27 March 2014
How Seattle's Neighborhoods Got Their Names
This is neat. Examples:
The Bitter Lake neighborhood in north Seattle is named after the small lake inside of it. That lake itself got its name because of the tannic acid that flowed into the lake from a local sawmill. The lake became so bitter that horses refused to drink from it, leading to the well-known phrase, “You can lead a horse to water, but if it’s in a lake filled with acid then you won’t be able to get it to drink.”
Eastlake is the small neighborhood east of Lake Union. It is not east of Lake Washington. If you go east of Lake Washington, you’re in Bellevue.
Lake City took its name from a sign that someone posted along the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad north of the Sand Point brick factory. The sign, tacked to a shed, said "Lake," in reference to Lake Washington, and the name Lake City eventually stuck.
Montlake, a community that sits in between Capitol Hill and the University District alongside the Lake Washington ship canal, got its name from real estate agents who wanted to evoke the beauty of both mountains and lakes in order to move land. Sorry Montlake, you’re just a marketing term.
Northgate’s name was codified around the development of the Northgate Mall in 1950, which was the first indoor shopping center in America to be called a mall. So, yeah. It’s named after a mall.
This neighborhood [South Lake Union] sits south of Lake Union. It must not be confused with the southern portion of Lake Union itself—much like Amazon.com, which is headquartered in South Lake Union, should not be confused with the Amazon River.
The Bitter Lake neighborhood in north Seattle is named after the small lake inside of it. That lake itself got its name because of the tannic acid that flowed into the lake from a local sawmill. The lake became so bitter that horses refused to drink from it, leading to the well-known phrase, “You can lead a horse to water, but if it’s in a lake filled with acid then you won’t be able to get it to drink.”
Eastlake is the small neighborhood east of Lake Union. It is not east of Lake Washington. If you go east of Lake Washington, you’re in Bellevue.
Lake City took its name from a sign that someone posted along the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad north of the Sand Point brick factory. The sign, tacked to a shed, said "Lake," in reference to Lake Washington, and the name Lake City eventually stuck.
Montlake, a community that sits in between Capitol Hill and the University District alongside the Lake Washington ship canal, got its name from real estate agents who wanted to evoke the beauty of both mountains and lakes in order to move land. Sorry Montlake, you’re just a marketing term.
Northgate’s name was codified around the development of the Northgate Mall in 1950, which was the first indoor shopping center in America to be called a mall. So, yeah. It’s named after a mall.
This neighborhood [South Lake Union] sits south of Lake Union. It must not be confused with the southern portion of Lake Union itself—much like Amazon.com, which is headquartered in South Lake Union, should not be confused with the Amazon River.
Labels: history
# posted by mamurd @ 10:24 PM 
