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Author: Valarie

Valarie was born in Seattle and is a volunteer neighborhood history writer.

Syvert Stray, Dairyman

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In the early 1900s the Fremont neighborhood was home to many Scandinavian immigrants who worked hard in small businesses.

At age 17 in 1888, Syvert Stray from Norway began the classic immigrant journey, beginning in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he worked on a dairy farm. Mr. Stray migrated Out West to Seattle in 1902. He became owner of the Seattle Dairy company at the intersection of 8th & Union Streets, where the Seattle Convention Center is now.

Circa 1910 Mr. Stray lined up his wagons and employees for this photo — but not in front of his own Seattle Dairy building. He apparently thought that the newly-built Dreamland building, around the corner facing Union Street, was a better backdrop for the photo. Dreamland was an entertainment hall for dancing, conventions and shows. Mr. Stray is at left with his wife Lillian standing next to him, and their oldest daughter seated in the wagon.

Mr. Stray was forward-thinking and by 1915 he had replaced his fleet of horse-drawn wagons with delivery trucks. He also invested in a chain of gas stations, McKale’s, and he became a director of the McKale’s company.

For more info see the Now & Then column about Dreamland and the Eagles Auditorium which replaced it.

House History: 911 North 36th Street

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The Fremont neighborhood began to be settled in the summer of 1888 and many of the earliest houses were built in a cleared area along present-day Whitman and Aurora Avenues. We know that there must have been water resources there, because Fremont had no City water system at that time. Each house had to have access to its own well-water.

The house at 911 North 36th Street is one of the oldest houses that we know of in Fremont, constructed about 1890. Few houses from that era in Fremont survive, due to street construction and re-building of houses in later times. The house was built by Victor C. Nelson, a Swedish immigrant who worked at driving a delivery wagon for Cascade Steam Laundry.

In the early 1900s the new owners of the house at 911 North 36th Street were two sisters, Inga & Agnes Knudsen from Norway. They established a dressmaking business which they operated out of the house, and they also took in boarders. We know that they had other relatives in Seattle as one of the boarders was listed as their nephew.

The house is described as Italianate style in the Queen Anne architectural category. A Queen Anne-style house has many varying surface projections such as window bays, and decorations such as gables and eaves supported by corbels. The Italianate style includes the tall narrow windows in the front bay, a style hearkening to the Renaissance architecture of Italy in the 1500s.

For more details about the 911 house, enter its address on the Seattle Historical Sites Index page.

House History: 411 NW 42nd Street

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The western part of Fremont, west of 3rd Ave NW, once had its own railroad stop called Ross.

John & Mary Jane Ross were homestead land claimants in the 1850s and lived along the stream which much later (1917) became the ship canal. After John Ross died in 1886, Mary Jane began to sell some of their land holdings for income to support herself and her children. In 1888 real estate investors bought some of the Ross property between 3rd to 6th Avenues NW and platted it into residential lots. The area was thinly populated, however, until the early 1900s.

There had been a wood-frame Ross School building on NW 43rd Street at 3rd Ave NW (present site of Ross Park). In 1903 a new, eight-room Ross School was built, and this may have attracted families with children to come and live in the area. In the early 1900s many more houses began to be built nearby.

On NW 42nd Street, just one block south of Ross School, several small cottage-type houses were built with at least three appearing to be on the same plan as the house at 411 NW 42nd Street. This house was completed in 1902 and lived in by Scandinavian immigrants Pontus B. Nelson (from Sweden) and his wife Inga (from Norway). Mr. Nelson worked as a plasterer in the house-building industry and may have been involved in building his own house and the others in the same plan, 403 and 321 NW 42nd Street. The Nelsons lived in their house, 411 NW 42nd Street, until 1955.

The house at 411 NW 42nd Street is attractive with its wide hipped roof and the repeating shape of dormer “wings” at the front and at both sides. The dormer windows serve to bring additional light into the house. The central brick chimney shows that at first, the house was heated by a wood or coal stove. Electricity was not brought into private homes in Seattle until 1905, and houses built before then are almost always characterized by the central chimney seen here.

The original double-hung wood windows with ornate leaded glass in the upper sash are in place. The cutaway porch on the front corner of the house attracts the eye with its tapering columns painted to match the white frame of the front door and the windows. The house at 411 NW 42nd Street and similar houses at 403 and 321 tell the story of early 1900s residents who worked at house construction, the railroad and other industries in Fremont such as the lumber mill.

Sources:

City of Seattle Historic Sites Index.

Genealogical sources including the census and Find A Grave.

Newspaper death notice of Pontus B. Nelson, Seattle Daily Times, September 8, 1960, page 41.

Tax Assessment Roll of 1905 of the Ross Addition (showing ownership of lots).

House history: 4415 Baker Ave NW

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The two men who worked together to build this Craftsman-style house in 1910, were both Norwegian immigrants. They both lived near NW 73rd Street in Ballard at the time that they contracted to build 4415 Baker Ave NW in western Fremont. The builder of the house was Peter B. Nelson, a carpenter.

The owner of the house was Captain Martin Rolie, pilot of the Sumner, a steamer which traveled to Alaska to catch halibut. In 1913 Captain Rolie married in Seattle, a woman who had been born in the USA of Norwegian parents. By 1920 the census showed that Martin & Marie Rolie had three children, and Capt. Rolie had brought three of his siblings to live in the USA. All were living in the house at 4415 Baker Ave NW. Capt. Rolie’s two brothers were working as fishermen and his sister Astrid, age 24, worked in a tailor shop. It is possible that the Rolie’s next-door neighbor, Humphrey R. Roberts of 4435 Baker Ave NW, helped Astrid get a job, because Mr. Roberts was owner of a tailor shop.

The term “Craftsman” describes a style of house which often came from a plan book and could be completed by craftsmen such as carpenters, stonemasons and cabinetmakers. A Craftsman house has a foursquare appearance with a pitched roof, wide front porch with supporting pillars, and details such as the diamond windowpanes at the sides of the second story. This house is 26 feet wide at the front and 41 feet long. There is a partial second floor and a total of four bedrooms. The most outstanding Craftsman details of this house are on the interior with its fine woodwork, built-in cabinets and window seats. The house still has its original leaded-glass bookcases and dish cupboards.

The name “Baker Avenue” is a reference to Charles Baker, the early landowner who filed a plat called the Palatine Addition where the streets and house lots were laid out.

Sources:

Census and City Directory listings.

City of Seattle building permit #96239 of 1910, shows name of contractor and name of house owner.

Find A Grave Memorials #157073212 (Martin Rolie) and #156986296 (Marie Rolie)

South of the Bridge: Then and Now

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When the ship canal was completed in 1917, it created a change in the definition of the boundaries of the Fremont neighborhood. There had been a Fremont Bridge (over a small stream) before the ship canal and “Fremont” had included the area on the south side. The area as far south as Florentia Street, now on the south side of the bridge, was part of a plat called Denny & Hoyt’s which defined the original Fremont. But once the wide channel of the ship canal was created, the south side came to be defined as Queen Anne area.

In those early years after creation of the ship canal, the areas along its banks were quite industrial & commercial. One of the early businesses was Bleitz Funeral Home, a very visible building which still stands today on the south side of the Fremont Bridge. The Bleitz building, which is historically landmarked, and an addition on its west side have been renamed Fremont Crossing, an office complex.

Next to Bleitz an early business was Canal Iron Works, defined as a blacksmith shop. A blacksmith might do any kind of welding, including fabrication or repair of metal tools. In the booming housing industry in the 1920s, the shop might have made stair railings and fireplace screens for home use.

From the 1920s to 1940s Canal Iron Works was owned by Eric Hager, a Swedish immigrant. When the Hager family’s two sons got jobs at the Navy Ship Yard at Bremerton, the entire family moved to Kitsap County. The next owner of the shop, Danish immigrant Carl V. Torp, renamed it Ornamental Iron Works, as shown in this 1958 photo.

In 1990 a new building, Ponti Seafood Grill, was built on the old ironworks site. This popular restaurant was built with patios and overlooks to the interesting boat traffic on the ship canal. The restaurant closed in 2016 when the owners retired, having received an offer from the Queen Anne Elks Club to buy the building.

Sources:

Bleitz Funeral Home at 316 Florentia Street, now an office building called Fremont Crossing.

Ponti Seafood Grill info.

The founding of Fremont in 1888: the original land area was from Florentia Street on the south, up to North 39th Street, called the Denny & Hoyt plat.

Photo: our thanks to Christine Cameron who shared this photo of the iron shop then-and-now. Mr. & Mrs. Torp were her “foster great-grandparents” because the Torps took in the Jensen children who had been orphaned.

Stone Way in the 1930s: the 3500 Block

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In the past twenty years Stone Way has been transformed from semi-industrial and construction-industry use such as electrical and plumbing companies, to a gleaming row of apartments and office buildings. Today the 35 Stone Office Building has replaced the old-time businesses in the 3500 block.

In the 1930s Fremont & Wallingford were already inside of the Seattle City Limits, and homes had electricity, but there was still use of coal, hay and kindling for woodstoves or fireplaces. Some people kept chickens, too, and horse-drawn road-grading equipment was still in use. The Stoneway Hay & Grain Company at 3500 Stone Way, continued operating into the 1950s.

Immigration had slowed in the 1930s and now there were more first-generation American businessmen in Fremont. Rasmus Rasmussen of Stoneway Hay & Grain had been born in Iowa of parents who immigrated from Denmark. August J. Kirchner, owner of the neighboring business at 3504 Stone Way, had been born in St. Louis, Missouri, of parents who had immigrated from Germany in the 1880s. Kirchner’s business on Stone Way was called Chief Rug & Mattress Company.

At the north end of the 3500 block of Stone Way in the 1930s was Eastern Fuel Company, Socrates A. Geftax, President. Mr. Geftax had changed the spelling of his name from Geftakis, perhaps for ease of pronunciation. He was an immigrant from Meropy, Greece who came to Seattle in 1929 and spent the rest of his life here. Mr. Geftax had two co-investors at the fuel yard but he lived on-site himself.

By the 1950s this block of Stone Way had one-story office buildings — no more hay, grain, or mattresses. The present tall building at 3500 Stone Way, completed in 2024, represents the third era in the evolution of this block.

A brick at Troll’s Knoll

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The Friends of Troll’s Knoll is a community group dedicated to preserving and maintaining the green space around the Fremont Troll on North 36th Street, under the Aurora Bridge. The Troll’s Knoll includes a garden area and in recent digging, this paver brick was unearthed. The name stamped on the paver, Denny-Renton, was a company which closed in 1927 and was in what is now part of the Cedar River watershed.

In December 2025 members of the Denny family, the original family who had the brick company, came to Troll’s Knoll for a ceremony to receive back the brick. Photos and story here.

The lights are on again at the “Interurban.”

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The Waiting for the Interurban statue is at the intersection of North 34th Street and Fremont Avenue. It memorializes the former rail line, called the Interurban, which went northward through Fremont to the city of Everett. This transfer point at the intersection, where City of Seattle streetcar lines also converged, did much to give Fremont the reputation of being the “center” of things, the Center of the Universe.

The Interurban statue was created by Richard Beyer in 1978. In 1979 Peter Larsen was commissioned to add a pergola with lights. The lights had been knocked out in a 2023 car crash against a nearby power pole (not a crash at the pergola itself.) Now, as of October 2025, the lights have been restored. Our thanks to the City’s signal technician who did the electrical work, and thanks to the Fremont Neighbor blog for the wonderful night photo of the Interurban lights.

The Hall of Giants: The Story of Fremont and the Troll

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In 1990 the Fremont Arts Council sought proposals for a vacant area on North 36th Street which was directly underneath the Aurora Bridge. Immediately the folktale of the troll beneath the bridge came to mind, and this design proposal won acceptance.

The Fremont Troll became so popular that in 2005, the City of Seattle changed the name of the north-south avenue leading to it, to Troll Avenue. This made it much easier for visitors to Seattle to find the Fremont Troll.

Today the Friends of the Troll’s Knoll volunteer group maintain the area around the Troll and they host events in the adjacent green space with other artworks.

When at the intersection of Troll Avenue and North 36th Street, the view from under the bridge downhill to Lake Union is like that of a medieval castle hall, with the arching piers of the Aurora Bridge. The area of the Fremont Troll thus has its own folklore as part of an imaginative Hall of Giants.

A documentary film, The Hall of Giants: The Story of Fremont and the Troll, tells the story of how the troll was built and how it enhanced community bonds in Fremont. The DVD of the film is now available from the Seattle Public Library system although, after coming available in October 2025, there is already a waiting list for it. The film is also available for rent from Scarecrow Video of Seattle.

Who was B.F. Day?

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Benjamin Franklin Day was 45 years old when he and his wife Frances arrived in Seattle in the spring of 1880.  

Born in Ohio, B.F. Day had farmed in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri.  Biographical notes indicate that Day wanted to leave farming because of the hard physical labor. We don’t know why he chose to come to Seattle, but as a former farmer who had raised corn & hogs, B.F. Day would have known the importance of railroads in moving products to market.  In the 1870s-1880s there was constant speculation about railroad routes across the USA.  B.F. Day may have chosen to come to Seattle because he thought that Seattle had a good chance of becoming the terminus of a transcontinental railroad line, and that there would be good economic conditions in Seattle. 

In Seattle B.F. Day worked as a real estate agent and he quickly became involved in civic affairs.  He served on City Council in 1883-1884 and he was one of the original members of the Lake Washington Improvement Company which was organized to create a ship canal.  The Company’s proposed plan was to widen the stream from Lake Union, flowing westward to Puget Sound, so that logs could be floated to mill and coal barges towed by ships.  For this reason, in 1882 B.F. Day began buying land near Lake Union and the future community of Fremont.  He believed that the future canal would cause property values to rise around that area on the western shore of Lake Union, so he bought property as an investment. 

As of 1888 the Fremont area, from Florentia Street (south side of the bridge) up to North 39th Street, was released from legal impediments so that the land could be opened for settlement.  B.F. Day bought an adjacent tract of land just north of 39th Street and built his own house there at 3922 Woodland Park Ave North. 

As of 1888 when Fremont began to be settled, it was a suburb, outside of the city limits of Seattle, and it had no organized school system.  School in Fremont began in a series of temporary locations with parents organizing to pay teachers.  In 1889 B.F. Day paid the rent for a building, a vacant storefront at 36th & Aurora, so that it could be used as a schoolhouse. 

In 1891 Fremont was officially annexed to the City of Seattle, and the Seattle School District made plans to build a new school in Fremont.  As a real estate agent who saw the Fremont community developing, B.F. Day knew that families would be more interested in buying property to settle in Fremont if there was a good school building.  He’d seen other neighborhoods with hastily-built wooden school structures which deteriorated or were not big enough.  B.F. Day offered to donate property on North 39th Street between Fremont & Linden Avenues, to build a school in Fremont, on the condition that the structure would be well-built and permanent, not temporary.    

Architect John Parkinson was hired, and a two-story brick school was built which opened in May 1892.  The form of the school building was like the letter H so that more sections could be added onto the original.  Fremont grew so much in the 1890s that additions had to be built to accommodate the growing population of school-age children.  Ironically B.F. Day, who never had any children of his own, is best remembered in Seattle history for this school which still serves the children of Fremont today. 

Sources:

Seattle School Histories: B.F. Day School. HistoryLink Essay # 10494.

The Life of B.F. Day, Part One and Part Two, articles on the Wedgwood in Seattle History blog.