Remembering Madison Park's other bank robber

Hollywood Bandit's 1990s spree ends in suicide

Last month's unlikely robbery of the Madison Park Wells Fargo Bank branch was not---as several long-time neighborhood residents have pointed out---unprecedented. Though the cross-dressing aspect of last month's holdup certainly was a novel element, a much-earlier stick up was also perpetrated by a disguised robber targeting the same bank branch, back in the days when it was part of First Interstate Bank.

The infamous perpetrator was Scott Scurlock, dubbed the "Hollywood Bandit" by the press because of his many different disguises. Though the son of a Baptist minister, Scurlock spurned the ways of the Lord, turning to crime early in life. By the time he was a student at the Evergreen State College in the late 1970s he was manufacturing crystal meth, using chemicals stolen from the college. Later, operating from a farm in Olympia, he established himself as a major source of supply for drug dealers in the Pacific Northwest, according to a HistoryLink essay.

By the 1990s, however, Scurlock apparently decided that the drug business was just too risky, so he hit upon the idea of bank robbery as a lucrative method of financing his lifestyle. For some reason he determined that Madison Park was a likely starting point for his new criminal venture, and his immediate success here in 1992 led to a four-and-a-half-year, fifteen-robbery crime spree that was to ultimately net Scurlock more than $2 million.

But it ended badly.

Just why the 35-year-old targeted a Madison Park bank branch for his first heist has never been adequately explained. In her book about Scurlock's criminal run, The End of the Dream: The Golden Boy Who Never Grew Up, crime author Ann Rule writes, "It was actually rather a stupid plan, full of pitfalls, a script that might have worked in a movie but had little basis in reality."  As she notes, Madison Park was a good distance from a freeway and a difficult neighborhood from which to make a quick getaway. Nevertheless, Scurlock chose the neighborhood's Seafirst (now Bank of America) branch as his initial target; and having enlisted a longtime buddy and the buddy's girlfriend as accomplices, he drove with them to Madison Park, arriving here just before noon on Thursday, June 25, 1992.

The robbery went off without a hitch. Wearing a makeup and a fake nose, Scurlock and his somewhat reluctant friend, Mark Biggins (wearing a Ronald Reagan mask), entered the Seafirst branch, Scurlock yelling, "This is a hold-up. Don't anybody move."  As reported by Rule, Scurlock, after leaping onto the teller counter, jumped behind the line of tellers and began scooping cash our of the teller drawers.  Biggins, meanwhile, brandished a gun, telling employees and customers to lie down on the floor.  Since Biggins' girlfriend, Traci, had dropped the two off at the heist, they needed to commandeer a getaway car (Scurlock was concerned about using his own van in the robbery since it could have been traced to him).  They were fortunate in having seen a bank customer drive into the parking lot as they were approaching the bank, so once the cash was in hand, Scurlock requested that the man turn over his keys to the two robbers, which of course he did.

They drove the man's blue Cadillac to the pre-arranged meeting point where Traci was supposed to be, but she wasn't there.  So, abandoning the Cadillac in an alley, Scurlock and Biggins made a run for it.  Rule's narrative continues, "They had talked of a backup meeting spot, and they leapt over a fence onto the golf course of the extremely posh, gated Broadmoor community.  Golfers saw them coming--two men in masks carrying a bag of money--and they stopped, open-mouthed in mid-swing. Incredibly, nobody tried to stop them."

While still inside Broadmoor, apparently, the two were able to remove their disguises and then meet up with Traci at the back-up rendezvous point. The three raced off in Scurlock's van, pursued by no one, $19,971 richer.

William Scott Scurlock

And so Scurlock's bank-robbing career began.  With Biggins and his girlfriend declining to do another heist, Scurlock amazingly decided that since the first robbery had gone so well he'd hit the same branch again.  On his own this time, he returned to the Madison Park Seafirst branch just two months later, on August 20, 1992, and again successfully robbed the place, taking home $8,125 for his efforts.  Security cameras failed to activate in time, the witnesses were fuzzy about the description of the robber, and the tellers hadn't been unable to slip any marked bills or dye-packs into the stolen loot. Scurlock was emboldened.

Over the next three months, Scurlock and accomplices robbed four more banks, including the Seafirst branch in Hawthorne Hills (now a veterinary clinic, located across the street from Metropolitan Market). His take for the year: $302,890.

Scurlock was to rob the Hawthorne Hills Seafirst two more times (as Rule notes, "he had  aways found gratifying sacks of money there.") He also robbed the West Seattle and Wedgwood branches of U.S. Bank, as well as the Wedgwood branch of First Interstate Bank (now Wells Fargo), as well as two banks in Portland.  

In 1994 he decided to return to his sentimental favorite, Madison Park, with another attempt at the Seafirst branch.  According to Rule, Scurlock was superstitious, thinking that because he had been successful at the Hawthorne Hills Seafirst three times, the Madison Park Seafirst just might yield big bucks on the third try: "The Madison Park area attracted Seattle's young movers and shakers...There was money in Madison Park.  You could almost smell it in the air." On Friday, January 20, 1995, Scurlock and a sidekick, Steve Meyers, descended upon the Seafirst branch and hauled away a cool $252,466.  As always, Scurlock got away clean.

Madison Park was to be hit a fourth time by Scurlock.  On May 22, 1996, the neighborhood's First Interstate branch was the target, Scurlock and company escaping with $114,979.  When leaving, Scurlock reportedly told the customers and employees, "Stay there in the middle. Don't push any alarms.  Don't watch me leave, and I won't be back to bother you. If you do, I will have to come back and hurt you."

By this time the police were becoming understandably frustrated. The "Hollywood Bandit" had successfully robbed fourteen bank branches over a four-year period, and because of his various disguises his identity still was not known. Beginning in August 1996, the Seattle Police began staking out banks in Madison Park and other likely neighborhoods (including Wedgwood), hoping to catch "Hollywood" in the act.  As it happened, however, Scurlock finally had some bad luck totally unrelated to these stakeouts.  On November 27, 1996 he and two accomplices successfully robbed the Seafirst branch in Lake CIty, hauling away over $1 million.  A bank customer disobeyed Scurlock's orders, however, and followed the robbers as they walked to their van. He then called 9-1-1 with a description of the vehicle and the direction in which the van was heading.  Police were on the tail quickly and a shootout ensued. Two of the robbers were wounded and apprehended, but Scurlock got away (through without the money).

A six-block area of Lake City was cordoned off and a manhunt began that continued into the next day, Thanksgiving.  Scurlock was eventually located when two brothers who were visiting their mother's house became suspicious that a camper stored on her property might be inhabited (the door was locked from the inside and the shades drawn, which was not typical). Peering though a small, shadeless window they saw someone in the camper and called police. Police attempted to contact the occupant and then fired pepper spray through a louvered window of the camper. But when they attempted to enter it, there was a gunshot from inside, so the police emptied over 30 rounds into the camper.

After further unsuccessful attempts to contact the fugitive, police fired a tear gas shell into the camper, followed by a second cannister twenty minutes later. When they finally entered the camper they found Scurlock dead. Next to the body was a 9-mm Glock pistol and an empty shell casing. One of Scurlock's accomplices, recovering from his wounds, fingered Scurlock as the "Hollywood Bandit."  It was the first time the police had the suspect's name. According to the HistoryLink essay, when police raided Scurlock's Olympia farm, "They discovered a cache of weapons, which included handguns, a silencer, several rifles, two sawed-off shotguns, and a large store of ammunition. The agents also seized over $20,000 in cash, passports, airline tickets, police frequency scanners, and portable two-way radios. Hidden under the floor in the barn, they found a secret room where Scurlock applied his makeup, stored his disguises, and counted the loot."

For Scurlock, who died at age 41, it had been quite a run.  Fifteen robberies and an estimated  $2.3 million in stolen loot over four and a half years.  As far as we're aware it would be more than 17 years before anyone again successfully robbed a bank in Madison Park.  But that incident also didn't end well.

[Photos from Ann Rule's The End of the Dream, other than the bottom photo, courtesy of the Seattle Times via HistoryLink.org.]

Madison Park: in print and online

Turn-of-the-century "Amusement Center" here

That great website, Vintage Seattle, has unearthed the historic photograph above, which it dates as circa 1907, showing an "amusement center" located in Madison Park. Vintage Seattle was unable to identify the context, but it is almost certainly a photo taken of the "White City" amusement park which briefly flourished in Madison Park during the Alaska-Yukon Exhibition of 1909.

On the 100th anniversary of the incident, we ran a posting on this blog about an elephant that had escaped from "White City" and "rampaged" through Madison Park before being recaptured ("Elephant causes pandemonium in the Park").  For that story we utilized the archives of another great site, HistoryLink.org.  In the photo above (click to enlarge), notice the "Skiddoo House" to the left.  We wonder, what exactly happened there?

And while we're on the subject of historic Madison Park photos, here's another recent entry from Vintage Seattle.  This one shows Washington Pioneer Hall, probably sometime in the early 1950s:

At the time this photo was taken, Madison Park apparently still had at least one water-related commercial business in operation:  on the left side of the building is a sign for "Olympic Boat."

More photos of Broadmoor eaglet

Photographer/bird watcher Larry Hubbell has added some more photos to his website of the offspring of the Broadmoor eagles, which he has named Si'ahl.  The above shot shows the eaglet surveying the territory.  Here's one showing Si'ahl with his father, Albert:

Larry does not limit his photo work to eagle coverage, however.  There are a lot of great shots of other birds and wildlife on his site, Union Bay Watch, as well as a fabulous new shot of Albert.  Check it out.

Washington Park home featured in The Times

The personal residence of architect Roy Lundgren and his wife Laura received high-profile treatment in an article last month in The Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest Magazine.  Lundgren designed the home around the couple's large collection of art and artifacts, some of which they have accumulated from their many world-travel adventures.

One of the interesting aspects of the house is that it is designed for "unassisted living," making it user-friendly, though the residence is situated on a small lot and incorporates three floors of living space.  The full article, with many photos, can be found here.

Interestingly (or not), this is the fourth house on this particular Washington Park block to be featured in a local or national publication during the last two years.

[Architectural photos by BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER, Seattle Times.]

Exploring underwater wreckage off the beach

There's a lot of wreckage under the waters of Lake Washington, almost all which arrived there accidentally. Though at least one vessel was intentionally scuttled in the Lake, much of the underwater debris consists of commercial boats or ferries that sank (usually during storms) and were not recovered.  Some of the wreckage, however, is the remains of military aircraft that took flight from the old Sand Point Naval Air Station.

Until KUOW aired a story on the subject last Friday, we were unaware that one of theses airplane wrecks actually sits on the Lake bottom just off the shore of Madison Park.  The plane in question is a Korean War vintage propeller-driven fighter plane known as the Corsair.  One of these was recovered in fairly good condition from Lake Washington a few years ago and rehabilitated.  It now resides in the Museum of Flight:

The Corsair resting in our part of the Lake is not in very good condition, now more than 60 years after it took off from Sand Point---never to return. KUOW producer Ann Dornfeld last month accompanied four wetsuited divers, several of them members of The Maritime Documentation Society, as they entered the Lake at Madison Park Beach in search of the wreckage site.  Her story (the audio feed and a transcript of which is available in full here) follows the scuba divers as they rediscover the site of the wreckage:

"The plane is a tangle of pieces; broken wings over here, crumpled fuselage over there. The divers' lights pierce the black water, golden beams panning over rusted gears and ammo boxes. Pale little sculpins and blue and orange crayfish dart amid the wreckage. After about half an hour on the wreck, we head toward shore."  Once back on land, one of the divers, Ben Giner of Puget Sound Divers, comments, "Can you imagine the force that was required to twist that plane like that and shatter it going into the water? The water is hard at that speed, but still, even the internal components of the plane that should've protected by the fuselage are just ripped to pieces."

The wreckage resulted from a mid-air collision with another Navy Corsair, the very one that was later pulled from the Lake and restored. The accident occurred on the morning of July 29, 1950 when the two planes, part of a larger formation executing an "x-under" maneuver, collided.  According to the Navy investigation, as reported by the Seattle Times, the propeller of one of the planes chopped off the fuselage of the other plane.  While one pilot was able to take his plane to a soft water landing near Sand Point, the other pilot elected to ditch his badly damaged plane, ejecting over the Lake.  Fortunately, his plane did not land on the beach but hit the water hard, two hundred yards from shore, and sank immediately.  Both pilots were rescued from the Lake.  The full story, with pictures of the pilots is available here on a site that also provides this great video of the wreckage:



There are a lot of other interesting wrecks in Lake Washington, though most are far removed from Madison Park.  A great site for further exploring this subject is operated by the Submerged Cultural Resources Exploration Team (SCRET), which provides the history and underwater shots of ten Lake Washington wreckage sites here.

[Thanks to DCS Films for the embedded video. Pictures of the underwater wreck were culled from this site. There is another video of a different dive to the Corsair wreckage on the Puget Sound Divers site here.]

Come down and see the firehouse

Anyone reading this blog over the last couple years knows what fans we are of our neighborhood fire team. The Seattle Fire Department's Fire Station 34 is holding an open house this Saturday, so everyone will have the opportunity to meet the firefighters and sit in Engine 34, shown above.

In one form or another this firehouse (located at 633 32nd Avenue E.) has been protecting the neighborhood for a long time.  We culled this picture from the Seattle Fire Department's website:

It shows the Fire Station as it looked in about 1921.  Although the current firehouse is considered to be in "generally fair condition," it does not meet current seismic standards.  As a result, it is scheduled for a structural upgrade, a project which will take three years and include an expansion of the work space.  The design of the new station will be on display during the open house, which will be held from 1 to 3 pm on Saturday, November 19.

Madison Park as commercial hub

As we’ve previously chronicled, Madison Park began life in the mid-1800s as a private waterfront estate, Laurel Shade, which later grew into a lakeside village. By the turn of the 20th Century, the neighborhood had been developed into a prime recreational, entertainment, and sports venue for Seattle, and it also served as a major Lake Washington transportation hub, connecting Seattle by ferry to the Eastside.

In the early 1900s, Madison Park also had at least a slight pretense to industry.  For example, there was an active coal yard in the neighborhood for many years, as shown in the photo above. The yard (which also provided wood, sand, gravel and "auto storage") was located north of E. Madison Street, probably in the block between E. Newton and E. Lynn Streets.  This is the view, circa 1915, of the coal yard from the water side:

Coal was brought into the yard by barges pulled (or in some cases, pushed) by tugboats such as the one shown below, also circa 1915.

The coal was probably sourced in Newcastle, in the Coal Creek area east of the Lake.  Coal had been mined there since it was discovered in the 1860s.  At least by the late 1800s, most of the coal from Newcastle was transported across the Lake to a receiving yard located near what is now Husky Stadium.  From there it was sent by train to bunkers on the Seattle waterfront, for later shipment by boat.   The Madison Park coal yard was almost certainly just a local distribution site, designed to provide fuel for homes and businesses in this and surrounding neighborhoods. 

Another commercial business that operated in Madison Park in the early part of the last century was the Castle Dye Works, shown in the photo below.  The company’s fanciful building was located at the corner of 42nd Avenue E. and E. Madison Street (the current site of the building that houses Bing’s and Museum Quality Framing).

Jane Powell Thomas mentions this building in her book, Madison Park Remembered. Her father, George Powell, said that back in the day, neighborhood kids called the place “Katzenjammer Castle” after a popular comic strip, The Katzenjammer Kids.  The building apparently pre-dated the arrival of the commercial enterprise. The castle, whose turrets were reportedly made of metal, had originally been part of the earlier amusement park that graced the area north of the City park.

Other than coaling and dyeing, we are unaware of any other primarily non-retail commercial businesses that historically operated in Madison Park. If you are aware of others, please let us know and we will do a followup.

[Coal yard and barge tug photos courtesy of the Museum of History and Industry.  Castle Dye Works photo courtesy of the Washington State Archive.  Interesting aside:  the tug boat, S.L. Dowell, shown above, sank in Lake Washington in 1922 after hitting a snag near Mercer Island.  Its remains on the bottom of the Lake were discovered and photographed by the Submerged Cultural Resources Exploration Team, SCRET.  The watery grave of the tug is shown here.]

Readers send photos

New wading pool for the neighborhood?

Several MPB readers have sent us photos that we thought should be shared.  The one above was taken from his iPhone and forwarded to us by our neighbor, Scott Wilson.  It shows the lakeside park at E. Lynn St. and 43rd Ave. E. on Tuesday afternoon this week.  He notes that the parks department, with significant effort and presumably not a little cost, recently replaced a sand base for the swing-set area with a supposedly superior wood-chip base.  Perhaps, he says, the City's intention was to create a dual-use facility for the neighborhood, a combination swing set/wading pool.  "I'd call it a swool," he comments, "but others might call it a stupid use of money."

Does anyone remember seeing the area in this shape when the "inferior" sand base was still in place?

This must have happened on a weekend

Glenn Ader, director of the BRIGHT! Preschool here in the Park sent us this photo showing area preschool directors and teachers as they took a recent "time out."  Many of us are aware of the Madison Park Cooperative Preschool, operating out of the bathhouse, but who knew there were that so many private preschools operating in close proximity?  (We didn't, at least).  The purpose of this gathering, says Ader, was to share ideas and build relationships in order to improve programs for the children each preschool serves.

Pictured:  Sally Straight (Nanny's Annex), Frani Carlson (Frani's Preschool), Darlene Kenney (Frani's Preschool), Tea Carlson (Frani's Preschool), Megan Scott (Little Feet Preschool), Waleska Leiva (Mary Lane's Preschool), Jenny Cummins (Epiphany Pre-K), Andrea Losh (Harvard Avenue), Jackie Hubenet (Jackie's Pre-K), Christine Carlson (Little Feet Preschool), Glenn Ader (BRIGHT! Preschool), Mary Lane (Mary Lane's Preschool), Nora Wheat (Jackie's Pre-K), Nan Stephens (Nannies).

The Pavilion from a different view

From Madison Park resident and historian/author David Chapman comes this intriguing stereoview image of a prosperous-looking woman standing in front of the Park's then-famous Pavilion, sometime around the turn of the 20th Century.  Stereoscopic photographs (aka stereoview cards), which were apparently popular in the late 1800s, were composed of two nearly identical images mounted side-by-side on a cardboard backing.  These images were then viewed on a stereoviewer, providing an early form of 3-D effect. These cards were often sold as souvenirs, and Chapman speculates that this may have been one produced and sold around at time of the Alaska-Yukon Exhibition in 1909.

By the way, Chapman's latest book, just published, is "Venus With Biceps: A Pictorial History of Muscular Women."  Chapman will be giving a talk and a slideshow on  the subject at Elliot Bay Book Company (1521 Tenth Avenue) on Wednesday, March 30.

Chapman reports that the book, co-authored with Patricia Vertinsky, is getting good reviews, including this one in the New Yorker.  The Seattle Times also featured the book earlier this week.

Pavilion days on Lake Washington

In Madison Park’s early days this was very much a beach community, with lakeside amenities including a boardwalk, a bandstand, bathing pavilions, boathouses, and a ball park. In the late 1800s and well into the early 1900s, the centerpiece of Madison Park entertainment was a large Victorian structure on the Lake known as the Madison Street Park Pavilion. The photo above, from the Seattle Municipal Archives, was probably taken around the turn of the century. The caption on the marquee is “Madison Park Theatre.” In her book, Madison Park Remembered, longtime Madison Park resident and author Jane Powell Thomas states that the Pavilion's auditorium seated 500 and there was outdoor seating for hundreds more. Another major feature of the building was its large covered observation deck at the top.

The photo below, from the UW Libraries Collection, taken around 1890 by photographer Arthur Churchill Wallace, shows the structure from the beach side. The photo is labeled “Seattle Pavilion at Laurel Shade, Lake Washington.” Laurel Shade was the name of the estate of Madison Park founder John J. McGilvra, to the south. The beach community was apparently known as Laurel Shade until McGilvra donated a large section of his Lakefront property for a park, initially known as the Madison Street Park, later shortened to just Madison Park.

This photo by Wallace, also from the UW Libraries Collection, shows the entrance to the Pavilion.

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Below is a great shot from the Seattle Municipal Archives showing the “Meiers Band” standing in front of the Madison Street trolley car, with the Pavilion clearly visible in the background. Based on this photo it’s evident that the Pavilion was located just to the south of Madison Street, two blocks north of McGilvra’s Laurel Shade compound (now known as the Reed Estate). According to author Jane Powell Thomas, the Madison Street Cable Railway was the builder and owner of the Pavilion. McGilvra had donated 21 acres of waterfront property to the Cable Railway to induce the Company to run the trolley line from the top of Capitol Hill to the Lake, she says. It was the Cable Railway that initially developed Madison Park "for the mutual economic benefit of the McGilvras" and itself. Thomas lists 1889 as the date the cable car began running to Lake Washington and 1890 as the date the Pavilion was completed. The structure burned to the ground in 1914.

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Down on the water there were three compatible and elaborate “bathing pavilions” or “bandstands,” depending on which caption you believe. Here’s how they looked, circa 1885, in another photo by Wallace from the UW Libraries Collection.

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This picture from the collection of the Museum of History & Industry shows canoeists enjoying a day on the Lake in 1910, with the mini-pavilions in the background.

Here is a great shot (provided to us by MPB reader Don Petit) probably taken around the same time, or perhaps a bit later. It shows the Lake scene looking south from a dock, probably at the end of Madison Street.

This is another shot by Wallace, which shows both the boathouse and two of the bathing pavilions looking south from the landside. Note the wooden boardwalk and swings.

There’s more, but we’ll stop here with this lovely photo shot by an unnamed photographer, circa 1892, showing a steamboat heading out from the Madison Street landing.

[Click on pictures to enlarge. To see all of the MPB postings on the history of Madison Park, including this one, click here.]

End of the ferry era: 60 years ago today

On this very day in 1950, the ferry Leschi pulled out from the Madison Park dock at 9:15 in the morning for her final run to Kirkland, where, 20 minutes later, she tied up—never to return. So ended Madison Park’s long history as a Lake Washington port.

For most of the previous 80 years, Madison Park had been a critical link in the Lake Washington transportation system. But on that day, August 31, 1950, Madison Park, at least in transportation terms, simply became the end of the road.

The opening of the first Lake Washington floating bridge in 1940 had been the beginning of the end for ferry service on the Lake, but it took another decade for the era to finally draw to a close. Regularly scheduled ferry service between Madison Park and Kirkland had begun in 1900, but as we chronicled last summer (“Steamboat Days on Lake Washington”), Madison Park had long served as a vital transportation hub connecting communities on the eastside with Seattle. Once it became possible for cars to drive across the Lake, however, the economics of the Lake ferries became problematic.

The Leschi was the last of several ferries that had made the Madison Park-Kirkland run in the fifty-year history of the route, which was operated by the King County Ferry System. The Ferry Lincoln had served on the route for 25 years, up to the point where the floating bridge was inaugurated.

The Leschi served the route for its final ten years, which included a profitable period during the Second World War when gas rationing made ferry travel popular again and many workers used the ferries to get to work at the Lake Washington Shipyard near Kirkland. But when bridge tolls ended on the Mercer Island floating bridge in 1949, the ferry could no longer be operated at even a reasonable loss. Though the King County Commissioners voted to end the run in early 1950, the City of Kirkland briefly won a reprieve for the route which lasted into the summer. UW students living on the Eastside were said to be among the most disappointed when ferry service ended since they had been allowed to ride for only a nickel.

Although the Leschi later saw service on both the Vashon-Fauntleroy and Mukilteo-Clinton runs, sadly she eventually ended up as a rusting hulk on a beach outside of Whittier, Alaska.

Those interested in the history of the Leschi should check out evergreenfleet.com/leschi. Also of possible interest is a great essay on the Madison Park-Kirkland ferry run available at HistoryLink.org and a MPB posting about our neighborhood’s past life as port (“Madison Park: a Port No More”), which includes some historical pictures.

[Photos of the Leschi, top and bottom, from evergreenfleet.com. Middle photo, showing the Leschi at the Kirkland ferry dock, courtesy of the Kirkland Heritage Society.]

Pioneer Hall turns 100

Madison Park’s oldest waterfront structure, Washington Pioneer Hall (1642 43rd Avenue E.), will be celebrating its Centennial tomorrow. Home of the Pioneer Association of the State of Washington, the building was opened in 1910 and may be the longest surviving commercial structure located in the neighborhood. It was built on land donated in 1902 by Madison Park founder, Judge John J. McGilvra, whose family home, Laurel Shade, was located to the south of the site (in what is now known as the Reed Estate). Loretta Denny of the famous Seattle pioneer family (Denny-Blaine, Denny Regrade, Denny Way, Denny Hall) bequeathed $20,000 for the construction of the building, which was dedicated on June 7, 1910.

The Hall is reputedly the only remaining structure in Madison Park that sat directly next to Lake Washington before the Lake was lowered in 1916 as the result of the building of the Ship Canal. When the Lake decreased in elevation by 8.8 feet that year, the building suddenly found itself sitting on a beach lot rather than waterside. This is the scene in the early 1900s (apparently post Lake lowering):

And this is what the back of the site looks like today:

Local historian Junius Rochester, who lives in Madrona, has a nice overview of the Pioneer Association on HistoryLink.org. The bylaws of the Association make membership available to “lineal descendants of Pioneers who were residents of Washington Territory prior to statehood.” I’m sure we all remember that statehood occurred in 1889 (November 11, to be exact). I am told that there are approximately 900 members of the Association at the present time.

Pioneer Hall primarily serves as a museum of the history of Washington Territory and early Washington State, with exhibits of paintings, photos, clothing, furniture, and other memorabilia of pioneer families on display. There are also books, recordings and biographical material housed there; and since 1992, the Fiske Genealogical Library has been located in the basement of the Hall. In 1970, Pioneer Hall was entered into the National Register of Historic Places, a fact memorialized by the bronze plaque on the front of the building.

The Hall is open to the public on the second Sunday of each month, from 1 until 4 p.m. The Pioneer Association will be celebrating the building’s Centennial on Saturday, June 19 with a Salmon Bake at Madison Park. Information is available from PioneerPicnic@aol.com or from Jeff Christensen (206-390-6810). Technically, the deadline for reservations (at $24 per person) was on Friday; but perhaps if you want to attend they will still let you in if you blame your recalcitrance on the Madison Park Blogger for failing to notify you in time.

[Historic photo courtesy of the University of Washington Libraries.]

We could be living in Monroe Park

If you were paying attention earlier this week and cared to do so, you could have celebrated the 259th anniversary of the birth of James Madison, fourth President of the United States, born on March 16, 1751. It’s unlikely that many of us regularly reflect (if ever) on the fact that Madison Park was named—at least indirectly—for the Father of the Constitution. Though our connection with the President is a fact, it certainly didn’t have to be that way. We could just as easily be living in a lovely lakeside community named for the author of the Monroe Doctrine. Here’s the story of why this is Madison Park.

As all the histories of the area confirm, Judge John J. McGilvra (that’s him below) built the first homestead in what is now Madison Park. In 1864, during the Civil War, McGilvra either built or substantially improved a road from downtown Seattle to his 420-acre estate on the Lake, which he called Laurel Shade. According to McGilvra’s biography on Wikipedia, the road was known then as the Lake Washington wagon road, and from the beginning it was the only direct route from the salt water of Elliott Bay to the fresh water of the Lake. That’s still the case today.

But it’s not true, although many website histories make the claim, that McGilvra named the road that he had built “Madison Street.” The naming was actually done by Arthur Denny, a City founder and its first surveyor. According to photographer and historian Paul Dorpat, author of the “Seattle Then and Now” series, Denny needed another “M” street after having already named a Seattle street for his brother “Marion.” As longtime Seattleites know, the convention for remembering downtown East-West street names is the mnemonic “Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest.”

This method for remembering the order came later, certainly. The naming came first; and it was Denny’s idea to pair Seattle’s streets by the first letter of their names: Jefferson, James, Cherry, Columbia, Marion…” But then what? After naming these first five, Denny needed another “M” in order to keep the alliteration going. He had already used one president, Jefferson, for a street name. Why not another? Two possibilities existed at that time: Presidents Monroe and Madison.

Dorpat says that the answer was “obvious.” But I don’t see why. There is a SW Monroe Street in Seattle, but that clearly came along much later (it is far south of downtown). Denny could have easily chosen Monroe. But for whatever reason, Madison it was. And Denny was able to go from there to complete the string: Marion, Madison, Spring, Seneca, University, Union, Pike and Pine.

About sixteen years after the building of the road, McGilvra deeded about 24 acres for a park at the end of the road. In early pictures, the park is captioned “Madison Street Park,” and that was apparently how the Park got its name: the park at the end of Madison Street. Eventually it became simply Madison Park, and the growing community that surrounded it became the Madison Park neighborhood.

So that’s the story of why we’re not living in Monroe Park. Now you know.

[John J. McGilvra picture courtesy of the Museum of History and Industry, middle picture of Laurel Shade courtesty of the University of Washington Libraries collection, lower picture of Madison Street in 1932 courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives. Compare to the 1939 picture posted earlier on this blog.]

Seventy years ago in Madison Park

I don't know about you, but I am fascinated by history and find old photos of Madison Park particularly arresting. This is a 1939 photo looking westward up E. Madison Street from the area of the Village. While the trolly tracks are clearly visible, traffic is certainly not.

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If you have old photos of the Park that you think Blogger readers would be interested in seeing, please send them my way. I will be presenting historic photos on the site from time to time. This one is courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives.

Defining Madison Park: an essay (part one)

You might think it would be a pretty easy thing to describe the community in which you live, defining, for those not in the know, its characteristics and its boundaries. A simple neighborhood definition might be possible for a lot of places in this town; but, as I’ve discovered, it’s not a simple thing to accomplish when it comes to Madison Park. For it’s a fact that there is no consensus on what it means to live in Madison Park. The City has an opinion, the local realtors have one, the area’s community councils each have one—and their views are certainly not identical. And then there are the people who actually do (or, in the opinion of others, do not) live in the Park.

Where, exactly, does Madison Park begin, and where does it end?

Let’s start with a premise, perhaps the only one, on which all of us can agree: living in Madison Park does not mean sleeping, homeless, within in the confines of the actual City park known by the same name. Yes, the community does get its geographic identify from the City park, but the two things are not synonymous. Once we agree on that fact, however, we are probably done with consensus. From this point forward the story gets complicated and the disagreements sometimes become acute.

I first became aware of the problem of defining Madison Park well before I moved here. Although a native Seattleite, I had lived my entire life ‘north of the canal’ and was simply unfamiliar with the details of neighborhood geography ‘south of the cut.’ I made the mistake of introducing a friend to someone by saying that “she lives in Madison Park like you do!” I was immediately corrected by my friend, who told me she didn’t live in Madison Park! Really? This was a surprise to me, since I’d visited her at her house. “You’re just confused,” she told me, “I actually live in Washington Park.” “What’s the distinction?” I asked. “Washington Park is south of Madison, Madison Park is north,” she told me. This, it turns out, is the mutually exclusive proposition endorsed by a few: Washington Park is not a part of Madison Park. This was news to me then—and it still is.

I suspect it’s also news to a lot of other people who live in Washington Park, as some people think I do. Other people, by the way, don’t think I do. For not only is there a dispute over whether Washington Park is part of Madison Park, there’s also a dispute over where Washington Park itself begins and ends. Do I really live in Washington Park? And even if I do, is Washington Park also home to my neighbors on the next block? Well there’s a dispute about that as well, since the City thinks that many of us down here actually live in a neighborhood called Harrison Denny-Blaine, which isn’t Washington Park at all. In the City’s opinion, not only is The Seattle Tennis Club not in Washington Park, it isn’t even in Madison Park! Confused? I told you this was complicated.

Let’s begin at the beginning.

In the beginning there was the park, Madison Park, the land for which was set aside by landowner Judge John McGilvra in 1880. Madison Street had already been named (but not by McGilvra, as is sometimes claimed), and the park at the end of the street logically became Madison Park (the picture above shows the Park in 1900). McGilvra, who owned the surrounding land, developed some of it into cottages, and the growing community along the Lake soon became known as the Madison Park neighborhood. To this point, the story is pretty straightforward.

By early 1900’s the City had already set aside (but had yet to substantially develop) the 260-acre Washington Park, which would later, beginning in the 1930’s, be developed into the Washington Park Arboretum under an agreement between the City and the University of Washington. (The picture above shows Lake Washington Boulevard snaking through the Park in 1913). During the 1920’s, meanwhile, a 216-acre “country club within the city” had been built in Madison Park. Opening in 1927, Broadmoor provided Seattle’s wealthy with a gated community on a golf course, all located within shouting distance of downtown. This is Broadmoor, circa 1930:

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Thus, by the late 1930’s the three major components of Madison Park were well established, with Washington Park at one “end” of E. Madison Street, Madison Park at the other, and Broadmoor sitting secluded and serene in the middle. The neighborhood of big houses and mansions built in the area south of Broadmoor (and therefore south of E. Madison Street) become known, apparently early in the 1900’s, as the Washington Park neighborhood. The designation may have been prompted by a desire to distinguish the area from the grittier and more working class housing of Madison Park to the east. Washington Park certainly had a greater cachet than the rest of Madison Park, although after Broadmoor opened, Washington Park was no longer the most exclusive enclave within Madison Park.

Unlike Washington Park, there’s no problem defining the boundaries of Broadmoor: the community is pretty well walled in. The only question that concerns us here, therefore, is whether Broadmoor is part of Madison Park or is not part. I haven’t taken a poll on the subject, but I suspect there may be a few people living there who feel they are not residents of Madison Park. But that’s certainly not the official view. Broadmoor, I am told, has historically been represented on the Madison Park Community Council (MPCC), and to quote current Broadmoor Homeowners Association president Erin McCormick, “I consider our neighborhood part of Madison Park. In fact when I am asked where I live, I say ‘Madison Park area’ because that is well known to people not from the area, and it is a destination point.” Most Seattleites who are in the know, I imagine, would agree that Broadmoor is in Madison Park, just as they think of Blue Ridge as an exclusive section of Ballard. Google, for what it’s worth, actually places Broadmoor at the very center of Madison Park:

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While there may be a few exclusivists out there who hold themselves aloof from Madison Park, the record seems pretty clear that both Broadmoor and Washington Park have historically been considered parts of Madison Park and are so viewed by most residents. The interconnection of Broadmoor and Washington Park with the rest of Madison Park is further reinforced by the fact that the Madison Park business district serves as the focal point for most residents of the area. Bert’s, Bing’s, Madison Park Hardware, and Pharmaca are among the many places along the strip where people from each of the neighborhoods intermix on a daily basis. And of course the city park and its beach provide another common point of reference for what is really one big Madison Park community.

Once we accept the idea that we’re all in the Park together, you might think it would be a relatively simple matter to define our boundaries. After all, the Park is surrounded on two sides by water and Lake Washington Boulevard is generally accepted as the demarcation line to the west. But it’s a fact that to both the south and the west there are multiple disputes over large chunks of Madison Park’s territory.

Before we get into all that, let’s start with this blog’s working definition of the community: “Madison Park is bounded by Lake Washington Boulevard E. on the west and south (to the intersection with 39th Avenue E.) and by Lake Washington and Union Bay to the east and north respectively.” Here’s what that looks like on the map:

This definition of Madison Park is consistent with Wikipedia’s definition (I should know, since I wrote it). It has a couple of advantages: 1) it is fairly easy to explain, since Lake Washington Boulevard extends almost to the water at Lake Washington, allowing that street to define both the western and southern boundaries of the Park and 2) it is almost exactly the same definition as used by the U.S. census for King County Tract 63 (shown at right).

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For some reason, the Census Bureau doesn’t extend the tract all the way south to the intersection of 39th Avenue E. and Lake Washington Boulevard. Instead, it extends only to 36th Avenue E. and then meanders up Hillside, over to McGilvra and down 39th for awhile, finally reaching the Lake at “E. Mercer Street” (which appears not to be a real street at that point). The difference between Census Tract 63 and our definition of Madison Park, however, is fairly insignificant—amounting, by my count, to 60 or 70 high-end houses.

The City of Seattle, meanwhile, has a very different take on Madison Park’s southern border, eliminating almost all of Washington Park from Madison Park. Here’s what the City’s neighborhood map looks like:


As you can see, a majority of the territory south of E. Madison Street is missing, including all the blocks south of E. Prospect Street and most of the blocks south of E. Lee Street. In fact, the southern border of Madison Park, as defined on the City’s map, is what some people think is the real border between Washington Park and Madison Park. In other words, everything south of E. Madison Street doesn’t necessarily constitute Washington Park, just certain blocks. And these are the very blocks that appear not to be a part of Madison Park in the City’s opinion. In fact the City seems to think that Washington Park is part of some other neighborhood, namely something called Harrison Denny-Blaine.

Now if you have never heard of Harrison Denny-Blaine, you are not alone. Denny-Blaine is certainly a recognized neighborhood, but Harrison Denny-Blaine? If you Google it you find that every reference to HDB ties back to the City’s use of the term on its neighborhood maps. Real estate websites such as Zillow, Redfin and Trulia follow the City’s convention and use the HDB designation, as does Google (although Google places the neighborhood south of Washington Park rather than including Washington Park in HDB).

Why the City appears to believe there’s a Harrison Denny-Blaine neighborhood and why Washington Park is included in it are among the issues we will explore in Part Two of this story, to be posted next week. We’ll also explain why the Madison Park houses located closest to Washington Park Arboretum are designated as “Madison Park” by realtors while some houses that are closest to Madison Park itself (the actual city park, that is) are designated as “Washington Park.”

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Confused? Stay tuned.

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[Historic photos courtesty of the Seattle Municipal Archives.]