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 Times, the Hamblets had their homestead where Ballard High School is today. Alonzo was one of the men behind the West Coast Improvement Company that developed Ballard (then known as Gilman Park).
Alonzo Avenue NW begins at NW 67th Street just north of the high school and goes ⅖ of a mile to NW 75th Street.
Born and raised in Seattle, Benjamin Donguk Lukoff had his interest in local history kindled at the age of six, when his father bought him settler granddaughter Sophie Frye Bass’s Pig-Tail Days in Old Seattle at the gift shop of the Museum of History and Industry. He studied English, Russian, and linguistics at the University of Washington, and went on to earn his master’s in English linguistics from University College London. His book of rephotography, Seattle Then and Now, was published in 2010. An updated version came out in 2015.
Useful. Wondering who Albro Place was named for?
Good question! My friend and fellow local historian Rob Ketcherside writes that he thinks it was named after Albro Gardner, “the 3-time former County Surveyor and former (~1890) Seattle city engineer…. Gardner presented a plan to the city on how to level Denny Hill. He was a major property owner on the hill and represented an owners’ group that wanted the hill removed.”