Dillis Ward, when a young man, did his part in building the old University for he drove a team that hauled stone and lime for the foundation. After the building was finished, he entered as a pupil into the first class. He taught school later on, and many an old-timer can recall the genial, kindly school teacher.
According to this biography, Ward, who came to Seattle in 1859, also had a hand in founding both The Post (a predecessor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) and The Seattle Daily Chronicle (a predecessor of The Seattle Times). However, his name does not appear in Professor Edmond S. Meany’s Newspapers of Washington Territory, in this article on the Post Building from the Pacific Coast Architecture Database, or in this HistoryLink article on the history of the P-I. All of them do mention brothers Kirk C. and Mark Ward, but Dillis’s entry at FamilySearch mentions no siblings, and Mark and Kirk’s entries do not mention Dillis. However, they do appear to have the same father, Jesse Ward. It looks as if Dillis was Jesse’s son from his first marriage, to Elizabeth Raley. As she died the same year Dillis was born, it may have been in childbirth. Kirk and Mark appear to be Jesse’s sons from his subsequent marriage to Exeline Cason. Exactly what part he may have played in the founding of the papers, and why this is missing from the articles above (and, incidentally, from Pig-Tail Days, which one would think might have mentioned this fact) is unclear.
Ward Street begins at Queen Anne Avenue N and goes ⅗ of a mile east to Aurora Avenue N. There is a short segment of E Ward Street on Capitol Hill between 14th Avenue E and 15th Avenue E, followed by another one, ⅓ of a mile long, from 23rd Avenue E and Turner Way E down the hill to 29th Avenue E and E Aloha Street, at the west end of Washington Park Playfield. There follows another one-block segment on the other side of the park, between 31st Avenue E and 32nd Avenue E, and a final segment from 34th Avenue E to 37th Avenue E.
My good friend and former Amazon Music colleague Thomas May — a freelance arts and theatre writer and proprietor of Memeteria.com — was in Port Angeles, Washington, the other day. Knowing, of course, of my address nerdery, he sent me these photos he took of street signs at the corner of W Front Street and N Oak Street:
I was delighted and asked if I could use his photos on Writes of Way. He agreed, and this is the resulting post.
It seems that these Klallam-language signs were installed in 2016 at the N Oak Street/W Front Street and N Oak Street/W Railroad Avenue intersections as part of the redevelopment of the Port Angeles waterfront and as a way to honor the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, whose traditional land this is. (The village of č̕ixʷícən was located where downtown Port Angeles is now.) There are similar street signs on the Lower Elwha and Port Gamble S’Klallam reservations, but these are the only ones I am aware of in the middle of a city.
I would love to see something like this in Seattle, whether that be bilingual street signs or signs giving the Lushootseed names of various locations around town — or both. Perhaps someday.
This photograph is undated, but must have been taken before Rezin left the family around 1880. Margaret sued Rezin for divorce that year and he “fled to California,” not to return for many years.
Pontius Avenue N runs ⅓ of a mile from John Street north to just past Mercer Street, where it dead-ends at the Interstate 5–Mercer Street interchange (originally constructed in 1962–1963 as part of the planned Bay Freeway, which was cancelled 10 years later with little more progress having been made. Its original northern end was Roy Street.) Pontius originally began one block further south, at Denny Way, but this portion was vacated as part of the construction of the Denny Substation.*
* Or was it? The clerk file indicates the vacation was granted, but I can find no related ordinance, and the King County Parcel Viewer and quarter section map show the Pontius right-of-way still existing between Denny and John. Something for me to look into… sometime.
Today, W Republican Street begins a block west of 4th Avenue W and goes ⅖ of a mile east to Warren Avenue N, where it becomes Seattle Center’s pedestrian August Wilson Way. On the east side of Seattle Center, there is a one-block segment of Republican Street between 4th Avenue N and 5th Avenue N; the street then resumes at Dexter Avenue N at the northbound exit from the State Route 99 Tunnel. From there, it runs ⅔ of a mile east to Eastlake Avenue E, where it is blocked by Interstate 5. Resuming east of I-5 as a stairway at Melrose Avenue E, it becomes a street again after half a block and goes another 1⅕ miles from Bellevue Avenue E to 23rd Avenue E, interrupted only once at 17th Avenue E, which can only be crossed by pedestrians and bicycles. After a substantial gap, E Republican Street begins again at 29th Avenue E and E Arthur Place in Madison Valley, and goes ⅖ east to its end at Lake Washington Boulevard E.
(From 33rd Avenue E to Lake Washington Boulevard E, it forms the northern boundary of the Bush School campus; when I went there in the 1980s and 1990s, people from out of town thought I was joking when I told them I went to Bush School on Republican Street. The school, of course, wasn’t named for a member of the Bush political dynasty, but rather for its founder, Helen Taylor Bush.)
Like SW Bataan Street, Lanham Place SW is part of High Point, originally developed by the Seattle Housing Authority in 1942 as defense housing and redeveloped in 2004. The name was originally applied to SW Lanham Way, and was preserved while some other names, including SW Snow Court, Cycle Lane SW, and MacArthur Court SW, were eliminated. It was named for Fritz G. Lanham, Texas congressman, who sponsored the Lanham Act that created the Defense Homes Corporation.
Today, Lanham Place SW begins at 32nd Avenue SW and SW Raymond Street and goes ¼ mile southeast to 31st Avenue SW, Sylvan Way SW, and SW Morgan Street.
High Point, originally developed by the Seattle Housing Authority in 1942 as defense housing, was redeveloped in 2004. It was reconnected to the street grid, and as part of the process some street names, including SW Snow Court, Cycle Lane SW, MacArthur Court SW, and Bataan Place SW, were eliminated. (They are still visible in the city clerk’s geographic indexing atlas, which was created before the redevelopment and has not been updated.) No one appeared to care much about the loss of Snow, Cycle, or MacArthur (named for General Douglas MacArthur, who had recently evacuated to Australia when the fall of the Philippines seemed imminent).* The loss of Bataan, named for the World War II battle that took place on the Bataan Peninsula on the island of Luzon, was another story, however, and SW Eddy Street was quickly renamed SW Bataan Street, enabling the city to continue to “memorialize and honor the 10,000 American and Filipino soldiers who lost their lives in the Bataan death march.”
* See the August 7, 1943, Seattle Times article ‘City’s Wartime Additions Inspire Some Monickers’ for the story behind the street names in High Point, Rainier Vista, and other Seattle Housing Authority projects.
Because Squire was the first to apply the name to a street, I count E Remington Court as ultimately being named after his wife, Ida, though one could say Greene’s preservation of the name, after the E Jefferson Street name had been extended by ordinance in 1895 from First Hill to Lake Washington, might also have been to honor his mother, Catherine.
Watson Carvosso Squire and his wife, Ida Remington, circa 1910
This hook-shaped street on Beacon Hill begins where S Myrtle Street turns into Swift Avenue S, and goes just over 700 feet north, west, and then south to a point 300 feet to the northwest. It was created in 1967 as the only street in the plat of Covello Estates, filed by S.T. Covello, whose full name appears to be Salvatore Tony Covello (1913–1996). He was the son of Filippo and Josephine (Curreri) Covello, who came to the United States from Italy in 1908. An article in the September 25, 1946, Seattle Times mentions him as the owner of the Hillman City Radio and Electric Company, and one in the March 4, 1956, Times lists him as a candidate for the King County Board of Education.
This street, which appears to have been established as part of the 1906 Replat of McGilvra’s Addition and Second Addition to the City of Seattle (an abbreviation of its much longer name), was named for John J. McGilvra (1827–1903). Born in Livingston County, New York, McGilvra moved to Illinois at the age of 17, and became a lawyer nine years later. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln, who McGilvra reportedly knew as a fellow Illinois lawyer, appointed him United States Attorney for the Territory of Washington. In 1864, he moved to Seattle. That same year, he and his wife, Elizabeth, bought 420 acres of land in what is now Madison Park and became the area’s first settlers. McGilvra had Madison Street extended to the lakefront — it is still the only street to extend from Elliott Bay to Lake Washington without interruption — and later helped establish the Madison Street Cable Railway Company and Madison Park at its eastern terminus. In 1865 he relinquished the post of U.S. attorney. He was a member of the Territorial Legislature in 1866 and 1867, and Seattle city attorney in 1876 and 1877. He retired in 1890.
John J. McGilvra, circa 1890
Today, McGilvra Boulevard E begins in the south at 39th Avenue E and Lake Washington Boulevard E and goes 1⅖ miles north to E McGilvra Street. Unlike most other boulevards in the city, it is not an Olmsted boulevard — McGilvra was reportedly opposed to the movement that resulted in the hiring of the Olmsted Brothers in 1903 (the year of his death) to design a system of parks and boulevards for Seattle, though there is no evidence the two are directly related.
An ordinance accepting deeds from Hubert W. Youngs and Maude E. Youngs, husband and wife, Harry Richmond, William G. Knox, and Bessie S. Woodworth, for an easement for sewer over and across a portion of J. J. McGilvra’s 2nd Addition and Lake Washington Shore Lands.
Since Knox Place is very close to where the two plats meet, I figure it’s a good bet that William G. Knox has something to do with Knox Place. FamilySearch says a William Gifford Knox (1884–1964) lived in Seattle for a time, and even had a scan of his draft registration card for World War I, from September 12, 1918. He appears to have been a salesman for the Dennison Manufacturing Company downtown, and his address is given as 1836 Laurel Shade Avenue. That street is now 43rd Avenue E, putting his residence just a few blocks north of Knox Place E. So, although I don’t have the whole story, I think we now know who Knox Place is named for.
William Gifford Knox draft registration card for World War I, September 12, 1918
This street, created in 1906 as part of the Lake Shore View Addition to Seattle, begins in the north at NE 105th Street and Exeter Avenue NE, and curves south for a mile along the Burke-Gilman Trail, which parallels the Lake Washington shoreline, to a dead end at the north boundary of Matthews Beach Park. Unlike most, though not all, boulevards in Seattle, this one is not one of the Olmsted boulevards designed by John Charles Olmsted in 1903.
This narrow street, created in 1926 as part of Riviera Beach, an Addition to King County, Washington, Divisions № 1, 2, 3, and 4, and situated between the shoreline of Lake Washington and the right-of-way of the Northern Pacific Railway, appears on the plats simply as “Road” — it first appears in The Seattle Times on July 20, 1930, as “Riviera Beach Road,” and then on July 2, 1932, with its current name. The name simply means ‘coastline’ in Italian.
Today, Riviera Place NE begins at the north city limits, where Seattle meets Lake Forest Park at the NE 145th Street right-of-way, and goes nearly a mile south along the Lake Washington shoreline to a spot a few houses north of NE 125th Street, where it ends at one house and picks up again on the other side of its neighbor. From there, it runs 1¼ miles south to its end at Lake Shore Boulevard NE between NE 100th Street and NE 103rd Street. The portions between the NE 135th Street right-of-way and NE 125th Street are private.
Riviera Place NE is probably most notable to the city at large for being the location of the NE 130th Street End park, which became an official park in 2019 after years of controversy. It’s not, strictly speaking, a shoreline street end, because it’s owned by Seattle Parks and Recreation, rather than being a right-of-way under the jurisdiction of the Seattle Department of Transportation. This is because it was never properly dedicated to the public in 1932 (see background and court filings). For years, it had been treated as just another shoreline street end, but in 2012, when the city announced its intention to make improvements to the beach to improve public access, the neighbors on either side filed suit, and ended up having their ownership of the lot confirmed. The city ended up having to exercise its right of eminent domain, condemned the property, and paid the neighbors $400,000 each. (As unfortunate as it was to have to pay $800,000 for the street end, I’d say it was worth it, as NE 130th is the only accessible shoreline street end north of NE 43rd Street, and the only public lake access, period, north of Matthews Beach [around where NE 95th Street would be if it had been platted into the water].)
This short street in Seattle’s Windermere neighborhood runs from 60th Avenue NE and NE 55th Street in the southwest to 63rd Avenue NE and NE 57th Street in the northeast. It was likely named after Lochkelden, the mansion built in 1907 for Rolland Herschel Denny (1851–1939) and his wife, Alice Martha Kellogg Denny (1857–1940). Rolland was just six weeks old when the Denny Party landed at Alki Point in November 1851. Lochkelden — owned since 1974 by Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church — was itself named for Lake Washington, of which it has a commanding view (loch being Scottish for ‘lake’) and its owners: Kellogg and Denny.
Note added March 14, 2024: It appears, per Clay Eals at PaulDorpat.com, that the church put Lockhelden on the market in 2022 and it just sold for $6 million. The purchasers are developers, and property owned by religious organizations cannot get landmark protection against the owner’s will, so the mansion’s days are almost certainly numbered.
It isn’t often that a vintage newspaper article explicitly states the reason behind a new street’s naming, but when it comes to Radford Drive, we’re in luck. On November 30, 1940, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported, under the headline ‘Work started at Sand Point Homes project’, that ground had been broken the day before on a project to house 150 enlisted men, plus their families, from the adjacent Sand Point Naval Air Station. (The project was said to cost $620,000, which is ¾ of the average price of a single home in Seattle today!) Rather amusingly, the air station’s commandant, Captain Ralph Wood, is quoted as saying “the days when the sailor was a bachelor and a derelict have long since passed” as justification for the need for military family housing. The article goes on to say that:
Street entrance to the area will be named Radford Drive in honor of Commander Arthur W. Radford, former commandant of the Sand Point base, who launched the expansion program which has resulted in its present growth.
Arthur W. Radford (1896–1973), who had been appointed commandant in 1939, was promoted to captain in 1942 and to rear admiral in 1943. He became vice admiral in 1945, and was appointed by President Harry S. Truman as vice chief of naval operations in 1948. In 1949, he was made high commissioner of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands as well as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and in 1953 he became President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s selection as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He retired from the Navy in 1957.
Admiral Arthur W. Radford
Today, the housing complex, redeveloped in 2001, is known as Radford Court, and is owned by the University of Washington, though some units are available to the public. Interestingly, the entrance to the neighborhood from NE 65th Street is signed Radford Drive NE and is on University-owned land, while the publicly owned street is legally NE Radford Drive, but not signed at all — and the addresses for the complex are on 65th Avenue NE (one of the city streets, the other being NE 64th Street, that connects directly to the property).*
* Yes, NE 65th Street and 65th Avenue NE intersect here. Because of how Seattle’s street naming system works, Windermere and Laurelhurst are the site of a number of similar intersections, including those for 60th, 59th, 57th, 55th, 54th, 50th, 47th, 45th, 43rd, 41st, and 40th.
This street, which originates along with the rest of the heart of Ballard in the 1889 plat of Gilman Park, was named for šilšul, a village of the shill-shohl-AHBSHpeople along what is today known as Salmon Bay. Meaning ‘tucked away inside’ in the Lushootseed language, it is one of two remaining Native place names in Seattle, the other being Licton Springs (liq’təd). (Note added May 20, 2023: I should have written that it is one of two Native place names in Seattle that remain in common use. The Duwamish are still here, and so are their names.)
Why, then, is the Shilshole Bay name applied to the body of water west of the Ballard Locks? Shouldn’t Shilshole Avenue, Shilshole Bay, and šilšul all be in the same location? According to Edmond Stephen Meany’s 1923 Origin of Washington Geographic Names, citing early settler Arthur A. Denny’s 1888 Pioneer Days on Puget Sound,
In December, 1852, Arthur A. Denny, knew the bay as “Shilshole.” It was later changed to Salmon Bay because it was thought to be frequented by Salmon.
Today, Shilshole Avenue NW begins at 14th Avenue NW in the east and goes ⅘ of a mile northwest to 24th Avenue NW, just short of NW Market Street.
In the early 1870s, the Denny and Mercer families gradually began to systematically subdivide their large land holdings on the south and east slopes of Queen Anne Hill. When a severe windstorm blew down thousands of trees in the north district in 1875, views opened up and land seekers turned their attentions beyond Belltown. Real estate speculators new to the territory arrived and began to buy up property on the crest of Queen Anne Hill. Some of these speculators also became developers, such as George Kinnear, or builder-developers, such as Isaac Bigelow.
Though its proximity to Boston and Lynn Streets suggest a tribute to Newton, Massachusetts, neither the Georges nor the Bigelows appear to have a connection to the state, so it seems this one should be chalked up to Isaac Bigelow’s middle name.
Today, Newton Street begins in Magnolia as W Newton Street at 30th Avenue W, and goes nearly half a mile east to 23rd Avenue W. There is then a two-block stretch from 15th Avenue W to 13th Avenue W in Interbay, and then the “original” Newton Street, which stretches almost a half mile from 1st Avenue N to Taylor Avenue N, followed by another two-block stretch from Dexter Avenue N to just past 8th Avenue N. On the east side of Lake Union, E Newton Street picks up again at Terry Pettus Park, just west of Fairview Avenue E, and goes ¼ mile to Boylston Avenue E and Lakeview Boulevard E. There follows another ¼-mile stretch from Broadway E to Everett Avenue E. East of there, Newton exists in a number of short segments through Montlake, and then enjoys a run of ⅓ of a mile from 37th Place E to 43rd Avenue E in Madison Park.
The sleek Latona was originally built as a pleasure craft for businessman James Colman to use on the Sound. Dr. E.C. Kilbourne, a dentist with extensive real estate holdings north of Lake Union, purchased the Latona and took her to Lake Washington by way of the Duwamish River and Black River, the lake’s outlet. After a few years of serving farms, mining camps, and logging operations around Lake Washington, the Latona came through the narrow channel dug in 1886 to Portage Bay and thereafter served Lake Union.
Today, Latona Avenue NE begins as a shoreline street end just south of NE Northlake Way and goes nearly 1¾ miles north to 2nd Avenue NE and Woodlawn Avenue NE near the eastern end of Green Lake. It reappears on the other side of the Green Lake Park playground and community center at E Green Lake Drive N, and goes a further ⅓ of a mile to just past NE 77th Street, where it is stopped by Interstate 5. Finally, on the north side of I-5, it goes nearly ½ a mile from NE 81st Street to NE 91st Street, interrupted by a half-block segment just north of NE 88th Street where it takes the form of a footpath, and a half-block segment just north of NE 90th Street where it appears to have been incorporated into neighbors’ yards and driveways.
Latona Avenue NE right-of-way between NE 90th Street and NE 91st Street in Maple Leaf. The northern half is paved, but ends at an unpaved alley; the southern half appears to be serving as neighbors’ driveways at either end, the remainder being treated as part of their yards.
This winding, semicircular street runs almost ⁹⁄₁₀ of a mile from 15th Avenue NW and NW 100th Street in the east to Triton Drive NW, NW Neptune Place, and NW 100th Street in the west, descending 300 feet to Puget Sound along the way. Named after the Blue Ridge community, it was established in 1930 as part of the plat of Blue Ridge, an Addition to King County, Washington (rather than to Seattle, as the far northwestern section of the city wouldn’t be annexed until 1953).
No property in said Addition shall at any time be sold, conveyed, rented, or leased in whole or in part to any person or persons not of the White or Caucasian race. No person other than one of the White or Caucasian race shall be permitted to occupy any property in said addition or portion thereof or building thereon except a domestic servant actually employed by a person of the White or Caucasian race where the latter is an occupant of such property.
Uniquely, as they note, the restrictions on membership in the Blue Ridge Club, established in 1941 and forerunner of today’s homeowner association, were slightly different:
No Asiatic, Negro or any person born in the Turkish Empire, nor lineal descendant of such person shall be eligible for membership in the Club.
They speculate this restriction on Ottoman citizens and descendants thereof was aimed at Sephardic Jews (Seattle is said to have the third largest population in the country), although if that is the case, I wonder why the restriction wasn’t against all Jews, as was done in Broadmoor and the Sand Point Country Club. At any rate, it would seem to have affected not only Sephardim but Arabs, Levantines, and North Africans in general. These restrictions were finally lifted in 1989, decades after they became unenforceable.
Blue Ridge says that “The development of the Blue Ridge community and the government-engineered policies of segregation brings some controversy to the early days of the neighborhood. However, today Blue Ridge is diverse and welcoming to anyone wanting to share in all that it has to offer.” As the interactive map on the Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project page on Blue Ridge shows, though, the covenants had the desired effect — the neighborhood is still around 81% white, 12% Asian… and just 0.5% Black.
As far as being an “exclusive” neighborhood goes, Blue Ridge is more like Windermere than the above-mentioned Broadmoor and Sand Point Country Club; it features a private waterfront park, but all the streets are public, and there are even two very small public parks (Blue Ridge Circle and Blue Ridge Places) plus the wooded Mary Avenue Trail to the southern boundary of Carkeek Park.
Ten or so years ago I saw a Private Property sign at the trailhead, put up by the Blue Ridge Club, but it was gone the next time I visited — I can’t remember if I complained or someone else did. (The woods are private, but the trail is Mary Avenue NW right-of-way.) This wasn’t in the original plat, but according to an old Flickr chat I had with Andreas “Severinus” Breuer, “there was apparently a WPA project approved to install a 30′-wide gravel road between 100th and 110th (apparently now NW Carkeek Park Road).… I imagine the ravine would look quite different if a 30′ gravel road had been put in, so presumably this plan wasn’t carried out. But a 1940 engineering map shows a surveyed ROW from 105th to the Carkeek border, and in Carkeek there seems to be a route that follows the WPA route (Clay Pit Trail > Hillside Trail > Brick Road Trail > Road). Perhaps the trail that exists today was made by the original surveyors or by WPA men?”
This short street runs just over 750 feet from Triton Drive NW in the west to NE 98th Street in the east, just west of 24th Avenue NW. It was established in 1926 as part of North Beach, an Addition to the City of Seattle; at the time, it extended farther south, but that section is now 26th Avenue NW. The beach being referred to is on Puget Sound, across the BNSF Railway tracks from what is now NW Esplanade.
Although it bears the neighborhood’s name, houses along North Beach Drive are actually only eligible for associate, not full, membership in the North Beach Club, as the community boundary map shows. This is because the club, which originated in 1927 as the Golden View Improvement Club, was formed by and for residents of the Golden View and Golden View Division № 2 subdivisions, platted in 1924 and 1926, respectively. (According to state records, the GVIC was administratively dissolved in 1982 and merged into the North Beach Club [founded 1990] in 2006. [No word on what entity managed affairs from 1982 to 1990.]) In 1930, the club took over responsibility for the subdivisions’ water system from the developer, who as part of the deal deeded 1,500 feet of Puget Sound beach to the organization. It is this private beach, accessible via a short path from NW Esplanade at 28th Avenue NW, that is the North Beach Club’s primary raison d’être today, the water system having been hooked into the city supply long ago. Today’s associate members are the “descendants” of those who were interested in the Golden View additions’ water system 91 years ago but lived outside the subdivision boundaries — including residents of NW North Beach Drive.
