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Author: Valarie

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

Plats of Fremont

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One of the ways to trace neighborhood history is by its land use, including plats of land laid out with streets and house lots. This map of the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle is marked with plats and their names.

The founding of Fremont in 1888 was in the area closest to the ship canal, although at that time it was only a small stream called The Outlet. The plat, which was named Denny & Hoyt’s, was on both sides of the stream, as far south as Florentia Street and to the north, at 39th Street, marked in light yellow on this map. A “plat” is a map of streets and house lots within the borders of a land claim. Plats have names, and the list is shown here, of the plats in Fremont.

Fremont’s original founders bought about 212 acres which had been the homestead land claim of early Seattleite William Strickler. Strickler disappeared in 1861 and the issue of who would come into ownership of his land, was not settled until 1887. Finally, Seattle investors Denny & Hoyt were able to buy this property. They soon re-sold it to the Blewetts, investors who came from Fremont, Nebraska. The Blewetts kept the original plat name which is the large section shown in light yellow on the plat map. Fremont was outside of the Seattle City Limits at that time, so it was founded with its own name, like a suburb.

Over time, many other investors bought sections of land, represented by the different colors in this map. Some investors lived in Fremont themselves, such as Sidney S. Elder, a former pharmacist, who transitioned into real estate work. He named his plat the S.S. Elder’s Orchard Addition. Another Fremont resident was a Civil War veteran, George Boman. His plat of land was named Edgemont to give tribute to Fremont + Edgewater plats nearby, on the eastern edge of the neighborhood near Stone Way.

The red-colored plat in the center of the map is that of B.F. Day, a real estate investor who donated the land for Fremont’s B.F. Day Elementary School. Mr. & Mrs. Day lived nearby and were active in Fremont beginning in the 1880s. When the Days filed their plat, it was technically outside of the original Fremont area, bordering it at North 39th Street. The map here, shows our present-day perception of the Fremont neighborhood which is now considered to have its northern border at North 50th Street.

Directly above B.F. Day’s plat is Sunset Heights (blue slash lines). This plat, filed by two Norwegian immigrant couples, tells the story of life in Seattle in the 1880s-1890s. These landowners did not live in the plat themselves but hoped to derive income from lot sales.

The Sunset Heights Plat in Fremont

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In 1871 in Norway, 21-year-old Oline Anrud married Hans Onsum, and the couple set out to start new lives in America.  They touched down briefly in Wisconsin before continuing the westward journey to Seattle in Washington Territory.   

In the 1870s and 1880s the couple spent some time in Seattle, where Hans had a meat market, and some time in rural Snohomish County. Perhaps Seattle’s Great Fire of June 6, 1889, made the couple decide that they would settle in the city where explosive population growth post-Fire, created the best economic opportunities.  The Onsum family with their four children settled in a home on “Madison Heights,” on the hill above downtown Seattle. 

In 1883 Oline’s younger brother Ole Anrud followed the Onsums to the USA with the same pattern of stopping in Wisconsin, before arriving in Seattle.  Ole Anrud worked as a watchmaker until, in 1887, he could afford to get married.  He returned to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, for the wedding.  By June 1887, Ole and his bride, Mathilde, were living in Woodinville near Seattle, as recorded by census enumerator Ira Woodin. 

In 1889 the two couples, Hans & Oline Onsum and Ole & Mathilde Anrud, went in together on a real estate investment on the growing edge of a new community, Fremont.  Fremont, located north of Seattle’s Queen Anne hill, had been organized as a plat in 1888 with lots marked out for houses and businesses. It was outside of the Seattle City Limits at that time and it had been organized with a separate name like a suburb.   Fremont’s total land area was about 212 acres, reaching from the present site of Seattle Pacific University, up to today’s North 39th Street, with Fremont Avenue as the centerline of the community.  

The Anrud & Onsums plat was on undeveloped land on the north side of Fremont from 42nd to 45th Streets.  Their plat, which they named Sunset Heights, was on a high elevation with good views, and with Phinney Avenue at its centerline.  The Anruds & Onsums did not live in Sunset Heights themselves; it seems that it was a real estate investment where they intended to derive income from selling lots.

As of the plat filing in 1889, property owners could give the streets in their plat, any names that they chose.  The original plat map shows that today’s Phinney Avenue was first called Onsum Avenue, and today’s Francis Avenue was called Anrud.  The engineer who surveyed to lay out and measure the lots, was R.H. Thomson, later to become famous for his plan to flatten the hills of Seattle.  The Sunset Heights plat document was notarized by Percy Rochester, an attorney specializing in real estate along with his business partner George Boman who was himself a resident of the Fremont area. 

The Sunset Heights plat was filed with King County on May 6, 1889, and the timing could not have been better.  Just thirty days later, Seattle’s Great Fire knocked down quite a few blocks of the downtown business district but it resulted in a do-over and an economic boom.  People streamed into Seattle to get in on the rebuilding of the city, and those people needed places to live.  In the year following the Fire, more than 400 plats were filed in King County, and property investors like the Onsums & Anruds were able to sell lots for houses.  

As of 1890, the Onsum and Anrud families seemed settled and prosperous in Seattle.  But within the next ten years, both Hans Onsum and Ole Anrud would die, and their widows would be left to find financial resources to finish raising their children. 

At age 42 in 1897, Ole Anrud was bitten by Gold Fever, or perhaps by a desire to see if there would be good investment opportunities in the Yukon.  In June 1898 Ole set out on a small freight steamer, which was swamped in turbulent waters at the mouth of the Kuskokwim River in southwest Alaska. Ole Anrud was one of the eighteen passengers who drowned. 

Less than six months later, Hans Onsum, age 54, succumbed to health problems. 

Oline Onsum with her four children, and Mathilde Anrud with three children, all under age 21, had to find a way to support their families.  Real estate transactions recorded in Seattle newspapers showed that they still could derive income by selling some lots in Sunset Heights.  By the year 1900, Oline had opened her house to boarders as a source of income.  Mathilde took a different route; she returned to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to live with relatives. 

By the year 1910, Mathilde Anrud’s oldest two children, ages 21 and 17, were working as stenographers for the railroad in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  Mathilde’s three children, Mildred, Arthur and Helen, eventually all returned to live in the Pacific Northwest where they married and pursued their careers.  Mathilde, who stayed in Wisconsin, died unexpectedly at age 74 in 1938 while on a visit to her daughter Helen, in Blaine, Washington. 

Oline Onsum and her children stayed in Seattle, where all four married and found careers.  Oline died at age 77 in 1927.  

We have the Sunset Heights plat in Fremont to remember the story of these two Norwegian-immigrant families and the impact of historical events including the founding of the Fremont neighborhood, the Seattle Fire and the Yukon Gold Rush.  

Sources: 

Genealogical resources including census; newspaper search. 

House histories: Here is a story of a house in Sunset Heights: 4202 Phinney Ave North.

Plat maps:  King County Parcel Viewer shows the legal description of each house including plat name, and on the right margin of the page is a link to the plat map. 

Sorting out street names: Beginning in 1895, Seattle began to change street names so that there would only be one street with any given name. “Lake,” for example, was used in several places around the city and was the original name of Fremont Avenue. Some other neighborhood got to keep “Lake”. Several more streets in Fremont had their names changed in the early 1900s.

House History: 4202 Phinney Ave North

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Captain Herbert E. Farnsworth made the classic Western migration of a Civil War veteran after the war.  Born in New York State, after the end of the war in 1865, Captain Farnsworth married.  The Farnsworth’s first daughter was born in New York and by the time of the birth of their second daughter in 1871, the family was living in the town of Kidder, Caldwell County, Missouri.  It was a railroad town and Captain Farnsworth, who worked as a carpenter, perhaps was attracted to the growing community where there would be work opportunities. 

By or before 1890, the Farnsworth family moved to tiny Garfield County in the southeasternmost corner of Washington State.  Captain Farnsworth’s name appeared there on the census of Civil War veterans which was done in 1890, for pension applications. 

The Heaton family of New York had also migrated across the USA.  Some of their children were born in Iowa and then finally the Heatons settled in Pomeroy, the county seat of Garfield County, Washington, in 1877.  Mr. Heaton was a millwright, a mechanic who often worked at maintenance of sawmill equipment.  Oscar, the Heaton’s eldest son, went to Seattle in 1890 and graduated with a law degree from the University of Washington.  In 1895 Oscar married Viola, Captain Farnsworth’s eldest daughter.  The couple moved to Seattle where Oscar had a long and successful law practice, and he also became a real estate investor. 

The census of 1900 captured Viola Heaton and her little son, two-year-old Herbert Farnsworth Heaton, on a visit to Viola’s parents in Pomeroy, Garfield County, Washington.  The visit, and the naming of their first grandchild in honor of Captain Farnsworth, seemed to show the closeness of the family.  Ten years later, by the time of the 1910 census, Captain & Mrs. Farnsworth and Viola Farnsworth Heaton were all dead, and twelve-year-old Herbert Heaton was living with his aunt, his mother’s sister, Virginia. 

Viola Heaton’s tragic story involved a “health farm” which later became known as Starvation Heights.  An unqualified “health practitioner” was later convicted of manslaughter after several of the residents, including Viola, died of starvation. 

Oscar & Viola Heaton had been living in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle.  After the death of Viola in 1909, Oscar Heaton made plans to start over again with a new wife, Elma, and a new house, so that he could have a place for his son Herbert to live with him. Oscar married Elma in 1910 and built a new house at 4202 Phinney Avenue North.  Oscar & Elma lived in the house for about ten more years and had two children together.  Oscar’s eldest son Herbert became a successful traffic engineer for the City of Los Angeles. 

The house at 4202 Phinney is two-stories with good views out over its western and southern sides. The house has Austrian Alpine or Swiss Chalet design elements including a wide roof overhang, river rock cladding and a river rock fireplace.  Decorative elements include tulip leaded-glass windows and archways between rooms. 

Subsequent owners of the house at 4202 Phinney modified it into an apartment building with four units.  Current residents of the apartments include the owners, and they love the charming design of the building and its convenient location in the Fremont neighborhood. 

Sources: 

Genealogical info including census and Find A Grave. 

Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, Historic Sites Index; description of the house at 4202 Phinney Avenue North.  Search the index under the address of the house, or choose neighborhood search “Fremont” to see all the listings.

Starvation Heights, by Gregg Olsen, 2005. Seattle Public Library 364.1523.

Fremont’s Pocket Desert

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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

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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.

House History: 617 North 47th Street

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This house is an outstanding and well-preserved early example of a Craftsman Bungalow cottage constructed by Jud Yoho. It was built in 1910 as the home of Fred J. Kerr, a real estate developer, who had his office at 4228 Fremont Avenue.

Known as “The Bungalow Craftsman” Jud Yoho (b.1882) is considered to have been Seattle’s most active and market-oriented bungalow entrepreneur. He was the owner of the Craftsman Bungalow Company and the Take-Down Manufacturing Company, as well as president of Bungalow Magazine.

After 1912, Yoho published eight editions of Craftsman Bungalows, the Craftsman Bungalow Company catalog of house plans. The Craftsman Bungalow Company primarily built and sold bungalow-style homes on installment purchase plans between 1911 and 1918. The short-lived Take-Down Manufacturing Company specialized in small “portable” or manufactured buildings, especially prefabricated garages.

Bungalow Magazine was published in Seattle from 1912 to 1918; it was modeled on Gustav Stickley’s The Craftsman and on an earlier Los Angeles publication with a similar title. This widely circulated publication featured many Seattle bungalows along with notable examples from southern California.
The magazine served to promote The Craftsman Bungalow Company and the sale of Craftsman Bungalows catalogs, as well as the sale of stock house plans for residential designs credited to Yoho and others, including his close associate Edward L. Merritt (b.1881).

Jud Yoho and the Craftsman Bungalow Company are known to have developed two small clusters of bungalow style residences in Fremont in the 600 block of North 47th Street and the 4400 block of Greenwood Avenue North, in the spring and summer of 1910. This house at 617 North 47th Street is part of the cluster on North 47th Street and is the most distinctive and best-preserved example of Jud Yoho work in Fremont.

A very similar (possibly using the exact same floor plan) cottage constructed in 1911 is located at 500 North 43rd Street; it has been altered by cladding changes but retains a cobblestone porch and fireplace. King County property tax records indicate that the interior was remodeled prior to 1937 and again prior to 1972.

Information regarding Jud Yoho and other Fremont houses associated with him was obtained from: Doherty, Erin M. “Jud Yoho and The Craftsman Bungalow Company: Assessing the Value of the Common House” – M.A. Architecture Thesis, University of Washington 1997. 

Located mid-block on the south side of North 47th Street with front elevation oriented to the north. Very well-preserved, one story, wood-frame, single-family residence constructed in 1910. Exhibits highly distinctive Craftsman Bungalow style design elements/features. Front gable building form with prominent cutaway porch at east side of facade. There may be a small habitable attic area (shed dormer at east elevation). Measures approx. 26’ x 40’ with concrete foundation and basement level. Prominent 12’ x 12’ cutaway porch with cobblestone wing walls, tapered column and stair cheeks.

Craftsman style design elements/features include: low pitched roof forms; cobblestone porch features; cedar shingle cladding; multiple knee braces; wide barge boards and roof overhangs. Distinctive original wooden windows including diamond pattern upper sash cottage and accent windows (including long narrow set of windows at gable end). Corner bay window at west side of façade. Bay window at east elevation. Original multi-pane Craftsman style door remains in place.
Major Bibliographic References:
King County Property Record Card (c. 1938), Washington State Archives.
Polk’s Seattle Directories, 1890-1996.
City of Seattle, Department of Planning and Development, Microfilm Records.

House History: 4905 Woodland Park Ave North

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This large home is located at the northwest corner of Woodland Park Avenue North, and North 49th Street, just a block south of today’s Woodland Park & Zoo. The house, built in 1906, was in a convenient location along streetcar lines. The house is unusually large for the Fremont neighborhood and is distinctive with eighteen wood columns supporting its wrap-around porch. The house was “apartmentized” in 1951, divided up into multiple living units and is still used for apartment housing today.

The house was built for Charles H. Shields, a Seattle businessman who was a grain dealer and also part owner of an automobile dealership, Shields-Livengood Motor Company. Shields and his wife, Emma, had two children. By 1910 their household had expanded with inclusion of Shield’s widowed sister, and a nephew, age 31, who was employed by Shields in the grain company office. In the decade from 1910 to 1920, the household gradually shrank as the Shields children grew up and married. Shield’s fortunes also seem to have been in decline, or perhaps he was having health problems which impeded his work. By 1930, Charles & Emma Shields were living in Portland, Oregon, and at age 65 Charles was listed as a radio salesman. He died in 1935 at age 70.

The writing on the photo is the name of the plat, Woodland to Salmon Bay City, with Block 36, Lot 5, the legal description of the property. The plat map (land area of a couple of blocks, with streets and house lots marked) was filed in 1887 by Robert M. McFadden, and notarized by Guy Phinney, who was the original owner of the Woodland Park land. McFadden was the son of an early Washington Territory judge and legislator, Obadiah McFadden, so that Robert was born in Olympia. Robert went on to work as a banker in Seattle.

Sources:

For more photos of Fremont houses, go to the photo gallery here on this Fremont History page. Photos came from the 1938 survey of all taxable structures in King County.

Genealogical info: City Directories, genealogy websites, Washington Digital Archives, and Find A Grave. Links to Robert M. McFadden and Charles H. Shields.

Fremont Public Art: Late for the Interurban

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East of the Fremont Bridge on North 34th Street, near Adobe Plaza, Seattle’s favorite clown, JP Patches, and his friend, Gertrude, are forever “Late for the Interurban” in these bronze statues created by Washington sculptor Kevin Pettelle. The Interurban was the train to Everett with its transfer point by the Fremont Bridge, referenced by the Waiting for the Interurban statue there.

Installed in 2008 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the J.P. Patches TV show, and viewable through a bronze “television” also created by the artist, the Late for the Interurban statues were funded primarily through donations from local fans who grew up watching the show. Here’s the info about the restoration fund to re-paint the statue due to vandalism: Late for the Interurban Statue Restoration Fund – JPPatches.com

Fremont’s Streetcar Loading Platform

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In 1927 a streetcar loading platform and cutoff route for cars was created at the intersection of Fremont Avenue North and North 34th Street.  This intersection is familiar to us today as the site of the Waiting for the Interurban statue.

As car traffic increased in the 1920s it was found that when the city streetcar or the Interurban rail cars stopped to load passengers at North 34th Street, northbound auto traffic would back up onto the Fremont Bridge.  It seemed that much of the prevailing auto traffic wanted to turn right (east) and a solution was designed to keep the traffic flowing.  A cutoff route was added to the northbound bridge exit ramp so that northbound cars could turn right on North 34th Street.  That created the little platform which today is the home of the Waiting for the Interurban statue.

Today car, pedestrian and bicycle traffic still flow through the intersection and the figures of Waiting for the Interurban, still wait for the Interurban train of old days.

Fremont’s Grand Union Streetcar Switch

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One of the reasons why Fremont was long regarded as the Center of the Universe was because of its convergence of streetcar lines. At the north end of the Fremont Bridge, in the spot where there is now the Waiting for the Interurban sculpture, there was a Grand Union track layout for streetcars to turn or go straight ahead, accommodating all the lines that passed through. The car barn for maintenance was located just west of here, at 34th & Phinney, providing even more reason for streetcars of different routes to make their way through Fremont.

Sadly, the Seattle streetcar system deteriorated, and the decision was made to convert to a bus system. The last streetcar went to the Fremont Car Barn on April 13, 1941.

In 1940 an article in the Seattle Times told of the coming shut-down of the streetcar system, with this photo of the four-way switch:

“Once the pride of the Municipal Street Railway and the only one of its kind west of Chicago, the four-way streetcar switch at North 34th Street and Fremont Avenue, at the north end of the Fremont Bridge, will be removed as part of the city’s change from streetcars to buses and trackless trolleys. Called a “Grand Union Track Layout,” it cost $48,000 to build and install in 1923, a streetcar entering from any direction may turn either way or go straight ahead. The switch was so complicated the Bethlehem Steel Works assembled it first at the steel mill to see if it would work, before sending it here.” (Seattle Daily Times, February 15, 1940, page 4).

For further reference: “Street Railways in Seattle,” HistoryLink Essay #2707 by Walt Crowley, 2000.