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.