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Month: June 2025

Fremont’s Pocket Desert

Posted on by Valarie

In Fremont, our neighborhood known for its eccentricity, a small mystery has been hiding in plain sight. The Fremont Neighbor blog has written the following inquiry:

“On the grounds of what is now the Fremont Foundry event venue, 154 North 35th Street, sits a modest postcard-sized plaque reading simply “Fremont Pocket Desert.” No one seems to know its origin story.

The plaque’s location is particularly intriguing given the property’s colorful history. This is where sculptor Peter Bevis, the same visionary who brought us the Lenin statue, once pursued his dream of creating an artists’ community.

Bevis, who died in 2015, was a passionate sculptor who used money earned from commercial fishing in Alaska to slowly build the Fremont Fine Arts Foundry starting in 1979. By 1987, the nearly 22,000-square-foot building housed 11 live-in spaces where artists could work. Back then, Fremont called itself an “Artists’ Republic,” and Bevis believed he could create a true artistic mecca.

But like many of Bevis’ ambitious projects, including his doomed quest to save the art deco ferry Kalakala, the artists’ community eventually faded. By 2012, as tech companies moved into Fremont and the neighborhood’s bohemian character shifted, Bevis sold the foundry for $2.1 million. Currently the building serves as an upscale event venue.

So where does the “Fremont Pocket Desert” plaque fit into this story? Was it one of Bevis’ artistic statements? A remnant from the building’s days as a working foundry? An inside joke among the artists who once lived there?

The plaque’s cryptic message feels entirely in keeping with both Bevis’ unconventional spirit and Fremont’s tradition of playful installations.”

Do you know the story behind Fremont’s “Pocket Desert” plaque? If you have any information about this small but intriguing piece of Fremont history, please reach out to the Fremont Neighbor blog: Home – Fremont Neighbor

House History: 1109 North 47th Street

Posted on by Valarie

This house was built in 1909 for an estimated construction cost of $1,350, according to the building permit. The builder was Albert J. Carr, a contractor who lived in Wallingford. He was known for building houses throughout the University District, Wallingford and Fremont neighborhoods.

The house is a “plan book” design in Craftsman Bungalow style. The plan-book house could be built by a contractor without the use of an architect, and the construction was done by skilled craftsmen such as carpenters, masons and woodworkers.

Craftsman-style design elements of this house include the low-pitched roof with multiple roof brackets and with barge boards on the eaves. The gable ends of this house are clad with stucco and with faux half-timbers, a decorative treatment. The diamond-pattern sash window on the main gable end adds another decorative touch. The prominent projecting entry porch with its gable roof is a characteristic Craftsman house design feature.

The first owner of the house was Mary Hagerty, a 53-year-old widow with her seven children, ranging in age from 16 to 29. Nowadays it is hard to imagine how this many people could live in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house, but it is apparent that the Hagerty family members were all “pulling together” to make a living. The children of Mary Hagerty all had jobs, including the four daughters who were all schoolteachers.

The Hagerty family had only recently come to live in Seattle. We don’t know why they chose to live in this location in the Fremont neighborhood, but it may have had to do with convenience for traveling to work. One of the daughters was specifically mentioned on the census of 1910 as a teacher at Green Lake Elementary School, and that would have been accessible via streetcar from the Hagerty house in Fremont. The eldest Hagerty son, John, was a railroad worker and perhaps it was with this employment that the whole family decided to move to Seattle from Nebraska.

Mary Hagerty, born in Ireland in 1856, had immigrated to the USA at age fourteen in 1870. In 1879 in Nebraska, she married Patrick Hagerty who was also an immigrant from Ireland. He was twelve years older than Mary and had fought in the American Civil War in a cavalry unit from Minnesota. After the war Patrick Hagerty received a veteran’s land grant in O’Neill, Holt County, Nebraska.

All of the Hagerty children were born in Nebraska, the last in 1894 which was the year that Patrick Hagerty died at age 50. Mary Hagerty applied for her husband’s Civil War pension. After about twelve more years, we presume that Mary must have sold the 320 acres of land they owned in Nebraska, in order to move her family to Seattle and buy the house at 1109 North 47th Street.

The Hagertys only lived at this house a short time, which is understandable since her children were adults and were beginning to make their own way. By 1915 Mary Hagerty was living at 5115 Wallingford Avenue, with just three of her children: one daughter who was a schoolteacher, and Mary’s two youngest sons Paul & Eugene.

By 1930 Mary’s eldest daughter, Nellie, age 49, was living in Wrangell, Alaska, where she was principal of a public school. In April 1930 Mary’s youngest child, Eugene, age 36, was married in Seattle. Mary died in December 1930 at age 74.

Sources:

Bureau of Land Management-homestead land claims of Patrick Hagerty, Nebraska.

City of Seattle Historic Resources Inventory.

City of Seattle building permit #71790.

Genealogical records including census, city directories, Civil War pension records and Find A Grave. Patrick Hagerty’s Find A Grave record ID #169992361.