The Mt Baker Park Addition – Nomination for National Register of Historic Places

The Friends of Mt Baker Town Center are excited to have the opportunity to document the historic, architectural and cultural background of the Mount Baker Park Addition, with the generous support of 4Culture and our knowledgeable consultants at Northwest Vernacular (nwVernacular), Spencer Daniels and Katie Pratt.   Their tremendous work product forms the basis for this post.   The project documents the Mount Baker Park Addition’s continuing role as a unique and invaluable intersection of people and place, woven into the fabric of Seattle’s history with the connecting community landmarks of the Olmsted Boulevard system, Franklin High School, the Mount Baker Community Club, and the Mount Baker Park Presbyterian Church.

The initial public meeting for nomination of the district was hosted by the Mount Baker Park Presbyterian Church, which was itself recently designated a historic landmark by the Seattle City Council.   After that meeting, a dedicated group of volunteers was trained for field work and updated property profiles for over 800 homes in the Mt Baker Park Addition.  Northwest Vernacular has compiled this information and prepared a carefully researched nomination of the Mount Baker Park Addition for the National Register of Historic Places.  They have relied on multiple sources, including archival material from the Mount Baker Community Club, the Mount Baker Historic Context Statement (Caroline Tobin / City of Seattle 2004), and the Mount Baker Inventory of Buildings and Urban Design Resources [and page 2] (Nyberg & Steinbrueck / Historic Seattle 1976).  In addition to documenting important architectural and landscape design features, the nomination report includes inspiring background on the area’s cultural heritage through 1968, including the neighborhood’s important role in Seattle’s civil rights movement.

The nomination document is currently under review by the State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation.   A second public meeting will next be hosted by Franklin High School, another historic landmark, on October 23, 2017:

• Public Meeting No. 2 – October 23, 2017 — 6 pm at Franklin High School.  Please save October 23, 2017 so you can attend the second public meeting in the historic district nomination process, and get an update on the important background and historic findings generated through the generous work and support of nwVernacular and 4Culture.

Informative Maps.  Northwest Vernacular’s work product includes a set of informative maps.    The Architect Map identifies notable architects throughout the Mount Baker Park Addition.   This resource has been of great interest to residents throughout the neighborhood.  The updated version of the Architect Map, with new and improved colors for easier reference, is below!

If you have additional architect background for the project, please pass it on.

Architectural Styles.   Other maps document the architectural styles of each home within the tract.   When the Hunter Tract Company established the Mount Baker Park Addition, the developers insisted upon its status as an exclusively single-family residential neighborhood. The size and style of these residences vary within the district, with the larger estate-like houses on the ridge overlooking Lake Washington to the east and smaller-scale one to two story residences throughout the rest of the neighborhood. Eclectic, yet well-designed residences are a hallmark of the neighborhood. The neighborhood predominantly features architecture from the revival periods and American movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with a smattering of designs from the modern movement. Styles present throughout the neighborhood include: American Foursquare, Colonial Revival, Craftsman, Minimal Traditional, Neoclassical, Ranch, Tudor Revival, Swiss Chalet, Mission Revival, and Spanish Eclectic. Colonial Revival and Craftsman are the predominant architectural styles in the neighborhood.

Victor Steinbrueck and Folke Nyberg noted that the Mt. Baker district is “one of Seattle’s earliest planned residential communities, and as such, was an experiment in residential development, its present physical character is largely a result of that effort.”  This unique example of early planning “successfully integrated street and residential developments into the natural amenities of the area.  It is one of the best local examples of the English or ‘picturesque’ type of landscape planning.”  Mount Baker: An Inventory of Buildings and Urban Design Resources (Folke Nyberg / Victor Steinbrueck).

Olmsted and Schwageral.  The project has also clarified how the neighborhood connects to the Olmsted Brother’s system of parks and parkways.  Although the Olmsted Brothers are often mistakenly identified as the landscape architects of Mount Baker Park and the Mount Baker Park Addition, the Hunter Tract Improvement Company hired landscape architect and former Seattle Parks Superintendent Edward O. Schwagerl (1842-1910).

Schwagerl trained as a landscape architect, and spent a portion of his career working with public parks. He served as Parks Superintendent for the City of Tacoma between 1890 and 1892 and for the City of Seattle between 1892 and 1895. While working for the City of Tacoma, Schwagerl was responsible for the design of Wright Park and worked on the city’s massive Point Defiance Park. In Seattle, he completed design work on Kinnear Park and Denny Park. He also prepared a comprehensive plan for Seattle Parks, influenced by the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, often considered the father of American landscape architecture. With his plan for Seattle parks, Schwagerl called for the development of four parks connected by scenic, park-like boulevards. Timing and resources were not on Schwagerl’s side; the financial depression of 1893 tabled his idea and Schwagerl left his position as Parks Superintendent in 1895. He worked in Tacoma, then Seattle, in private practice for the next several years designing residential landscapes and real estate subdivisions. During this time, Schwagerl worked for Puget Sound University and the University Land Company to design the university campus and surrounding subdivisions, plans which never reached fruition.

Surprisingly, Schwagerl’s concept was not abandoned. The Klondike Gold Rush turned Seattle’s fortunes around and the city was soon booming. The City of Seattle hired the Olmsted Brothers—Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and John C. Olmsted, sons of Frederick Law Olmsted—to design a comprehensive plan for Seattle parks. Completed in 1903, this plan also proposed a series of park-like boulevards to run throughout the city, connecting its parks. When the Hunter Tract Company hired Schwagerl to work with Cotterill & Whitworth to design the Mount Baker Park Addition in Seattle, he received the opportunity to design a portion of his earlier vision. As part of the subdivision, Schwagerl and Cotterill & Whitworth designed Mount Baker Park, S Mount Baker Boulevard, and Hunter Boulevard S, elements which beautify the neighborhood and enhance its character.

The connecting function of our Boulevard System will soon be enhanced with the City’s Accessible Mount Baker Project, which will calm traffic and reconnect Franklin High School and the western edge of the historic neighborhood to the emerging Mount Baker Town Center with a dedicated route for both bicycles and pedestrians.  This route will connect with the Mount Baker Link station, and also with Beacon Hill via Cheasty Boulevard.   The anticipated re-connection of the Mount Baker Park Addition to the recently upzoned and emerging Mount Baker Town Center represents a unique opportunity in urban planning.  Rather than dividing a community, the Boulevard re-connection provides an opportunity to harmonize a new dense Hub Urban Village on the relatively undeveloped blocks surrounding the Link station area with

an existing and historically remarkable community that has retained amazing architectural integrity for a century.   During the extensive outreach leading to the North Rainier Neighborhood Plan, a broad range of stakeholders came together and called on the City to recognize the area north and east of Franklin High School  as an important resource, while promoting high-density residential and transit-oriented development in the vacant spaces surrounding the station area.   Consistent with this plan, the Friends of Mount Baker Town Center has advocated in support of amenities to reclaim the Olmsted legacy by reconnecting Mount Baker and Cheasty Boulevard in a pedestrian friendly manner, and bridging Southeast Seattle’s worst open space gap — in the heart of a Town Center where high density is being focused.   These community values in livability and equity are now reflected in the Accessible Mount Baker plan and the City’s proposed acquisition of land for the missing North Rainier Town Center Park and neighborhood playground.

A Story Of Civil Rights:  Our 4Culture supported project has gone far beyond architecture and landscape design.   Integrated in the report are timely and inspiring stories of advocacy and the struggle to overcome exclusivity and work towards equity and civil rights.

The Fight Against Exclusivity.  During the 1910s, the neighborhood experienced the first cracks in its rigid stance on exclusivity. In addition to the restrictive covenants attached to the deeds, there was also an assumption that the Hunter Tract Improvement Company would not approve sales to “undesirable” races. Two lawsuits were filed in 1910 which challenged these racist actions. First, the Hunter Tract Improvement Company filed a lawsuit against Samuel and Susie Stone and Marguerite Foy. In 1909, Foy, a white woman, had sold a parcel of land within the Mount Baker Park Addition to Samuel and Susie Stone, a black couple. The Stones owned a catering business based in Capitol Hill—S.H. Stone Catering and Party Supply Company, which later became Stone’s Silver Catering Service and Confectionary. The Stones were also founding members of the Seattle branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which organized on October 23, 1913. The company sued after the Stones were mid-construction on their new house (3125 34th Avenue S), contesting that Foy and the Stones had intentionally concealed the Stones’ race. Prominent black attorney Andrew Black defended the Stones and persuaded Judge John F. Main of the King County Superior Court to side with the Stones and Foy. The Hunter Tract Improvement Company appealed, but the Washington State Supreme Court upheld Main’s decision. Andrew Black represented a similar case the same year; David Cole, a black railroad porter for the Northern Pacific, sued the Hunter Tract Improvement Company for withholding the deed to a lot in the Mount Baker Park Addition for which he had already paid. Like the Stone case, the court upheld Cole’s right to purchase property in the neighborhood.

The Mount Baker Neighborhood and the Civil Rights Movement.  Racial tension, occurring in the neighborhood and throughout the city and nation, extended to the nearby schools, like Franklin High School. By 1967, black students comprised 19% of Franklin High School’s enrollment. In late March 1968, an altercation broke out in the halls of the school between three students – one white and two black students. The school’s principal, Loren Ralph, suspended the two black students, cousins Charles Oliver and Trolice Flavors. Flavors’ attempts to negotiate his suspension were rebuffed so he contacted his mentor, Carl Miller, a member of the Blake Student Union (BSU) at the University of Washington. Miller, along with other members of the BSU, Aaron Dixon and Larry Gossett, tried to meet with Ralph to negotiate peacefully. When those efforts were denied, the BSU students organized a gathering to peacefully protest. One hundred students, around 40 of which were non-Franklin students, marched into Ralph’s office on campus demanding Oliver and Flavors be reinstated, that a black administrator be hired at the high school level in the Seattle Public School system, that an African American history class be taught at Franklin, and that black heroes be included in the American historical figures featured on the walls of the school. This sit-in at Franklin High School was the first high-school sit-in held in Seattle. Five of the organizers—Miller, Dixon, Gossett, Gossett’s brother Richard Gossett, and Flavors—were charged with unlawful assembly. The three UW and BSU students—Miller, Dixon, and Gossett—were tried and found guilty in July 1968. Their case was appealed before the Washington State in January 1971; a retrial was ordered by the court but the prosecutor declined to prosecute. The three were instrumental in forming the Seattle chapter of the Black Panthers with Aaron Dixon serving as the first captain of the chapter. In the aftermath of the sit-in, the Mount Baker Improvement Club’s Franklin High School Committee pushed for a discrimination complaint to be brought against principal Loren Ralph. Significant staff turnover occurred in the fall of 1968 and a new principal and vice-principal were hired.

While the study period extends to 1968, the foundation of advocacy and education continues at Franklin High School, which remains one of Seattle’s great institutions of learning for a bright and diverse student body.

Thanks to everyone for the continuing interest and support as we document the neighborhood’s historic and cultural values.   The nomination process focuses on the neighborhood, prior to 1968.   If you have specific information related to the architecture, culture, and/or history of our community up through 1968, please pass it on to towncenterfriends@gmail.com and we will share it with our consultant team.