Seattle’s parks and boulevards are on the traditional lands and adjacent waters of the Duwamish people, both past and present. We honor, with gratitude, the land and the people who have cared for it for thousands of years.
Preface – The origins of a park system in seattle
For thousands of years the Puget Sound region was inhabited by people known collectively as the Puget Sound or Coast Salish people. The Duwamish are among these people. They, as noted, that lived on land that has become the City of Seattle.
Upon the arrival of settlers in the early 19th century, the ownership of land and land use changed greatly. The federal Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 opened the way for US citizens to claim land in the Oregon Territory — of which Seattle was a part until 1853. As early as 1852 citizen settlers claimed land along Elliott Bay and then all over what became known as Seattle. In
1855 when the Coastal Salish people signed the Point Elliott Treaty and ceded their title to their lands, the U. S. citizen settlers gained full legal title to the lands they had claimed. These American settlers of European origin built a port city which grew rapidly in size and population. Within 33 years the need for an open space for Seattle residents was recognized and, thanks to the Denny family, Seattle had its first park. A short 20 years after that, the city had a comprehensive plan for major parks and parkways that would rival any found in the United States.
Today’s Seattle residents owe a debt of gratitude to the city leaders of the early twentieth century and the landscape architects responsible for crafting the master plan for the Seattle parks and boulevard system— the Olmsted family of Brookline, Massachusetts. The forward-thinking city leaders were anticipating the needs of a rapidly growing city and imbued with the philosophy of the City Beautiful movement which recognized the importance of open space in urban environments.
When the Denny party arrived at Alki Point in 1851, building a home was far more important than building a place to play. And yet, just 33 years later Seattle had its first park.
The Olmsted Brothers firm was well known for designing New York’s Central Park and Boston’s “Emerald Necklace” of parks when they began their work in Seattle in 1903. Their work in Seattle spanned 34 years, culminating in the design of 37 parks and playgrounds. These include Cal Anderson (originally Lincoln), Colman, Frink, Green Lake, Hiawatha, Jefferson, Schmitz, Seward, Volunteer, Washington Park Arboretum and Woodland Park. The boulevards connecting the parks, part of their comprehensive design, include Lake Washington, Magnolia, and Interlaken boulevards.
Park planners across the country recognize Seattle’s Olmsted park system as one of the more comprehensive and best preserved in the United States. More significantly, while many eastern cities have only one or two Olmsted-designed parks, Seattle has an extensive multi-park plan linked by boulevards. This legacy of numerous parks, extensive public shoreline access, and breathtaking views, all linked by scenic green connections, contributes to making Seattle one of the most livable cities in the country.
Hiring the Olmsted Brothers
Despite some opposition to the 1899 purchase of Woodland Park, the Seattle Board of Park Commissioners decided in 1902 that it was time to create a more extensive park system enhancing the standing of their growing city. To reach this goal, the Board wanted to hire the best regarded landscape architect in the country: Frederick Law Olmsted.
When the Board contacted the Olmsted firm in Brookline, Massachusetts, they learned that Frederick Law Olmsted was unavailable and in poor health. However, John Charles Olmsted, the firm’s senior partner, was available. The Board was dubious and inquired about the experience of this ‘other’ Olmsted. The firm accommodated the ignorance of the Seattleites and sent a letter listing his extensive park planning work. The Board then hired John Charles Olmsted, the most experienced landscape architect in the country.
Although the Park Commissioners did not know it, John Charles Olmsted was the most experienced landscape architect in the country in 1903.
John Charles began his career in 1875, when he apprenticed with his adopted father, Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. By 1902, the younger Olmsted’s credits included design work on the Boston, Louisville, and Rochester park systems, as well as numerous private estates throughout the east.
In 1902 the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published a full-page article urging the city to acquire more land to develop an elaborate park system. The article, “Let Us Make a Beautiful City of Seattle”, ended with sparkling endorsements from many of the city’s leading citizens in favor of improving Seattle parks. By the time Olmsted and his assistant Percy Jones arrived in Seattle on April 30, 1903, the Klondike Gold Rush had enriched Seattle and the anti-park tide had dissipated.
the design for the park system and its realization
Accompanied by a host of park commissioners, Olmsted and Jones spent the month of May surveying the city by horse, trolley, foot, and boat.
Besides gathering information directly, Olmsted used two existing documents which aided his evaluation of the terrain and existing conditions, and the potential for an interconnected park system. The first document, created eleven years earlier in 1892, was a city-wide plan for the development of a park system designed by Superintendent of Parks Edward Otto Schwagerl. Schwagerl proposed two parks on Puget Sound (Ft. Lawton and Alki Point) and two on Lake Washington (Sand Point and Seward Park). Parkways would link these parks with privately owned “pleasure grounds” and with existing public parks. Schwagerl wrote “[T]he establishment of a fine system of Parks and Drive-ways as such is manifestly the most effective means of rendering a city a beautiful and desirable place of residence.”
The second document was a plan for a 25-mile system of bicycle paths around the city, created in 1900 by Assistant City Engineer George Cotterill. Olmsted incorporated several miles of these trails into his own design, including the paths through what would become Interlaken and Washington parks.
…accompanied by a host of park commissioners, Olmsted and Jones spent the month of May surveying the city by horse, trolley, foot, and boat.
Olmsted and Jones submitted their master plan on July 2, 1903, and the Seattle City Council approved the Olmsted Brothers’ “A Comprehensive System of Parks and Parkways” on November 16, 1903. Olmsted wrote that the “primary aim should be to secure and preserve for the use of the people as much as possible of these advantages of water and mountain views and of woodlands, well distributed and conveniently located.” He recognized the real estate market was growing and urged the city to move swiftly to acquire as much land as possible, especially “all the borders of the different bodies of water.”
Seattle’s citizens actively supported the plan. In the eight years following the original proposal, city citizens passed bonds totaling 3.5 million dollars for park enhancement (about $57 million in 1999 dollars).
In March 1904, the city voted to give the Board of Park Commissioners powers separate from the City Council. This vote had a positive impact on the realization of the Olmsted park plan for Seattle. The powers of the Park Board before 1904 were so meager that a successor Board member observed: “After learning it was necessary to kneel to the council and play the political game to secure appropriations on the work, nearly all of these 35 commissioners resigned or retired in disgust.” The Olmsted firm realized the Board’s ability to make decisions and fund their projects might be used to better realize their design for a park system by providing good park administration; they proposed to “furnish a competent and experienced park superintendent” who would be paid. Their man, John Thompson, remained the Superintendent for 17 years. Thus, the newly empowered Board began to implement the Olmsted plan for Seattle.
The central feature of the Olmsted plan was a twenty-mile parkway that ran from Bailey Peninsula (Seward Park) to Fort Lawton (Discovery Park). From Bailey the pleasure drive would snake along the lake shore, climb up and wrap along the bluff that now encompasses Colman and Frink Parks, dive back down to the water at Madrona Park, and eventually turn inland to Washington Park.”
With this change, the new board would have the same independence as park boards in eastern cities. Taking advantage of this change in the power structure, the Olmsted Brothers proposed to “furnish a competent and experienced park superintendent” and then pay him, too.
From here the roadway would pass through the UW campus to Ravenna Park and the adjacent ravine (Cowen Park). Eventually it would parallel the brook that flowed from Green Lake. The parkway would continue through Woodland Park, descend to the northwest corner of Queen Anne, wrap around the hill’s north end and head through Interbay to Smith’s Cove with a final extension along the Magnolia bluffs to Fort Lawton.
In addition, spur roads would connect Lake Washington Boulevard at Mt. Baker Park to Beacon Hill Park (Jefferson Park). A second link went from Washington Park along Interlaken Boulevard to Volunteer Park and Roanoke Park. Another boulevard would connect Kinnear Park on Queen Anne with Magnolia.
Although the Olmsted report focused on park and boulevard development, it also promoted a new concept for Seattle, namely playgrounds. According to David Streatfield, a University of Washington landscape architecture professor, John Charles Olmsted was a pioneer in this concept. “Olmsted believed that playgrounds were a necessity for a civilized society. Children would learn fairness and decency via sports in the playground.” says Streatfield. In the firm’s 1908 report to the Park Commissioners, Olmsted recommended locating small parks and playgrounds, oriented toward young children and women with babies, within a half mile of every home. He also supported additional playgrounds and outdoor gymnasiums for older boys.
Olmsted believed that playgrounds were a necessity for a civilized society. Children would learn fairness and decency via sports in the playground.
The 1903 report was the beginning of a relationship between the Olmsted Brothers and Seattle that lasted until 1941. Initially, the city hired the firm to make plans for all the parks it already owned, none of which had been formally designed. The city then asked the firm to create plans for the new lands it acquired: Colman, Cowen, Frink, Green Lake, Leschi, Madrona, Ravenna, Seward, and Schmitz Parks. The Washington Park Arboretum, designed by Olmsted’s collaborator and successor in Seattle, James Dawson, was the Olmsted Brothers’ final large public project in Seattle.
One of John Charles Olmsted’s main concerns in Seattle was that parks should fit into their surroundings. In the 1903 report Olmsted wrote: “The different parks of the city should not be made to look as much like each other as possible, but on the contrary every advantage should be taken of differing conditions to give each one a distinct individuality of its own.”
In the 1903 report Olmsted wrote: “The different parks of the city should not be made to look as much like each other as possible, but on the contrary every advantage should be taken of differing conditions to give each one a distinct individuality of its own.”
David Streatfield points out at Colman and Frink Parks: “It is clear that Olmsted recognized the fragility of the environment in these ravines.” He did not alter the rough terrain, wild growth, and tall trees, except next to the roads. The winding roads follow the land’s contours, while pathways allow people to easily move through the park. Many consider these parks to be the best examples of Olmsted park design in Seattle.
On the other hand, since Volunteer Park was located within a “highly finished style of city development,” Olmsted proposed a formal design with large grassy areas and extensive flower beds, the clearing of densely growing fir trees, and construction of an observation tower. Yet another style was suggested for Washington Park, one, which combined a shady brook and swampy areas surrounded by native trees with “marked open spaces, [not] of large extent, and … covered smoothly with grass so as to adapt it for use by large crowds.”
Olmsted did not always leave the character of the land alone when changes in the terrain furthered the purpose of the design for a park. He recommended lowering Green Lake by four feet to create a “lake within a park.” The city eventually dropped the lake seven feet, creating almost 100 acres of additional land.
He did not alter the rough terrain, wild growth, and tall trees, except next to the roads. The winding roads follow the land’s contours, while the overpasses allow people to easily move through the park.
According to Jerry Arbes, who knows the Seattle parks very well and is a former Board Member of the National Association of Olmsted Parks and of Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks, the key to appreciating what the Olmsteds did for Seattle is not to look the parks as separate entities, but to look at the system as a whole. “There is a sense of connection in the Olmsted plan,” says Arbes. “The interlinked parks provide a diversity of experience, yet one senses a relationship between these separate elements.”
The Legacy
Almost 100 years later, parks have become even more central to the city. Surveys by the Park Department over the last 30 years show that parks act upon us at a level we don’t always comprehend. When asked if they used parks, many of those surveyed initially said “No”. When questioned further, however, the respondents realized that they walked, biked, or drove through, or by a park almost every day and most often one designed by the Olmsted Brothers. Part of the park system’s appeal is that these greenspaces do not feel like designed landscapes, but blend into their residential surroundings.
A virgin wilderness of unknown proportions spread out in all directions from the Dennys and their clan. Their vision, though, was so grand that they named the place “New York, Alki” – New York bye and bye.
Part of the Olmsted designed park system’s contribution to the community is that these greenspaces contribute a green presence to our urban habitat. Olmsted designed parks rarely feel like designed landscapes, rather they contribute a natural presence to residential areas. How many Seattleites have had one of their first experiences with the natural world in an Olmsted park?
We are fortunate. We still have places like Schmitz Park, which has hints of the virgin forest that once covered this land; Interlaken Park, which remains the province of frogs and quiet streams; or even a more formal park like Woodland, where anyone can sit quietly under an 80-foot-tall oak and forget the city for a while.
This is part of the Olmsted Brothers legacy to Seattle-that so much land was protected and that the designs were good enough to survive to the present. How many Seattleites had their first experience with the natural world in an Olmsted park?
Equally important is that the Olmsted’s philosophy of protecting our natural scenery has been implemented through time here in the city of Seattle. John Charles Olmsted wrote in his initial report to the city that it should “secure and preserve…these advantages of water and mountain views.” According to Don Harris, former Director of Environmental Programs for the Department of Parks and Recreation, this admonishment still guides city planners. He cites the 1989 King County Open Spaces and Trails Bond, which provided funding to preserve 531 additional acres of green space, as an example. Harris says: “Over the years we have created a wonderful mix of larger parks such as Gasworks and Discovery and smaller jewels like Thornton Creek and Maple School Ravine, but the key element was the Olmsted legacy. It has helped provide the links that sustain the system.”
Based on a HistoryLink.org essay by David B. Williams.
Sources: William White, The City Beautiful Movement (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985); Annual Report of Board of Park Commissioners, Seattle: 1903; Annual Report of Board of Park Commissioners, Seattle: 1909; Brandt Morgan, Enjoying Seattle’s Parks (Seattle: Greenwood Publications), 1979.