This is one of several parkways, never built, that were recommended by Olmsted in his 1908 supplemental report. The 1908 study specifically addressed recently annexed areas of the city, including West Seattle, Ballard and south Seattle. The network of “pleasure drives” that Olmsted envisioned aimed to extend the connected system of parks and boulevards into these newer city areas, and the routes he proposed responded to the local topography and features of the region to help provide a heightened experience of one’s surroundings. As John Charles penned in the 1908 report, these parkways were to provide “an appreciable amount of informal natural landscape beauty.” These parkways also would have connected and sometimes traversed park parcels dedicated for recreation and/or scenic beauty.
The Dunlap Canyon Parkway was to join Brighton Beach Parkway and Beacon Hill Parkway approximately where the City Light power lines cross Cloverdale Street today. From this point, the parkway would run south-southwest “through Dunlap Canyon to the open level valley of the Duwamish River,” at which point it “would turn westerly and become a formal boulevard with a pleasure drive in the middle and a traffic road on each side. The former would cross over the railroad and the river by a bridge and continue to the county road at the foot of the steep hill west of the river.” At this point the parkway would turn into the Duwamish Hill Parkway.
The route shown on the map is approximate and based on the 1908 map, “Olmsted System, Parks, Boulevards and Playgrounds of the City of Seattle,” as well as current topographical and parcel property information.