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If the Pike Place Market is the soul of Seattle, then maybe Lake Union is the city's heart.
A gritty, industrial, working lake for most of the last 150 years, Lake Union's recent, fragmented transformation into a place of recreation and leisure makes it a microcosm of Seattle as a whole.
A recently completed series of oral history interviews document many facets of the lake's economic and social history. Interviews touched on topics such as the history and preservation of industrial properties around the lake, stories from the houseboat community and Puget Sound Salish oral tradition, and descriptions of boat building and bridge tending, from people who have lived and worked on the lake.
Heritage consultant Holly Taylor, principal of Past Forward Northwest Cultural Services, worked with audio producer Jennie Cecil Moore and her colleagues at Jack Straw Productions, a nonprofit organization in Seattle's University District. The project team recorded interviews with a wide range of narrators, including Center for Wooden Boats founder Dick Wagner, preservation architects Patricia Fels and Susan Boyle, boat builders Howard Hansen and John Modrell, bridge tenders David and Ken Leask, house boat residents Jann and Sid McFarland, and Lushootseed (Puget Sound Salish) scholars Zalmai Zahir and Jay Miller.
An illustrated short presentation called Lake Union Past & Present, featuring excerpts from each interview, is posted on the Jack Straw Productions web site at www.jackstraw.org/programs/special/lakeunion/.
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An interview with Center for Wooden Boats founder Dick Wagner was recorded by audio producer Scott Bartlett aboard a Blanchard Junior Knockabout sailboat. (Gallery 4 of 5) Photo by Holly Taylor |
The project web page also features longer clips from each interview, and brief biographies of each narrator. Historic photographs included in the presentation are drawn from the outstanding collections at the Museum of History and Industry, the University of Washington Libraries Special Collections, the Seattle Municipal Archives and many other sources.
The project grew out of a K-12 education program developed for the Steamer Virginia V, a 1922 passenger steamer and National Historic Landmark vessel homeported at Lake Union Park, which introduced students to Lake Union's landmark sites on an excursion aboard the historic vessel. Research for that project identified over a dozen historic properties around the shoreline of Lake Union that are designated City of Seattle landmarks, or are listed in the National Register of Historic Places or the Washington Heritage Register. These diverse resources include the Wagner Houseboat and the Tenas Chuck Moorage Historic District; the Fremont, Aurora, University and Montlake Bridges; the Lake Union Steam Plant (now ZymoGenetics); the Seattle Gas Company (now Gasworks Park); and several historic vessels including National Historic Landmarks Arthur Foss, Duwamish and Swiftsure.
While landmark nominations document the design and engineering histories of these properties, they rarely capture the stories of people who lived and worked around these resources, building and operating them, and working to preserve them. Stories from interview narrators illustrate how these places were created and maintained, from a day to day perspective, and why preserving them as part of Seattle's urban fabric is important.
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The iconic Gasworks Park at Lake Union's north end. (Gallery 2 of 5) Photo by Holly Taylor |
Narrators described spiling planks in boat yards redolent with the scent of freshly milled lumber, neighbors helping each other to replace missing stringers which provide the primary "foundation" for house boats, and the seasonal patterns and knowledge of topography reflected in Native American place names. Taken together, the interviews add a variety of individual voices to the existing record of Lake Union's public history.
Funding for the Lake Union Oral History Project was provided by grants from 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax) and the Hugh and Jane Ferguson Foundation. The project is one of several recent efforts to document the lake's history and share it with the community. The Center for Wooden Boats is recording oral history interviews with shipwrights who worked around the lake, and CWB has produced a lovely printed map of historic sites and public access points on the lakeshore. The Seattle Parks Department is developing a walking and biking trail around the lake which follows a portion of the old railroad tracks, and the trail is named in honor of Duwamish tribal leader John Cheshiahud who lived nearby on Portage Bay in the late 19th century. The Museum of History and Industry is preparing to move to the historic Naval Reserve building at Lake Union Park. And several maritime heritage organizations collaborate to offer programs, exhibits and tours at the park, which are promoted on a new web site www.atlakeunionpark.com. With all of this activity, hopefully Lake Union's history as a working lake will remain an integral and visible part of Seattle's future.
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