This street appears to have been named for Charles Carl Brockman (1869–1954), proprietor of the unrecorded plat of Brockman’s Tracts. According to the obituary of his son, Charles Clark Brockman (1915–2010), the elder Brockman was “a Seattle pioneer who owned a grocery store [and] various real estate interests in the Denny Regrade and Lake City area.”
NE Brockman Place begins at 19th Avenue NE just north of NE 127th Street and goes ¼ mile northwest to just west of 14th Place NE.
This street was created in 1955 as part of the plat of Llandover-by-the-Sound, filed by (among others) Ralph Glossbrerer Culbertson (1886–1975), a developer, and his wife, Jane R. Effie Redding Culbertson (1884–1976). R.G., as he was known, appears to have earlier been in the storage and moving business, and had “an extensive acquaintance with eight [Canadian] provinces.”
NW Culbertson Drive begins at Hilltop Lane NW and goes ⅓ of a mile west to a dead end overlooking Puget Sound.
This street was created in 1958 as part of Northshire, an Addition to the City of Seattle, filed by Sherman O. Jensen (1919–2002) and his wife, Dorothy (1920–2008), along with Jeannette D. Jackson and her husband, Paul J. Jackson.
Sherman Road NW begins at NW 137th Street and goes about 625 feet to the south, where it turns into Northshire Road NW.
This street, originally Sound View Place, was created in 1920 as part of Frazier’s Addition to King County, Washington, filed by Raymond Robert Frazier (1873–1955) and his wife, Augusta Wood Frazier (1874–1969). Raymond was president of Washington Mutual from 1915 to 1933 and its chairman from 1933 to 1941.
Frazier Place NW begins at NW 132nd Street and goes just over 300 feet north to NW 134th Street.
This street, along with E Huron Street and Erie Avenue, was created in 1890 as part of Yesler’s Third Addition to the City of Seattle. It was named for Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes, and the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area.
E Superior Street begins at Euclid Avenue and goes 1⁄10 of a mile east to Erie Avenue.
This street, along with E Superior Street and Erie Avenue, was created in 1890 as part of Yesler’s Third Addition to the City of Seattle. It was named for Lake Huron, second largest of the Great Lakes by surface area.
E Huron Street begins at Euclid Avenue and goes 1⁄10 of a mile east to Lake Washington Boulevard.
This street, along with E Superior Street and E Huron Street, was created in 1890 as part of Yesler’s Third Addition to the City of Seattle. It was named for Lake Erie, fourth largest of the Great Lakes by surface area.
Erie Avenue begins at Leschi Park south of Lake Washington boulevard and goes ⅓ of a mile north to E Jefferson Street.
This street was created in 1925 as part of the O.W. Harris Addition, filed by Olin Whitney Harris (a car dealer) and his wife, Lily Georgine Robson Harris. (Their son, Whitney Robson Harris, a University of Washington graduate, was one of the prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials as an aide to Robert H. Jackson, chief prosecutor and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Harris was the last Nuremberg prosecutor to die, in 2010. The Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law are named in his honor.)
E Olin Place, which is shaped like a 7, begins at 15th Avenue E north of E Garfield Street and heads 1⁄10 of a mile northeast, then west, to 15th Avenue E south of E Howe Street. Louisa Boren Park is to its east, and features a grand view of Montlake, Union Bay, Laurelhurst, Lake Washington, the Eastside, and the Cascade mountains.
This street, created in 1910 as part of the Beacon Hill View Addition to the City of Seattle, was named after Colin B. Haraden (1864–1950), secretary of the Elliott Bay Investment Company.
Haraden Place S begins at Carkeek Drive S between 39th Avenue S and 40th Avenue S and goes around 450 feet north to S Cambridge Street.
This street, created in 1946 along with S Vern Court as part of the Wm Culliton Addition, was named by Jules Vern Nadreau (1894–1979) and his wife, Geraldine “Dean” Mable Harvey Nadreau (1897–1958), after Geraldine’s nickname.
S Dean Court begins at Beacon Avenue S and goes 285 feet west to an alley.
This street was created in 1946 as part of the Wm Culliton Addition, filed by Jules Vern Nadreau (1894–1979) and his wife, Geraldine “Dean” Mable Harvey Nadreau (1897–1958). It appears to have been named after Jules’s middle name, Vern. (My assumption is that he was himself named after French novelist Jules Verne.) Its sister street, 300 feet to the south, is S Dean Court, named for his wife.
S Vern Court begins at Beacon Avenue S and goes 275 feet west to an alley.
This street was named in 1968 for Northgate Station, which opened in 1950 as the Northgate Center shopping mall. According to HistoryLink.org, it was “the country’s first regional shopping center to be defined as a ‘mall’ (although there were at least three predecessor shopping centers).” Newspaper archives show that it became known early on as Northgate Mall, and that became its official name in 1974. As of this writing, the property is in the midst of a massive redevelopment project that began in 2019.
Prior to 1968, Northgate Way was known as (from west to east) N 105th Street, Mineral Springs Way N, N 110th Street, NE 110th Street, and Chelsea Place NE. Today, it begins at N 105th Street and Aurora Avenue N and goes 2⅕ miles east to NE 113th Street and Lake City Way NE.
The Northgate name itself has been attributed to Ben Erlichman. Feliks Banel writes:
Digging into the newspaper archives, The Seattle Times of February 22, 1948, published a big spread on the plans for the shopping center. The story quoted one of the developers, a local investor named Ben Ehrlichman (the uncle of future Watergate figure John Ehrlichman). “The name Northgate was chosen, Ehrlichman [told The Seattle Times], because the development ‘will be the most important northerly business district serving Seattle and vicinity and the gateway to metropolitan Seattle.’” Though a 30th anniversary story in the same paper in 1980 credited Ehrlichman for coming up with the name — based on the 1948 story — we may never know for certain whose idea it was.
Elliott Avenue, which originated as Water Street in A.A. Denny’s 6th Addition to the City of Seattle, filed in 1873, received its current name in 1895 as part of the Great Renaming. It was named for Elliott Bay, which was itself named for Midshipman Samuel Bonnyman Elliott (1822–1876), part of the United States Exploring Expedition, otherwise known as the Wilkes Expedition. (Even though for years people thought the bay had been named for Chaplain J.L. Elliott, Howard Hanson makes a convincing argument in “The Naming of Elliott Bay: Shall We Honor the Chaplain or the Midshipman?”, an article in the January 1954 issue of The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, that the honor belongs to the midshipman.)
Elliott Avenue begins at Western Avenue and Lenora Street and goes 2⅕ miles northwest to halfway between W Galer Street and W Garfield Street, where it becomes 15th Avenue W.
This street is named after the city of Renton, Washington, located southeast of Seattle at the southern end of Lake Washington. The city was itself named after Captain William Renton (1818–1891). Born in Nova Scotia, he came to the Puget Sound area in the mid-1850s and founded the Port Blakely mill on Bainbridge Island in 1864. Erasmus Smithers founded the Renton Coal Company with Captain Renton’s financial backing in 1873 and filed the first town plat in 1875.
A Renton Avenue existed in Seattle before this one, but not for very long — it was established in 1894 from streets on Capitol Hill “now called in various portions thereof Black Street, Joy Street, Renton Avenue and Eighteenth Avenue.” (Part of this area had been platted by Captain Renton, and was known at the time as Renton Hill.) It was changed the next year to 16th Avenue as part of the Great Renaming.
The current Renton Avenue was established in 1907 from what had been an old county road, Simpson Avenue, Hillman Boulevard, and a number of unnamed streets. According to the North Rainier Valley Historic Context Statement, this is quite an old route:
King County Road No. 1 ran east down from Beacon Hill at about the location of today’s Cheasty Boulevard, and then followed the approximate line of today’s Renton Avenue South to Renton. It also had been an earlier Indian trail route. Renton Avenue South is the remnant of this original county road to Renton. While portions of this road still exist, some are now incorporated into Martin Luther King, Jr. Way.
Today, Renton Avenue S begins at Martin Luther King Jr. Way S just south of S Walden Street and goes ¾ of a mile southeast to 33rd Avenue S just north of S Alaska Street. It resumes at 35th Avenue S just south of S Hudson Street and goes another ½ mile to S Juneau Street west of 39th Avenue S. It then starts up again at Martin Luther King Jr. Way S and S Webster Street and goes nearly 3 miles to the city limits south of S 116th Place. (Renton Avenue continues beyond there another 2 miles to — of course — Renton, where at 90th Avenue S and Taylor Avenue NW it becomes the Renton Avenue Extension and goes a further ⅛ of a mile to Rainier Avenue S and Airport Way.)
This street originated as University Boulevard. Opening on June 1, 1909, it connected Washington Park Boulevard (now E Lake Washington Boulevard) to the entrance to the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition (now the campus of the University of Washington). The plan was for it to continue through campus and connect via 17th Avenue NE to Ravenna Boulevard, but this was not done due to opposition from the Board of Regents. Instead, the road was extended along what was then Union Bay shoreline to NE 45th Street. It has been part of the state highway system since 1937.
Montlake Boulevard was named after Montlake Park, an Addition to the City of Seattle, filed in 1908, which later gave its name to the entire neighborhood. Most of the street, however, is on the other side of the Lake Washington Ship Canal.
Today, Montlake Boulevard E (as well as Washington State Route 513) begins at the intersection of E Lake Washington Boulevard and E Montlake Place E, just south of the Washington State Route 520 freeway, and goes 1⅓ miles north, then northeast, to NE 45th Street, just south of University Village. It becomes Montlake Boulevard NE as it crosses the Montlake Cut of the Lake Washington Ship Canal. (State Route 513 continues for another 2 miles along NE 45th Street and Sand Point Way NE, ending at NE 65th Street just west of Magnuson Park.)
This street was created in 1890 as part of F.D. Dibble’s First Addition to Ballard, which had just incorporated as a city that year, and would be annexed to Seattle 17 years later. It would, therefore, seem to be named after F.D. Dibble. But who was he? And who was J. Albert Jackson, who filed the plat?
Jackson first. The December 2, 1912, issue of The Sacramento Union refers to him as former vice president of the Washington-Alaska Bank of Nevada (based in Fairbanks). He was charged with falsifying the failed bank’s books and aiding and abetting its receiver, Frank W. Hawkins, in embezzlement. So much for his good name, which was used in one of the advertisements for the addition: “Title absolutely perfect; title comes from a bank president in Seattle.”
I was able to find out even less about F.D. Dibble. He appears to have been associated with Daniel Jones & Co., who were involved in the development of Mount Baker Park (see Hunter Boulevard S for more on Jones). But that’s it. I was able to find two mentions of Dibble & Wallace, a brick manufacturing company, which opened in 1882, but no first names of either proprietor. Dibble may have been F.D., or a relative — it’s impossible to say.
I also came across a book, Prairie Poems and Others, written by an F.D. Dibble and published in 1900. There is no biographical information included, but this Dibble plainly had been to Washington: among the many poems are “Lake Pend d’Oreille, Washington,” “Mt. Rainier,” and “Rainy Days in Seattle.” Could this have been the real estate man? Again — impossible to say.
We must leave it at this, then: Dibble Avenue NW was named for F.D. Dibble… full stop.
Today, Dibble Avenue NW begins at NW 65th Street and goes 1½ miles north to NW 95th Street. It begins again on the other side of Holman Road NW at NW 97th Street and goes ⅓ of a mile north to NW 105th Street.
Like S Mount Baker Boulevard, this street was created in 1907 as part of the plat of Mt. Baker Park, an Addition to the City of Seattle, filed by the Hunter Tract Improvement Company (Clare E. Farnsworth, president; C.W. Ferris, secretary; founded in 1905 by Farnsworth, J.C. Hunter, Daniel Jones, and F.L. Fehren) along with Rollin Valentine Ankeny and his wife, Eleanor Randolph Ankeny.
According to the Mount Baker Historic Context Statement, “Since Mount Baker Park was designed to be an exclusive single-family residential community, one of the early concerns of the Mount Baker Park Improvement Club was related to social issues, and what became known as the ‘Restrictions Committee’”:
[This committee] was involved in enforcing the restrictions contained in the deeds regarding single family housing only and the restrictive covenants that prevented non-whites from purchasing property in the area. The club passed a resolution stating that the club was against using any lot for clubs, schools, boarding or lodging houses, churches, charitable or religious societies or orders or for any other purpose than strictly detached family residences.
Discrimination in Mount Baker continued for decades, though it did eventually become a became a “locus for pushback against racial injustice.” The Seattle Star headlines below illustrate both the discrimination and early examples of resistance:
The first article, ‘Hunter Tract lots are not for colored people,’ appeared on April 2, 1909. An excerpt:
The owners of the Hunter tract, a fashionable residence addition overlooking Lake Washington, don’t intend to permit any colored people to build homes on their property.… F.H. Stone and Susie B. Stone are colored.… Arrangements were made by the Stones to erect a dwelling upon [their] lot. According to the officers of the investment company, it was then that they first discovered that the Stones were colored people.… [They] contended that if the Stones were permitted to build their dwelling and to occupy it, values of surrounding property would be decreased and a pecuniary hardship would therefore be worked upon the owners of the Hunter tract.
The case went to trial before Judge John F. Main. ‘No color line is drawn in Seattle’ appeared on November 6, 1909, the day after he rendered his decision:
The incident of color or race cannot of itself annul the terms of a contract, and there is no Mason and Dixon’s line in the residence district of Seattle.… Judge Main held, in substance, that no negro, because of his color, is legally barred from acquiring property and holding the same in the most exclusive community or from residing next door to his white neighbor.
Meanwhile, another related case was working its way through the courts. ‘Negro given right to live in Mt. Baker’ read the headline on February 1, 1910:
David Cole, a well-to-do negro… bought [a lot] from the Hunter Tract company. The officials of the company did not know that he was a negro until he came to the office to get his deed. Daniel Jones, agent for the firm, tried to buy him off… Cole insisted on having his deed and Jones refused to give it to him. Cole took the case to court and Judge Frater this morning decided that Jones must give Cole the deed. Jones immediately gave notice of appeal. Jones contended that Cole’s presence in the tract would lower property values from 40 to 50 per cent but Judge Frater held that a contract is a contract.
You can read more about the Stones’ and Cole’s cases in these by the Friends of Mt. Baker Town Center and HistoryLink.org, and read the actual decisions as well:
Hunter Boulevard S begins at Mt. Rainier Drive S and S Hanford Street and goes ¼ mile south to 38th Avenue S and S Spokane Street.
This street, along with Hunter Boulevard S, was created in 1907 as part of the Mt. Baker Park addition, filed by the Hunter Tract Improvement Company and Rollin Valentine Ankeny (1865–1934) and his wife, Eleanor Randolph Ankeny (1868–1947). (Hunter had been founded in 1905 by J.C. Hunter, Daniel Jones, F.L. Fehren, and Clare E. Farnsworth.) The addition was named for its view of Mount Baker in the North Cascades, itself named for Joseph Baker, who sailed into Puget Sound with George Vancouver and Peter Puget on HMS Discovery in 1792. The actual roadway was built in 1908 and 1909.
S Mount Baker Boulevard, intended to connect Lake Washington Boulevard to Beacon Hill, begins at S McClellan Street and Lake Park Drive S (the latter of which leads to Lake Washington Boulevard) and goes just over ½ a mile west to Rainier Avenue S and Martin Luther King Jr. Way S. West of the intersection, the boulevard continues as S Winthrop Street, which connects to Cheasty Boulevard S leading up Beacon Hill.
Unlike Seattle’s other park boulevards, Discovery Park Boulevard is of recent creation. Ordinance 122503, passed in 2007, designated numerous streets within the park as park boulevards, one reason being that:
Public safety will be enhanced within Discovery Park as traffic codes and regulations are fully enforceable on Park Boulevards as they are on City of Seattle streets, but not necessarily on park roads which are considered “private.”
(More on this at Lawtonwood Road.) Among the streets so designated were Lawtonwood Road, Bay Terrace Road, Utah Street, Washington Avenue, California Avenue, Iowa Street, Illinois Avenue, Texas Way, Idaho Avenue, and 45th Avenue W. The ordinance specified that Washington Avenue from the park entrance to Illinois Avenue; Illinois Avenue from there to Utah Street; and Utah Street from there to King County’s West Point Treatment Plant were to be known as Discovery Park Boulevard (see this map for an illustration).
The park itself, 534 acres in the northwest corner of the Magnolia neighborhood, is the largest in Seattle. Opened in 1973, it occupies most of what was once Fort Lawton (1900–2011). It is said to have been named for HMS Discovery, Captain George Vancouver’s ship during the expedition that explored (and named) Puget Sound in 1792. However, according to “Discovery Park: A People’s Park in Magnolia,” a chapter from Magnolia: Memories & Milestones (2000),
The person who first suggested the name “Discovery Park” was U.S. District Judge Donald S. Voorhees, who had led the effort to create a park at Fort Lawton in 1968…. Voorhees was a student of Puget Sound history and Vancouver’s exploration. But he was also an avid follower of the philosophy of Frederick Law Olmsted, the famed American landscape architect. Voorhees believed the name combined the history of Vancouver’s exploration of Puget Sound on the HMS Discovery with the excitement of visitors when they discover the wonders of nature in the Park. When asked to make a choice between the meanings, Voorhees would choose the experience of “discovery” by citizens, particularly children, visiting the Park for the first time, over the historical connection with the HMS Discovery.
This road, and the park through which it runs, Schmitz Park (or Schmitz Preserve Park), was named for German immmigrants Ferdinand Schmitz (1860–1942) and his wife, Emma Althoff Schmitz (1864–1959). Ferdinand was a banker, city councilman, and parks commissioner. He and Emma donated land — mostly, though not entirely, old-growth forest — to the city in 1908, forming the core (just over 55%) of the present park.
The Schmitzes had four children: Dietrich, Henry, Emma Henrietta, and Ferdinand Jr. A banker, Dietrich (1890–1969) became president of Washington Mutual in 1934 and retired as chairman of the board two years before his death. He was also a member of the Seattle School Board from 1928 (or 1930; sources differ) to 1961. Henry (1892–1965) was president of the University of Washington from 1952 to 1958. Schmitz Hall, the university’s administration building on NE Campus Parkway, was named in his memory in 1970.
According to the Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks,
The roadway was originally envisioned as a continuation of the West Seattle Parkway, never realized, which would have connected Alki Beach to Lake Washington via a series of parkways. The built section is instead a short road that provided the only automobile entry to Schmitz Park, extending through an allée of trees and terminating at a pergola and shelterhouse.
The portion between 59th Avenue SW and 58th Avenue SW in front of Alki Elementary School having been closed in 1949, Schmitz Boulevard today begins at 58th Avenue SW and SW Stevens Street and goes not quite half a mile east, then southeast, then north, to SW Admiral Way and SW Stevens Street. It is closed to automobile traffic.
Writes of Way © 2019 Benjamin Donguk Lukoff. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Benjamin Donguk Lukoff and Writes of Way with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
