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Spring Street

Spring Street was another of Seattle’s “first streets.” Sophie Frye Bass writes in Pig-Tail Days in Old Seattle:

Where springs of clear water bubbled from the earth and the beach was sandy and free from rocks, there the Indians camped. Such a choice spot was Tzee-tzee-lal-litch [dzidzəlalič], which Arthur Denny called Spring Street.

Spring Street begins at Alaskan Way and runs nearly a mile, to Harvard Avenue, before it is interrupted. A few more segments run through the Central District and Madrona. The last is from 38th Avenue to Grand Avenue, at which point it continues to Lake Washington Boulevard as a footpath and stairway.

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Cherry Street

Cherry Street was among the first streets platted in Seattle on May 23, 1853. Sophie Frye Bass, author of Pig-Tail Days in Old Seattle, writes:

I choose to think that Cherry Street is named for the little town of Cherry Grove, Illinois — Mother’s birthplace — where the Dennys started on their long journey over the Oregon Trail.

“Mother,” in this case, refers to Louisa Catherine Denny Frye, one of three children of Arthur Armstrong Denny and Mary Ann Boren Denny of the Denny Party. She was 7 years old when they landed at Alki Point in November 1851.

In 2006, Hunter Brown wrote a People’s History essay for HistoryLink, “Finding Cherry Grove,” detailing his efforts to locate Cherry Grove, whose name was later changed to Cedar Township. The nearest town today is called Abingdon.

Bass began her Pig-Tail Days piece on Cherry Street by calling it “another up-and-up street… with no interferences. It begins at First Avenue, goes east and ends at Thirty-seventh avenue.” This is no longer quite the case because of a very small gap at the south end of the Seattle University campus. Today, Cherry begins at 1st Avenue and ends a block east of Broadway. It starts up again a couple hundred feet to the east as a continuation of the James Street/E James Way arterial, and then does go on to 37th Avenue in Madrona. All told it is 2⅓ miles long.

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Marion Street

Marion Street, like James Street, was one of the first streets platted in Seattle on May 23, 1853. It, too, was named by Arthur Armstrong Denny after his younger brother, James Marion Denny (1824–1854). 

Marion Street runs ⅖ of a mile from Alaskan Way to 6th Avenue, where it is interrupted by Interstate 5. It picks up again at 7th Avenue and runs about the same distance to Broadway, where the Seattle University campus begins. East of there it runs in sections of varying lengths until it ends for good at 38th Avenue and Madrona Park.

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James Street

James Street, one of the first streets platted in Seattle on May 23, 1853, was named by Arthur Armstrong Denny after his younger brother, James Marion Denny (1824–1854). Histories of Seattle report that James was too sick to leave Oregon and come to Puget Sound with the Denny Party and, indeed, he died in the town of Sublimity, Oregon, just a year after the street was named for him. Nothing I have found reports an actual cause of death. Marion Street is also named after this brother.

James Street runs ¾ of a mile from Yesler Way just east of 1st Avenue to an alley just east of Broadway. It appears east of there in a few short stretches and finally as a stairway from 38th Avenue to Lake Washington Boulevard at Madrona Park.

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Dorffel Drive E

This street runs just over ¼ of a mile from 37th Avenue E in the north, by Lakeview Park, to E Howell Street and 39th Avenue in the south. It was named for George and Otilde Dorffel, who might otherwise be best known for giving Ravenna its name.

In the original 1901 plat of Denny-Blaine-Lake Park, the Dorffel Drive name was given to what is now Madrona Place E, and what is now Dorffel Drive was then 37th Avenue. The change, which took place in 1906, would seem to have been done to eliminate the oddity of 39th Avenue becoming 37th Avenue as it crossed E Howell Street.

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E Florence Court

This street runs around 650 feet from 34th Avenue E, just north of E Denny Way, to 37th Avenue East. It was established in 1903 as part of Waddell’s Madrona Park Addition to the City of Seattle by, among others, Albert and Florence M. Waddell.

Advertisement for Madrona Park Addition, The Seattle Times, April 7, 1903
Advertisement for Madrona Park Addition, The Seattle Times, April 7, 1903
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E Ford Place

This short street in the Washington Park neighborhood runs just over a tenth of a mile from Lake Washington Boulevard E in the west to 36th Avenue E in the east, a block south of E Mercer Street.

The Pacific Coast Addition was platted in 1910 by the Pacific Coast Company, whose vice president was J.C. Ford. This was a subdivision of the 1906 Replat of McGilvra’s Addition and Second Addition to the City of Seattle, an abbreviation of its much longer name. The tracts surrounding Ford Place were at that time owned by the Columbia and Puget Sound Railroad, of which Ford was president.

As Archives West says in their historical note on the Pacific Coast Company,

The Pacific Coast Company rail, shipping and coal operations served the West Coast from the mid-19th century until its last railways were abandoned or sold in the mid-20th century. Though the company was organized under the Pacific Coast Company name in late 1897, it comprised several existing organizations, most notably the Pacific Coast Steamship Co., Pacific Coast Coal Co., and the Pacific Coast Railway. In Seattle, the Columbia & Puget Sound Railroad, originally the Seattle & Walla Walla, became part of the Pacific Coast Railway in 1916. The several operations of Pacific Coast Co., which also included a cement company and engineering company, played an important role in the development of King County resources and the development of Seattle and outlying communities.

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E Conover Court

This cul-de-sac, which runs about 300 feet from the end of 35th Avenue just south of E James Street, was named by journalist and real estate developer C.T. (Charles Tallmadge) Conover after himself. Unlike many developers, he didn’t do this when his plat (“Conover Park”) was first filed in 1907, but rather 15 years later when a new street was established in the subdivision. Perhaps his most lasting achievement was Washington’s nickname, “The Evergreen State,” which he coined in 1890.

CT Conover in 1893
C.T. Conover in 1893
Cover of Washington the Evergreen State and Seattle Its Metropolis brochure
Cover of brochure “Washington the Evergreen State and Seattle Its Metropolis”