s good evidence it was named for James Dickinson Smith (1829–1909), commodore of the New York Yacht Club in 1882 and 1883 and president of the New York Stock Exchange in 1885 and 1886. In Men of Progress: Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Leaders in Business and Professional Life in and of the State of Connecticut (1898), they write that he “has a national and international reputation as a yachtsman, and is best known all over the world as Commodore James D. Smith.” But where is the connection to Seattle? And why Commodore Way instead of Smith Way?
James Dickinson Smith I first became aware of Smith’s connection to Seattle when I came across this line in the March 30, 1890, issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, while looking for a connection between Commodore and the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway: “Mr. J.S. Dunham, treasurer of the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern, and Commodore Smith visited Snohomish yesterday.”
Item mentioning Commodore Smith in March 30, 1890, issue of Seattle Post-Intelligencer Before I go too much farther, I should note that the landowners in the plat of Gilman’s Addition were listed as Dr. Henry A. Smith and Franklin M. Jones and his wife, Carrie B. Jones. Franklin was a member of the New York banking firm Jameson, Smith and Cotting, financiers of the business ventures of Daniel Hunt Gilman, including the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway (SLS&E). Hence the search terms I’d been using at Washington Digital Newspapers.
This article from the June 17, 1897, issue of the P-I also came up, further associating Commodore Smith (to distinguish him from Dr. Smith) with the SLS&E and with New York:
Portion of article mentioning Commodore Smith in June 17, 1897, issue of Seattle Post-Intelligencer I then did some reading on Commodore Smith… but still wasn’t quite sure until I found this passage in Men of Mark in Connecticut: Ideals of American Life Told in Biographies and Autobiographies of Eminent Living Americans (1904): “Among his successful performances was the establishment, in 1865, of the banking firm of Jameson, Smith & Cotting, now the banking house of James D. Smith & Company.” So Commodore Smith was the Smith in Jameson, Smith and Cotting! If J.A. Jameson merited a street (W Jameson Street), surely so did Commodore Smith. And why Commodore Way instead of Smith Way? Because there was another Smith to be honored — Dr. Henry A. Smith (Smith Street, as well as Smith Cove).
It may not have been one of the great mysteries of the ages, but I do think I may have solved this one.
Thorndyke Avenue W
This street was named for Grace Chalmers Thorndike (, who married Daniel Hunt Gilman (Gilman Avenue W) in 1888. It was created in 1890 as part of Gilman’s Addition to the City of Seattle. The original plan was that Gilman and Thorndyke Avenues would intersect each other at Grand Boulevard (now W Dravus Street), but this was changed, as can be seen in the plat map below, likely in the knowledge that the tracks of the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway would soon multiply and make that impractical.
Gilman’s Addition to Seattle, 1890 It’s not entirely clear why the street is named Thorndyke rather than Thorndike. There was an announcement of the Gilman–Thorndike wedding in the January 15, 1888, issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that spelled the name with a y, but otherwise the family’s name routinely appears in the Seattle press with an i. Yet we see that Grace’s sister Minnie — wife of James Bothwell (W Bothwell Street) — spelled her name with a y (at any rate, that is what appears on her tombstone).
(It’s also worth noting that Grace’s sister Estella married Captain William Rankin Ballard, after which the Ballard neighborhood is named, and her sister Delia married Ballard’s business partner Captain John Ayres Hatfield. The Thorndikes’ father was himself a ship’s captain, one Ebenezer Augustus Thorndike.)
Today, Thorndyke Avenue W begins at W Galer Street, at the west end of the Magnolia Bridge, and goes just over a mile northwest to 20th Avenue W and W Barrett Street. It picks up again as a minor road on the other side of the BNSF Railway tracks, going about ⅕ of a mile northwest from 17th Avenue W and W Bertona Street to a dead end under the 15th/Emerson/Nickerson overpass at the south end of the Ballard Bridge.
Gilman Avenue W
This street was named for Daniel Hunt Gilman (1845–1913), who among other things was one of the founders of the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway (SLS&E) in 1885. The SLS&E is now part of the BNSF Railway, and its old right-of-way along the Lake Washington Ship Canal and Lake Washington is now the Burke–Gilman Trail.
Daniel Hunt Gilman, circa 1890 The street was created in 1890 as part of Gilman’s Addition to the City of Seattle by Dr. Henry A. Smith (Smith Cove) and Franklin M. Jones and his wife, Carrie B. Jones. Franklin was a member of the New York banking firm Jameson, Smith and Cotting, financiers of Gilman’s business ventures.
Today, Gilman Avenue W begins at 20th Avenue W and W Bertona Street and goes ⁹⁄₁₀ of a mile northwest to 28th Place W, where it becomes W Government Way. The right-of-way continues on from there, though, and there is a 120-foot-long segment between 32nd Avenue W and Gay Avenue W and then, on the other side of Kiwanis Memorial Preserve Park, another 120-foot-long segment at the end of 34th Avenue W.
Originally, Gilman Avenue W existed east of the railroad tracks as well, but that section, between 15th Avenue W and 11th Avenue W, was changed to Gilman Drive W in 1961.
Gilman’s Addition to Seattle, 1890 W Grover Street
This Magnolia street, like W Tilden Street, was named by Dr. Francis G. Bryant as part of the 1877 Bay View Addition to the City of Seattle. As I noted in the Tilden Street article, he named his streets for prominent Democratic politicians of the era. Only Tilden and Grover remain. It would appear that the Grover in question was La Fayette Grover, governor of Oregon from 1870 to 1877 and senator from Oregon from 1877 to 1883.
As Wikipedia notes, “During the [disputed] 1876 presidential election, Oregon’s statewide result clearly favored Rutherford Hayes, but then-governor Grover claimed that elector John Watts was constitutionally ineligible to vote since he was an ‘elected or appointed official’. Grover substituted a Democratic elector in his place. The two Republican electors dismissed Grover’s action and each reported three votes for Hayes, while the Democratic elector, C. A. Cronin, reported one vote for Samuel Tilden and two votes for Hayes. The vote was critical because the electoral college without John Watts’s vote was tied 184–184.”
As it turns out, the election was ultimately awarded to Hayes as part of the Compromise of 1877, but it appears Governor Grover did his best to help his fellow Democrat. (There’s more about Oregon’s pivotal role in the Wilamette Week article “That One Time Oregon Decided the Presidential Election.”)
W Grover Street begins at 28th Avenue W at the entrance to Magnolia Manor Park, and runs a tenth of a mile west to 30th Avenue W. It then runs one more block from 31st Avenue W to 32nd Avenue W.
W Tilden Street
This Magnolia street was named by Dr. Francis G. Bryant as part of the 1877 Bay View Addition to the City of Seattle for Samuel J. Tilden, governor of New York from 1875 to 1876 and Democratic candidate for president in the election of 1876. The Compromise of 1877, according to Wikipedia, “resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and ending the Reconstruction Era. Through the Compromise, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the White House over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden on the understanding that Hayes would remove the federal troops whose support was essential for the survival of Republican state governments in South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana.” The plat was filed on February 17 — while the Electoral Commission was in session and had not yet awarded the election to Hayes.
Of the other named streets in the Bay View Addition, only Grover remains, but most of them appear to be named for prominent Democratic politicians of the era (Jackson excepted, as he died 32 years earlier). I left off the two I could not associate with anyone (Randall, Nichols) and am not as sure about Williams as I am about the others:
- Jackson — President Andrew Jackson (namesake of S Jackson Street)
- Hendricks — Thomas A. Hendricks, former governor of Indiana, Tilden’s running mate
- Grover — La Fayette Grover, governor of Oregon
- Randall — Samuel J. Randall, speaker of the House
- Hewett — Abram Hewitt, New York congressman, chairman of the Democratic National Committee
- Hampton — Wade Hampton III, governor of South Carolina (disputed until April 11, uncontested thereafter)
- Williams — James D. Williams, Hendricks’ successor as governor of Indiana
As for Dr. Bryant, I was unable to find out much about him other than he was some sort of doctor and filed a patent in 1877 for a new type of fire escape.
W Tilden Street begins at 28th Avenue W and goes just about 1,000 feet west to 31st Avenue W, its last hundred feet being a footpath through the landscaped right-of-way. On the other side of the valley, there is a 225-foot-long segment from 37th Avenue W to 38th Avenue W.
S River Street
S River Street is just ½ a mile long, and none of it parallels the Duwamish River. The reason behind this is the same reason S Front Street is perpendicular to the waterway — the rechanneling of the Duwamish River that began in 1913. In Joseph R. McLaughlin’s Water Front Addition to the City of Seattle, filed in 1906, Front Street had a horseshoe shape. North Front Street is today’s Front Street, and South Front Street was changed to River Street in 1907, when West Seattle was annexed to Seattle. The Baist Atlas depiction of the Oxbow, below left, is from 1912, so has the modern name.
Today’s S River Street begins at 7th Avenue S and goes ½ a mile west, ending at 1st Avenue S, below the 1st Avenue S Bridge.
Signs at corner of S River Street and 7th Avenue S, May 22, 2013. Photograph by Benjamin Lukoff. Copyright © 2013 Benjamin Lukoff. All rights reserved. S Front Street
Usually, a Front Street designates a city’s waterfront. Front Street in Philadelphia parallels the Delaware River; NW Front Avenue in Portland, Oregon, goes up the Willamette River; Front Street in Toronto runs along Lake Ontario. Seattle once had a prominent Front Street alongside Elliott Bay, but it was renamed 1st Avenue in 1895. The Front Street we do have runs a grand total of ⅖ of a mile split among three segments, and it runs east–west, while the nearby Duwamish River runs north–south. Why is this?
As it turns out, S Front Street — established as part of Joseph R. McLaughlin’s Water Front Addition to the City of Seattle in 1906 — did use to run along the river, before it was rechanneled beginning in 1913. (Here is an excellent post from the Burke Museum on the Duwamish meanders, with some great maps and aerials.) The maps below show its course along the Duwamish River Oxbow in 1912 (left) and its current landlocked state (right). You can still make out its former location, as well as small remnants in the form of the Slip 2 and Slip 3 inlets. (Incidentally, Front Street originally was shaped like a horseshoe — today’s S Front Street was originally North Front Street, and South Front Street is today S River Street.)
Speaking of the Oxbow, here’s an advertisement for it. So much for that “16,000 feet of deep water frontage.”
Advertisement for Oxbow in June 1, 1906, issue of The Seattle Times Today’s S Front Street begins at 6th Avenue S and goes ¼ of a mile west, ending just beyond 4th Avenue S. There is another 400-foot-long section between E Marginal Way S and 1st Avenue S, below the approach to the 1st Avenue S Bridge. And then there is one last 200-foot-long section on the west side of the Duwamish River — SW Front Street starts at W Marginal Way SW and ends at the entrance to the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 115 (which used to be Boeing Plant 1, the airplane manufacturer’s first production facility).
Incidentally, here’s a great article on the one in New Orleans I came across while looking up various Front Streets. It’s hard to beat a lede like this: “In a city replete with famed streets, scenic avenues and poetic street names, one particular artery excels at being obscure, nominally insipid, marvelously intermittent, and sometimes barely even a street.”
Sign at corner of SW Front Street and W Marginal Way SW, May 20, 2013. Photograph by Benjamin Lukoff. Copyright © 2013 Benjamin Lukoff. All rights reserved. Lenora Street
This street is named for Margaret Lenora Denny (1847–1915), daughter of Arthur Armstrong Denny and Mary Ann Boren Denny. She, like Virginia Bell (namesake of Virginia Street) was just four years old when her family, as part of the Denny Party, settled at Alki Point in 1851. She was killed in a car crash that also took the life of Thomas W. Prosch (Prosch Avenue W); his wife, Virginia; and artist Harriet Foster Beecher.
Margaret Lenora Denny, circa 1900 Established as part of A.A. Denny’s 6th Addition to the City of Seattle in 1873, it begins at Alaskan Way as an (temporarily closed as of this writing) elevator and pedestrian bridge over the BNSF Railway tracks. The street proper begins just west of where Elliott Avenue ends at Western Avenue. From there it is just shy of ¾ of a mile to its end at Denny Way and Boren Avenue.
Virginia Street
This street is named for Mary Virginia Bell Hall (1847–1931), daughter of William Nathaniel Bell and Sarah Ann Peter Bell. Belltown and Bell Street were named for her father, Olive Way for her sister, and Stewart Street for her brother-in-law. She was just four years old when her family, as part of the Denny Party, settled at Alki Point in 1851.
Virginia Bell, circa 1875 Established as part of the Plat of an Addition to the Town of Seattle, Washington Territory, Laid Off by the Heirs of Sarah A. Bell, Deceased in 1872, it begins at Western Avenue by Steinbrueck Park, at the northwest end of Pike Place Market, and goes ¾ of a mile northeast to Minor Avenue and Denny Way.
Stewart Street
This street is named for Joseph Stewart (1830–1889), husband of Olive Julia Bell Stewart (Olive Way). It was established in 1872 as part of the Plat of an Addition to the Town of Seattle, Washington Territory, Laid Off by the Heirs of Sarah A. Bell, Deceased.
Stewart Street begins at Pike Place and ends ⁹⁄₁₀ of a mile to the northwest at Eastlake Avenue E and John Street.
Olive Way
This street is named for Olive Julia Bell Stewart (1846–1921), daughter of William Nathaniel Bell and Sarah Ann Peter Bell. Belltown and Bell Street were named for her father, Virginia Street for her sister, and Stewart Street for her husband, Joseph. She was one of the younger members of the Denny Party, being five years old when they initially settled at Alki Point in 1851.
Olive Bell, circa 1860 Originally called Olive Street in the Plat of an Addition to the Town of Seattle, Washington Territory, Laid Off by the Heirs of Sarah A. Bell, Deceased in 1872, it begins at Stewart Street just east of 3rd Avenue and goes one mile northeast, then east, to Broadway E and E John Street.
On September 3, 1920, The Seattle Times reported that:
Extension of Olive Street, by the establishment of a diagonal thoroughfare to be known as Olive Way, running from the intersection of Olive Street in a northeasterly direction to Boylston Avenue North and East Denny Way, is provided in an ordinance completed yesterday afternoon by the city engineer’s office…. The purpose of the whole improvement is to afford an east and west arterial highway, leading from the business district into the residence section of the city, supplementary to Pike Street and Pine Street.
According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s June 24, 1923, issue, it “formally opened to traffic yesterday… a public improvement for which a fight extending over a period of fifteen years was waged,” so this 1920 ordinance was certainly not the first time an improved connection between Downtown and Capitol Hill was proposed. I’m not entirely sure what happened in 1908 the writer might have been referring to, but perhaps it was the Bogue Plan and he was off by a few years?
Portion of plate 7, Baist’s Real Estate Atlas of Seattle (1912), planned route of E Olive Way drawn in pencil. The portion of E Olive St between Melrose and Bellevue Avenues is now E Olive Place. It appears from the 1921 ordinance establishing the extension that the Olive Way name was originally only applied to the street east of Bellevue Avenue; it wasn’t until 1926 that it was extended west to the street’s origin.
One curiosity about E Olive Way addresses: the block numbers are out of sync with other east–west streets in the area. For example, the block east of Melrose Avenue is the 300 block, east of Bellevue Avenue the 400 block, east of Summit 500, east of Belmont 600, east of Boylston 700, etc. — for other streets. For E Olive Way, east of Melrose is 1300, east of Bellevue 1400 and 1500, east of Summit and Belmont 1600, east of Boylston 1700, etc. — essentially continuing on from Downtown, not starting over at what is now the route of Interstate 5, as the other streets do.
Vashon Place SW
This street — just about 350 feet long, like its neighbor Blake Place SW — connects SW Othello Street to Fauntleroy Way SW just north of Solstice Park. Created as part of the Lincoln Home Addition in 1907 by builder Albert Eugene Felmley and his wife, Mabel L. Felmley, it is named after Vashon Island, located 4 miles to the southwest, across Puget Sound. The island itself was named for Royal Navy Admiral James Vashon by his friend, Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver, in 1792.
Two other streets in the Lincoln Home Addition are named for Puget Sound islands: the already-mentioned Blake Place SW, and Bainbridge Place SW.
Aerial view of Vashon and Maury Islands from the northwest. Photograph by Flickr user Travis, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic Blake Place SW
This 350-foot-long street connects SW Othello Street to SW Fontanelle Street just north of Solstice Park. It was created as part of the Lincoln Home Addition in 1907 by builder Albert Eugene Felmley and his wife, Mabel L. Felmley, and is named after Blake Island, located 4⅖ miles to the west, across Puget Sound. The island itself was named for U.S. Navy Commodore George Smith Blake, then head of the United States Coast Survey, by Charles Wilkes in 1841.
Two other streets in the Lincoln Home Addition are named for Puget Sound islands: Bainbridge Place SW and Vashon Place SW.
Aerial view of Blake Island from the east (West Seattle in foreground). Photograph by Joe Mabel, Wikimedia Commons, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
