- Seattle Neighborhoods: Broadview & Bitter Lake — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
The Broadview neighborhood bordering Puget Sound in northwest Seattle takes its name from the expansive views of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains that can be seen from its western slopes. The neighborhood reaches north from N 105th Street to the city limits at N 145th Street, and is bounded on the east by Aurora Avenue N. It is home to Carkeek Park, Evergreen Park Cemetery, the Ida Culver Retirement Home, and Bitter Lake, which beckoned many of the first settlers to the area. It drew its identity from an amusement park called Playland that operated on the south shore of Bitter Lake for 30 years, beginning in 1930. The Seattle-Everett Interurban trolley line ran through the heart of the neighborhood, bringing people and goods to the area and hastening its development. Broadview, once forestland and rural farmland, today is a suburban home to 13,000 residents.
- Seattle Neighborhoods: Licton Springs — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Licton Springs celebrates a long history as both a unique recreational spot and a commercial crossroads. The residential neighborhood in north Seattle is wedged between the busy corridors of Interstate-5 and Aurora Avenue. It takes its name from Liq’tid or Licton, the Salish word for the reddish mud of the springs – one of the few Puget Sound Salish words still used as a place name.
- Shoreline — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
The City of Shoreline is one of Seattle’s closest suburbs. Located immediately north of Seattle’s city limits, the area was settled first by homesteaders and soon after by vacationers. Over time a community formed, and although Seattle’s boundaries have pushed farther north, Shoreline has preserved its autonomy and, in the 1990s, incorporated as a city in its own right.
- The Haller Lake community dates back to 1905, long before it was part of Seattle. Today it stands squeezed between Aurora Avenue N and the Interstate 5 freeway, and runs northward from N 110th Street to the current city limits at N 145th Street. Were it not for the physical and psychological presence of the freeway, the neighborhood would likely claim the Jackson Park golf course as its own. Similarly, the speeds and noises of Aurora Avenue N cut it off from its sibling, the Broadview/Bitter Lake neighborhood to the west. Nevertheless, with a 15-acre lake at its center, and with large lot sizes to remind visitors of its farmland past, the community retains a unique character among the many neighborhoods that constitute contemporary Seattle.
- 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…