Green Lake has survived highs and lows of time

By JAMES WARREN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

About 50,000 years ago, a glacier half a mile thick carved a drainage basinin what is now North Seattle. The retreating ice sheet left lakes in thedeepest portions of that basin. Over time these lakes filled with sedimentuntil today Bitter Lake, Haller Lake and Green Lake are but remnants of muchlarger bodies of water.

The first settler's cabin was raised on Green Lake's shore in 1870. Loggingbegan in the area in the 1880s. Beginning in 1888, W.D. Wood and Dr. E.C.Kilbourne platted the area and developed an amusement park on the westernshore. They connected their holdings to Seattle by trolley.

In the 1890s, Guy Phinney developed property on Green Lake's southern shoreand established Woodland Park as his estate and zoo. In 1891 the Green Lakearea was annexed to Seattle, and by 1900 about 1,500 lived near the lake.

When Phinney's estate (but not the lake itself) was purchased by the cityfor park purposes in 1900, a virgin forest still fringed the southwest cornerof Green Lake and only rough wagon trails circled its shores.

Judge F.A. McDonald, a Green Lake resident who was elected to the stateLegislature in 1898, convinced the state to give the lake itself to Seattle in1905 to develop as a park. Because some of the beach property was in privatehands, the city began condemnation proceedings, and by 1910 controlled anarrow strip around the lake.

To increase the usable shoreline, the city in 1911 lowered the lake 7 feet.This resulted in large swampy areas that supported marsh grasses and cattails.The boys in the photo at the left illustrate the recreational enjoyments ofthe time, including a homemade raft, swimming and fishing off the dock.

The city in 1912 began diking and filling the shallow edges, greatlyreducing the size of Green Lake but adding nearly 100 acres of park beach.This process, which continued until 1933, included dredging 900,000 cubicyards of fill from the lake bottom, to which was added excess earth from thegrading of nearby streets and garbage, in those days mostly coal ashes andscrap wood. Aurora Avenue, when extended through the area in 1932, providedthe final earth needed to fill the remaining swampy area at the south end ofthe lake.

James R. Warren is director emeritus of the Museum of History and Industry. He wrote a regular column for the P-I during the 1980s and early '90s.