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House History: the Braida House at 3408 Woodland Park Ave

Posted on by Valarie

The house at the corner of 34th & Woodland Park Avenue started out in 1901 as a simple one-story wood-frame residence. In 1915 the house was sold to Giovanni “John” Braida, an Italian immigrant who had lived in San Francisco before coming to Seattle. Braida was attracted to the business climate of Seattle where, as a marble and terrazzo artisan, he worked on tile inset entries for commercial buildings in downtown Seattle.

One of the first things Mr. Braida did was to modify his house to establish a marble-working shop. To do this he had the house raised up and the shop constructed as a new first floor. Over time, the Braida family purchased adjacent properties so that today, the whole block is still in Braida family ownership in the fourth generation.

Alex Carter, House-mover in Fremont

Posted on by Valarie

In 1910 Alex Carter and his family lived in this house which he had moved to the site on 2nd Ave NW near 39th Street. Records show that he’d moved two houses and he may have cut one of them and added it onto the back of the other, to make more rooms. Mr. Carter lived with five women (Mr. Carter’s wife, mother-in-law and the Carter’s three daughters) so we can see that they needed more rooms, but probably there was only one bathroom.

At age 40 in 1910, Mr. Carter was an immigrant from England who’d made his way out to Seattle and spent the rest of his life here. He married in1899 and moved to the busy Fremont neighborhood where there was a lot happening.

In early Fremont, streets were constantly being improved and so the houses which Mr. Carter obtained, were ones which had been removed from a street-widening project on 36th Street. The census of 1910 showed that on 2nd Avenue NW, the Carter’s neighbors included many streetcar workers, a blacksmith, a lumber yard worker and a grocer. The houses were small but often had a lot of occupants. The Carter’s nextdoor neighbor was a man who was a streetcar lineman and whose brother, nephew and stepfather were living there along with the man’s wife & son.

The Carter family made a life for themselves in Fremont in the midst of difficult times. Their eldest daughter Catherine died at age 18 in the flu epidemic of 1918. Mr. Carter died of a stroke only a few months later, in 1919. The census of 1920 showed that Mrs. Carter and her two remaining daughters still lived in the house, and the daughters were in school. For income, they had taken in two boarders, men who worked on the streetcar line.

Today the row of small early-Fremont houses on 2nd Ave NW have been replaced by townhouses, the latest type of housing in the ever-changing Fremont neighborhood.

Syvert Stray, Dairyman

Posted on by Valarie

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

Posted on by Valarie

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.

South of the Bridge: Then and Now

Posted on by Valarie

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

Posted on by Valarie

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.

The lights are on again at the “Interurban.”

Posted on by Valarie

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

Posted on by Valarie

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?

Posted on by Valarie

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.

The Burke-Gilman Trail in Fremont

Posted on by Valarie

The Burke-Gilman Trail, a walking-biking corridor which passes through Fremont, is the legacy of early Seattle movers-and-shakers, Thomas Burke and Daniel Gilman.  The energy and activism of these men characterized the era of the 1870s-1880s when the population of Seattle began to grow and the city sought to make something of itself. Burke & Gilman transformed the city with their promotion of transportation projects. 

Early Seattleites had already noted that there was a creek flowing westward from Lake Union through what is now Fremont and on out to Puget Sound.  Early Seattleites hoped to widen and deepen this stream to accommodate ships. Known as The Outlet or Ross Creek, the level ground of this area was also an ideal route for a railroad, crossing east-west along the northern shore of Lake Union.  But neither objective, a rail line or a canal, could be achieved until the property ownership issues were resolved.   

Thomas Burke was 25 years old when he arrived in Seattle in 1875 with a law degree in hand.  He became a noted civic activist, joining in with others who were working on trying to get a railroad line into Seattle, and trying to get a ship canal built from Lake Union westward to Puget Sound.  Both the railroad and the ship canal would be used to move raw materials like timber and coal and manufactured items like bricks, to the port on Seattle’s downtown waterfront. 

An area of 212 acres centered at what is now North 34th Street & Fremont Avenue, had been the 1854 homestead land claim of a man named William Strickler.  Stricker disappeared in 1861 and the legal issues of who actually owned the property, went unresolved.  As a result, no one else could acquire the property to develop it, or put through a railroad line, or work on creating a larger channel to accommodate ships. 

Finally in 1887 Thomas Burke found a way to break the legal logjam by bringing suit for the property taxes on Strickler’s land.  Since the heirs of William Strickler did not take action, the future-Fremont land was put up for auction.  In 1888 the Blewetts, investors from Fremont, Nebraska, along with their Seattle co-developers, began laying out streets and house lots in Fremont.  At that same time, Thomas Burke and the railroad committee started putting through the railroad line which today is in the same place as the trail named for him and for activist Daniel Hunt Gilman. 

Daniel Gilman arrived in Seattle in 1883 with a background of multiple areas of expertise.  He was a Civil War veteran from Maine, who’d seen the importance of railroads which had been vital for moving men and supplies during the war.  After the war Gilman worked as a merchant in New York and he also gained a law degree.  Gilman became the key fundraiser for the Seattle railroad which Burke & the committee wanted to have.  They needed investors from “back East” to put up money for the project. Daniel Gilman made several fundraising trips to line up financial backing for Seattle’s home-grown railroad. 

By 1888 the railroad, called the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern, was chugging its way through Fremont along the banks of Ross Creek – not yet a ship canal.  That ship canal project would not come to completion until it was constructed in 1911-1917. 

In 1971, at a time when the railroad era was ending, a group of activists in the Wedgwood neighborhood came up with the “rail to trail” idea.  Their efforts successfully preserved the rail line which is now called “Seattle’s longest park,” and was named the Burke-Gilman Trail. 

For more info: 

More background details about the lives of Judge Thomas Burke and Daniel Gilman, a blog article on the Wedgwood in Seattle History page.

The story of William Strickler. 

Pioneers of Fremont: John Ross. 

The founding of Fremont in 1888. 

Wedgwood’s Trailmakers: the Burke-Gilman Trail. 

C.P. Stone, Namesake of Stone Way

Posted on by Valarie

Corliss P. Stone was an early businessman, real estate investor, and civic activist of Seattle. 

Stone was born in Vermont in 1838 and worked in what was called a dry goods store, meaning household supplies not including food.  Some dry goods stores eventually evolved to sell clothing only.   

As a young man Stone traveled to San Francisco to investigate the business climate and then he came to the Pacific Northwest.  He worked for a time at Port Madison (north end of Bainbridge Island) which was the site of a lumber mill.  He came to Seattle in 1867 and set up a general store. 

Stone became involved in civic endeavors in Seattle such as trying to improve roads and transportation systems.  He became mayor of Seattle in 1872 at a time when the term of service was only one year.  This was probably because the mayoral position was unpaid, and those in public office still had to support themselves with their own businesses. 

By 1873 Stone’s father had moved to Aurora, Illinois. Stone left Seattle for a time to make family visits in Aurora and to gather more investors for Seattle projects.  Stone’s influence caused his nephew, Edward Corliss Kilbourne, to come to Seattle in 1883 where Kilbourne became one of the founders of the Fremont neighborhood in 1888. 

In 1883 C.P. Stone went in with other investors to lay out streets and house lots in a plat called Lake Union Addition.  This plat was at the south end of what is now Wallingford, centered around Wallingford Avenue & Northlake Way.   

In 1889 C.P. Stone went in together with William Ashworth to plat some land on the east side of what became Stone Way.  William Ashworth’s property was at the present site of the North Transfer Station.  Ashworth & Stone named their plat “Edgewater.” This was a stop on the railroad (present Burke-Gilman Trail.) Like Ross and Fremont which also had postmasters, William Ashworth was the Edgewater postmaster who received the mail brought by rail. 

In 1901 C.P. Stone filed a plat, pictured here, called C.P. Stone’s Home Addition.  The southern line of the plat, marked here as Kilbourne Street, is now North 36th Street.  The platted area was on both sides of Stone Way, and this year of 1901 was when Stone Way acquired its name.  The platted area of streets and house lots extends from the Edgemont plat on the left (today’s Woodland Park Avenue) to Interlake Avenue on the right where it meets the Lake Union Addition. 

Sources: 

For more on the life of Corliss P. Stone, see HistoryLink Essays #197 and #22980, and essay #1251 about his nephew Edward C. Kilbourne.  Kilbourne is credited with naming many of the streets in Fremont, including place names from Illinois such as Albion, Evanston and Aurora.  

Another early land investor in Fremont was Charles H. Baker who was from the Palatine suburb of Chicago.  Some names in western Fremont such as Baker Avenue are part of the Palatine Hills plat. 

Street names conversion table:  Seattle historian Rob K has a lookup table of old and new street names in Fremont.  Putting in the name Kilbourne, for example, will show that the street name was changed to North 36th Street. 

Street names in Seattle — lookup list: The Writes of Way blog.

Fremont’s Northeast Corner: Porterfield’s Addition

Posted on by Valarie

Today the defined area of the Fremont neighborhood is bounded by 50th Street on the north, and Stone Way on the east.  Fremont started in 1888 as a convenient streetcar neighborhood.  Little stores sprang up at intersections of streetcar stops and transfer points, like this one at 4900 Stone Way.   

Over time these streets have been expanded for car traffic and now are largely commercial areas.  Today there is a Bamboo Village restaurant at this address, with a parking lot to accommodate cars.   

A Fremont investment in 1888 

From its earliest years, Seattle attracted investors in business, real estate and timber.  Some investors came for a look around, fell in love with Seattle and never left.  Others came and made investments but then went back home.  Edward & Carrie Blewett of Fremont, Nebraska, came to make land investments in Seattle and they gave the name of Fremont to a suburb-like development which was outside of the Seattle City Limits at that time. 

In that year of 1888 when Fremont came into existence, another investor, Theophilus J. Porterfield, came from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to survey the opportunities in the Seattle area.  Mr. Porterfield was a “timberman” who had lived in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota.  During his visit to Washington Territory in 1888-1889 he invested in some timber property in Snohomish County. 

In December 1888 Mr. Portfield filed a plat map for land he’d purchased in the northeast corner of Fremont, between North 45th to 50th Streets.   The property was bounded on the west side by Woodland Park Avenue where Fremont’s backers were in process of laying out a streetcar line to reach Guy Phinney’s picnic grounds and private zoo. 

Mr. Porterfield brought his wife Elizabeth and daughter Wilhelmina Louise with him to Seattle, and the family stayed at a hotel in Belltown, at First & Battery Streets.  It appears that during their sojourn in Seattle the teenage Mina met and fell in love with Samuel Hauser, who worked at the Hauser family’s building contractors company.  Samuel Hauser had been brought to Seattle as child in the 1870s. His father had worked as a carpenter and then advanced to own a builders contracting business.

The Porterfield family went back to Minneapolis, and as soon as Mina turned 18, in 1891 Samuel Hauser went to Minnesota and they were married.  After their marriage, Samuel & Mina stayed in Minneapolis for several more years, perhaps in deference to Mina’s mother who was probably loathe to lose her only daughter. 

Seattle continues to attract investors in the 1900s 

By the year 1900 major timbermen of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area were closing operations and moving to the Pacific Northwest in search of a fresh supply of trees.  In January 1900 newspapers were full of the story of a blockbuster land sale from railroad magnate James J. Hill to timber industry leader Frederick Weyerhaeuser.  Weyerhaeuser moved his lumber operations to the Pacific Northwest, as did the Laird-Norton Company of Minnesota. 

Perhaps these tales of timber riches were on the mind of Theophilus Porterfield when he suddenly turned up in Seattle in November 1906.  He consulted a Seattle attorney, David McVay, to represent him as administrator of his property, the Porterfield’s Addition, a plat in Fremont.  Mr. Porterfield claimed that his son-in-law, Samuel Hauser, had appropriated the property and wouldn’t give it back to him. 

Mr. Porterfield, who was now 79 years old, had made the long journey by himself from Minneapolis to Seattle by train and had caught cold on the way.  Suddenly on November 30th he collapsed and died while visiting a friend on Seattle’s Capitol Hill.  Fortunately, the attorney, David McVay, had Mr. Porterfield’s background info and was able to contact Mrs. Porterfield in Minneapolis.   

The attorney’s search of property records showed that there never had been a transaction giving the Fremont property to Samuel Hauser, Porterfield’s son-in-law.  Over time, all the lots in the Porterfield plat in Fremont had already been sold, before Mr. Porterfield’s return visit to Seattle in 1906.  Perhaps when the money stopped coming in, Mr. Porterfield became confused and thought there was some fraud. 

The Seattle newspapers had printed the “fraud” story which Mr. Porterfield had told his contacts in Seattle. The newspaper then had to print a retraction, because Samuel Hauser wrote to the newspaper to deny any wrongdoing. He said that he wanted to clear his family’s name, as many of the Hausers still lived in Seattle. 

Today the Porterfield’s Addition in the northeast corner of Fremont still has many old houses, like 1109 North 47th Street.  This area of Fremont is still considered to be very convenient, but now it is because of access to major roadways of car travel like 50th & Stone Way, instead of streetcars. 

Sources:   

Genealogy resources including census, newspaper search and Find A Grave which includes biographical information: Theophilus Porterfield.   

HistoryLink Essay #8115, “James J. Hill,” by Paula Becker, 2007. 

HistoryLink Essay #7295, “Norton Clapp,” by Cassandra Tate, 2005. 

HistoryLink Essay #3285, “Woodland Park Railway begins running in 1890 (Guy Phinney),” by Greg Lange, 2001. 

Laird Norton company history. 

“Minneapolis Man Expires Suddenly,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 1, 1906, page 3. 

Plats of Fremont

Posted on by Valarie

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

Posted on by Valarie

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

Posted on by Valarie

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 in the Sunset Heights plat of Fremont.  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 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

Posted on by Valarie

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.

Fremont Public Art: The Berlin 1936 Crew Racer

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The Data 1 office building at 744 North 34th Street was completed in 2017 and has outdoor artworks on each side of the building. At one side, underneath the Aurora Bridge, is a fragment of the Berlin Wall which tells of the triumph of the human spirit when Communism fell in 1989.

At the other corner of the Data 1 building (on the left as you look at it) is a metal sculpture of a man holding an oar, labeled Berlin 1936. This is a reference to the Olympic Games of that year, when the crew racers from the University of Washington in Seattle went to Berlin and came out of nowhere to win their race. The story of Seattle’s hardscrabble crew racers has inspired Fremont folks to nickname this metal sculpture, “Joe Rantz” for the main character in the book, The Boys in the Boat (2013).

Fremont Public Art: The Berlin Wall Fragment

Posted on by Valarie

The Berlin Wall divided East and West Germany and was torn down by its citizens on November 9, 1989, during the collapse of dictatorial rule of the Communist countries of Eastern Europe.   We remember this significant historical event at the Berlin Wall and what it represents, the freedom of self-rule.

The Berlin Wall was completely demolished at that time, and fragments were carried away as mementos. The fragment which has been installed as public art in Fremont, is located on Troll Avenue at North 34th Street, underneath the Aurora Bridge, at 744 North 34th Street.

The Fremont fragment of the Berlin Wall is twelve feet high and four feet wide.  It was originally installed in Fremont in the year 2001 close to the spot where it is now.  It was put into storage while the present building was under construction in 2016-2017, then was set up on the sidewalk.

The plaque explaining the fragment says: “This piece of the Berlin Wall arrived in Fremont in 2001 to commemorate the role of Seattle and Boeing’s C-47 in the Berlin Airlift of 1948.” The Berlin Airlift was the efforts of American, British and French cargo planes to supply the portions of the city which had been blockaded by the Soviet Union.

Fremont Public Art: The Lenin Statue

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In 1981, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia commissioned Bulgarian sculptor Emil Venkov to create a statue that portrayed Vladimir Lenin as a bringer of revolution.  Briefly installed in Poprav, Czechoslovakia, the 16-foot bronze statue was sent to a scrapyard after the 1989 fall of Communism.

The statue in the scrapyard was discovered by Lewis Carpenter, an English teacher from Issaquah, Washington, who was teaching in Poprav and knew the artist.  Purchasing the statue with his own funds, Carpenter mortgaged his house to ship it to the USA.

But the City of Issaquah refused to display the statue of Lenin and, after Carpenter’s sudden death, it was sent to a foundry in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, to be melted down.

The statue of Lenin was saved again, this time by the foundry’s founder, Peter Bevis.  He convinced the Fremont Chamber of Commerce to display it until a buyer could be found. The statue was unveiled in 1995 and moved to its current location, 3526 Fremont Place North, in 1996. It remains controversial, however, its hands frequently painted red to symbolize the blood on Vladimir Lenin’s hands.  Other people admire the irony of a symbol of oppression which is now looking out over the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle where the motto is, “the freedom to be peculiar.”

Here’s more about “what was there before” Lenin:  a gas station.

The Fremont Neighborhood in Seattle is Founded in 1888

Posted on by Valarie

Each neighborhood of Seattle proudly waves the banner of its unique name, and yet many were named in a similar way:  by real estate investors.   Fremont in Seattle was also named by real estate investors.  What made the Seattle neighborhood called Fremont stand out from others, was its good location, its jump-start after Seattle’s Great Fire of 1889, and its vigorous developers who utilized the growing streetcar system to advantage.

Continue reading “The Fremont Neighborhood in Seattle is Founded in 1888”

Lucas Place

Posted on by Valarie

Around Fremont we can find streets with names of early developers of property in the neighborhood. Lucas Place is a street on the east side of Stone Way, closest to North 40th Street.

Lucas Place is in the plat of the Lucas Addition, filed in 1911. A “plat” is an area of land, any size, for which a map of streets and lots has been laid out. The plat info for the Lucas Addition shows that it was filed by the William M. Lucas Building Company.

Like so many people who came to Seattle in early years, William Lucas had gradually traveled across the USA, working in different places, until he came to Seattle. He had been born in Illinois in 1857. His father died in 1867 while the family was living in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. William Lucas became a carpenter and lived in Wisconsin until he began migrating westward in the 1890s.

At age 50 when he arrived in Seattle in 1907, William Lucas may have been attracted to the city by the news about the world’s fair event to be held in 1909, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Builders knew that the population of Seattle would increase and that there was opportunity to make money in land development and housing. William Lucas was able to buy the section of land shown here and build houses in the period of 1911-1915.

House History: 411 NW 42nd Street

Posted on by Valarie

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)

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.