Seward Park, Seattle, Washington

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Seward Park

Seward Park is a neighborhood in southeast Seattle, Washington just west of the park of the same name. The park itself occupies all of Bailey Peninsula, a prominent, forested peninsula that juts into Lake Washington.

The neighborhood is bounded on the east by the lake, on the north by S Genesee Street, on the south by S Kenyon Street, and on the west by Rainier Avenue S.

The 300 acres (121 ha) of Seward Park has about a 120 acre (48.6 ha) surviving remnant of old growth forest, providing a glimpse of what some of the lake shore looked like before the city of Seattle. With trees older than 250 years and many less than 200, the Seward Park forest is relatively young (the forests of Seattle before the city were fully mature, up through 1,000–2,000 years old).^[1]

One of the earliest White settlers, E. A. Clark, was influential in the life of Cheshiahud, a young man at the time, the mid 1850s.^[2]

Seward Park, which was first settled by Whites in great numbers in the 1880s, is built on the largest residential hill in Seattle.^{[citation needed]} In a series of annexations, the neighborhood joined the town of Southeast Seattle, which then joined the City of Seattle in 1907.^[3]

Around a quarter of the residents are African American, and another quarter Asian American, most of the remainder being White. The neighborhood has been a hub of Orthodox Jewish life for nearly 40 years. The oldest synagogue in Washington state, Bikur Cholim-Machzikay Hadath, is located there, as are Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation and Congregation Ezra Bessaroth. 90% of Orthodox Jews in Seattle are said to live within a mile of one of the synagogues, though more recent arrivals have been settling north of the Lake Washington Ship Canal in Wedgwood, Hawthorne Hills, and Ravenna and in nearby communities such as Mercer Island.^{[citation needed]}

The average price of a house in the neighborhood is about $500,000. 80% of residents own their homes. [1]

Seward Park is home to Whitworth and Graham Hill elementary schools.

[edit] See also

• Seattle before the city
• Seward Park

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] Bibliography

• Dailey, Tom (n.d.). "Duwamish-Seattle". "Coast Salish Villages of Puget Sound". Retrieved on 2006-04-21.
  Page links to Village Descriptions Duwamish-Seattle section [2].
  Dailey referenced "Puget Sound Geography" by T. T. Waterman. Washington DC: National Anthropological Archives, mss. [n.d.] [ref. 2];
  Duwamish et al vs. United States of America, F-275. Washington DC: US Court of Claims, 1927. [ref. 5];
  "Indian Lake Washington" by David Buerge in the Seattle Weekly, 1-7 August 1984 [ref. 8];
  "Seattle Before Seattle" by David Buerge in the Seattle Weekly, 17-23 December 1980. [ref. 9];
  The Puyallup-Nisqually by Marian W. Smith. New York: Columbia University Press, 1940. [ref. 10].
  Recommended start is "Coast Salish Villages of Puget Sound" [3].
• Phelps, Myra L. (1978). Public works in Seattle. Seattle: Seattle Engineering Department. ISBN 0-9601928-1-6. 
• "Seward Park Real Estate". ZipRealty. Retrieved on not recorded.
  Retrieved on 6 August 2006. The average sales price for a home was $496,295 in February 2006.
  Page includes links to other major neighborhoods and metropolitan suburbs.
• Sherwood, Don (2003-06-20). "Seward Park" (PDF). PARK HISTORY: Sherwood History Files. Seattle Parks and Recreation. Retrieved on 2006-04-21.
• Talbert, Paul (2006-05-01). "The Magnificent Forest". Friends of Seward Park. Retrieved on 2006-08-06.
• Talbert, Paul (2006-05-01). "SkEba'kst: The Lake People and Seward Park". The History of Seward Park. SewardPark.org. Retrieved on 2006-06-06.
• Wilma, David (2001-03-31). "Seattle Neighborhoods: Seward Park -- Thumbnail History". HistoryLink.org Essay 3143. Retrieved on 2006-08-06. Wilma referenced "Lakewood Community Club", brochure, 1948, Rainier Valley Historical Society, Seattle;
  David Buerge, "Indian Lake Washington", The Weekly, August 1, 1984, pp. 29-33;
  Don Sherwood, "Seward Park - Graham Peninsula", Interpretive Essays on the History of Seattle Parks, handwritten bound manuscript dated 1977, Seattle Room, Seattle Public Library;
  Don Sherwood, "Genessee P.F., Wetmore Slough", Ibid.;
  Don Sherwood, "Stanley S. Sayres Memorial Park", Ibid.;
  Don Sherwood, "Brighton Playfield", Ibid.;
  David Buerge, "The Native American Presence in the Rainier Valley Area", typescript, undated, Rainier Valley Historical Society, Seattle;
  David Buerge, [duplicate];
  Paul Dorpat, Seattle Now and Then, (Seattle: Tartu Publications, 1984), 82;
  Lucile B. McDonald, The Lake Washington Story, (Seattle: Superior Publishing Co., 1979), 23, 87, 88;
  Redick H. McKee, "Road Map of Seattle and Vicinity", 1890, Seattle Public Library;
  "Guide Map of the City of Seattle, Washington Territory", ca. 1888, brochure, Seattle Public Library;
  "Anderson's New Guide Map of the City of Seattle and Environs", July 1890, Seattle Public Library;
  Mark Higgins, "Large Jewish Population Calls Diverse Community Home", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 20 December 1997, (seattlep-i.nwsource.com);
  "Galland Center", Metropedia Library, (www.Historylink.org);
  David Wilma interview with Grover Haynes, president, Lakewood-Seward Park Community Club, 13 March 2001, Seattle, Washington.

[edit] Further reading

• Friends of Seward Park
• Seattle Neighborhoods: Seward Park at HistoryLink