Bar-S Playground is located in the West Seattle neighborhood at 6425 SW Admiral Way, 98116. It is 3.7 acres.
The spit of land jutting into Puget Sound that forms the westernmost area of West Seattle was recommended for a park in the Olmsted Brothers 1908 supplemental report. They called this proposed park “Alki Point Park” and reported that most of the area “consists of an attractive wooded knoll, covered with good trees. It is close to and overlooks the Sound, which, together with its growth of trees, makes it very valuable as a local park for recreation purposes.” Although the knoll was privately developed as residences, some of the meadow was eventually made into a park with ballfields.
In 1952, a sewage treatment plant was built on this point to collect and treat sewage being dumped into the Sound. As the treatment plant did not occupy the entire parcel, a portion of it was devoted to ball play after several years of planning and negotiations with the community, Little League sponsors, city council and a local meat-packing plant called Bar-S. The Bar-S Meat Packing Company helped develop the fields for play.