This street was created in two stages: the southern portion of this street in 1971 as 25th Avenue S, part of the plat of Beacon Vista; the northern portion in 1976, part of Goodwin’s Addition. A year before the second plat was filed, its name was changed to Vista Avenue S, obviously after the initial plat.
Beacon Vista itself was named for its view from Beacon Hill, not of Beacon Hill:
Today, Vista Avenue S begins at S Willow Street between Mars Avenue S and Beacon Avenue S, and goes 800 feet north to S Holly Street west of Beacon Avenue S.
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.