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Originally called Bailey Peninsula, Seward Park boasts some of Seattle’s oldest-growth native forest thanks to John Charles Olmsted, who helped save it from development by encouraging the city to include its purchase in the park and boulevard system he designed in 1903. Bailey Peninsula was far outside the City limits when Olmsted proposed including it […]

Relocated from downtown northward to larger, less-developed acreage in 1895, the University of Washington consisted of just six buildings when the Olmsted Brothers firm prepared a general campus plan in 1903. John Charles Olmsted returned in 1906 to design the grounds for the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (AYPE), which attracted over three million people to Seattle […]

The city first acquired Washington Park from the Puget Mill Company in 1900. By 1904, the city hired the Olmsted Brothers firm to prepare drawings for a roadway alignment through the park. Plans for how a “pleasure drive” would connect Lake Washington Boulevard to the university campus through Washington Park evolved quickly over the next […]

J.C. Olmsted visited the large tract of city-owned land on Beacon Hill (now Jefferson Park) in 1903 when he toured the city to develop his city-wide system of parks and boulevards. In the 1903 report, Olmsted recommended ways the city could develop the eastern section into ball fields, walkways, and pleasure drives. Originally purchased by […]