- Seattle Neighborhoods: Ballard — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
The Seattle neighborhood of Ballard is a “city within a city” with a decidedly Scandinavian accent. Located in the northwest part of the city, it is a maritime center. Salmon and Shilshole bays on Puget Sound form its southern and western boundaries, and Phinney Ridge rises to the east. Ballard incorporated as a city in 1890, and its citizens voted to annex to Seattle in November 1906. Today sightseers visit the Hiram Chittenden Locks on the Ship Canal to watch salmon begin their spawning journey or they tour historic Ballard Avenue. Ballard’s increasingly diverse residents enjoy the district’s small town pace and easy access to downtown.
- Seattle Neighborhoods: Crown Hill — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
The north Ballard neighborhood of Crown Hill sits on a gentle rise of land stretching from NW 75th Street to NW 100th Street and is bordered by the Loyal Heights neighborhood to the west and Greenwood to the east. Although the Seattle community has no town center, its commercial crossroads meet at 15th Avenue NW and NW 85th Street and follow northeastward along Holman Road NW, named after realtor Axel Holman, who platted the Sunset Hill area in the Loyal Heights neighborhood. When Ballard city residents voted to annex their town to Seattle in 1907, Crown Hill was still blanketed by Western red cedar, Douglas-fir, and Western hemlock conifers. Few settlers had ventured into the area, even though most of the land was now platted for residential development. Over the next nine decades growth in this quiet Ballard suburb was slow at first, then exploded during the World War II era. Today Crown Hill is home to more than 7,000 residents.
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- In 1925, when the timberland holdings of the Puget Mill Company were sold to an eastern lumber company, the Blue Ridge community in Seattle’s northwest corner became a possibility. William E. Boeing (1881-1956), lumberman, mining entrepreneur, and airplane builder, bought up most of the company’s land overlooking Puget Sound north of the city limits to Richmond Beach. Soon the Douglas fir and cedar stands would be sacrificed for the development of the exclusive communities of Innis Arden and Blue Ridge. Today (2001), 450 homes sit on a 200-acre cul-de-sac that abuts Carkeek Park, whose western facing slopes offer spectacular views of the Puget Sound area. This acreage, bounded on the east by 12th Avenue NW and on the south by NW 100th and NW 105th streets, constitutes the upscale, covenanted community of Blue Ridge.
- Seattle — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Seattle is the largest city in Washington state and its economic capital. Settled in 1851, its deep harbor and acquisition of Puget Sound’s first steam-powered sawmill quickly established it as a center of trade and industry. It gained the Territorial University (now University of Washington) in 1861, but was snubbed by the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1874 when it picked Tacoma as its western terminus. Despite this, the town prospered thanks to independent railroad development fueled by local coal deposits…