- Seattle Neighborhoods: Laurelhurst — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Seattle’s Laurelhurst neighborhood, located on the Seattle (western) shore of Lake Washington, is a peninsula that extends into the Union Bay part of the lake. Laurelhurst’s western boundary is University Village and the University of Washington campus. Union Bay forms the southern boundary, Lake Washington the eastern boundary, and Sand Point and Windermere the northern boundary. It was once a seasonal campground of Duwamish Indians. During the 1860s, King County’s first sheriff built a homestead there, and Henry Yesler (1810-1892) built a sawmill. By 1887, the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad (on a route followed today by the Burke-Gilman trail) had reached Laurelhurst. Seattle annexed Laurelhurst in 1910, and today it is a high-end community close to the University of Washington with easy access to downtown. It is also the home of the Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, which moved to the neighborhood in 1953.