A Hike in Ross

 Dear Diary,

On my first tour of Ballard for you, I found the parks' celebrations of certain elements of Ballard's history so obtrusive that I ended up calling the resulting pages in you "History and Parks", with the result that they became just about the least-read pages in you from that time.  Now, personally I'm pretty interested in history, but as I told you in introducing the similarly little-read (but also rather less well-conceived) "Land and Water" series, I find it annoying when certain bits of history are emphasised to the exclusion of everything else.

Ballard's historically-minded residents are right to emphasise that Ballard was a real city for, um, eighteen years.  (Though few emphasise that that time was so short because Ballard couldn't secure water, in other words, was not a sustainable city.)  Although Lake City had a far higher population when annexed decades later, no other part of North Seattle was a state-recognised city before it became part of Seattle.

But as it happens, other parts of North Seattle were recognised in other ways, and some of these are now forgotten.  I forgot myself to call a recent page "A Hike in Latona".  Before there was a U-District at all (I mean, literally, before it was land as opposed to swamp), Latona was a well-established village roughly where the northern part of the I-5 bridge now is.  I've now gone through the list of Seattle landmarks, and someone has proposed making the Latona School, at 401 NE 42nd St, a landmark.

(I'm not going to visit the landmarks on this set of hikes.  These hikes are about the cruelty of once again keeping most of the park water fountains shut off, not about celebrating gorgeous buildings.  If, while I continue writing you, dear Diary, there comes a time when it's appropriate to celebrate in you, I'll go photograph the landmarks.  I've also looked at the websites for Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities, and neither, near as I can tell, offers a list of places to visit.)

Anyway, there was another school, Ross School.  Two buildings by that name existed where Ross Park now is, the first built in 1883.  They were named after John Ross, who lived circa 1827 to 1886.  He was notoriously a curmudgeonly stick in the mud, kind of like me.

Days after he died, the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad guys I've previously mentioned to you, dear Diary, visited his ex-wife, Mary Jane Ross (née McMillan), circa 1843 to 1916, for permission to lay tracks and build a station on her land.  This station, midway between the Fremont and Ballard stations, they named after her Ross Station.

In 1888, the Ross Post Office opened.

If Ballard's historians insist on celebrating the 1890s alone, they may find that practice a two-edged sword.  Ross was annexed (and its post office closed) in 1901, six years before Ballard, but Ballard was in enough trouble by then that the 1900s are a much less popular decade for Ballard's boosters to get arrogant about.

Anyway, I'm not sure who owned the slopes the last page was about, back then, but I'm quite sure the places this page talks about were in Ross, not Fremont, and not Ballard.

Main source:  "Seattle's Pioneers of Fremont: John Ross", by Valarie, 2016.  She also cites "Seattle Beginnings: Ross Post Office opens on July 30, 1888", by Greg Lange, 1898.  I came across the main page while researching bridges for your page "Water and Water: The Lake Washington Ship Canal", dear Diary.  The part of that main page about Ross as a separate village is way, way, down the page.

Maps showing Ross:

One from the David Rumsey collection, a private company's 1890 creation.

The US Geological Survey - search for Seattle, and the 1897 map (of "Snohomish") shows Ross.

EDIT 5/11:  Map:

The school was, as noted, at Ross Park (A); the rail station will have been on what is now the Burke-Gilman Trail, probably not too far from the CDEF mess.  I don't know where the post office was.

Ross Park

Not only in the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation website but in the 2020 Seattle real property report from which I'm getting most of these sites' names, this is "Ross Playground".  However, the park's actual parks department sign says "Ross Park", and I think that makes much more sense.

Ever since I introduced this park to you, dear Diary, in "History and Parks", part I, I've bemoaned one reason after another why I couldn't properly photograph the uncredited mosaic (I think I've called it a mural, but it's a mosaic) set between the restrooms.  It isn't great art, but I like it and have been annoyed by the series of events.  So this time, one obstacle after another having fallen away, the first thing I did was take this picture:

which also isn't great art, but satisfies me no end just the same.

When the restrooms there are closed, the mosaic is obstructed by gratings and a central pole, so that picture by itself shows that they were open, but here's more explicit evidence:

As noted in these pages' introduction, the water fountain, though very probably capable of working (it worked last October, and hasn't visibly been damaged since), is shut off, or more precisely was shut off yesterday:

This park is crowded pretty much every time I visit it, so I tend to confine my photos to the central area, where the fountain, restrooms, and playground are.  This time I looked for a bit of landscape I could photograph, and found one that sometimes was empty:

That's more or less the northeast corner of the park, whereas the restrooms are in the northwest corner.  I also remembered, incorrectly, that Ross Park wasn't on the list of parks that offer baseball (nope, it is), so I took a picture of one of the sandlots even though people were using it:

Hazel Heights P-Patch

This is the P-Patch whose sign I showed in the previous page as evidence that some people think what was once Ross is part of Fremont; here it is again, in its proper place:

This P-Patch, like Cowen Park, consists almost entirely of stairs and gravel, but whereas Cowen is mostly gravel with a sprinkling of stairs, this one is mostly stairs with a sprinkling of gravel.  A little bit of it can be reached on wheels by climbing a steep slope to the back entrance, but that's it.  I thought that should enable a good view from the top, so tried to photograph one, and, well, I failed:

Lake WA Ship Canal Tower 1

This tower is slightly less public than tower 2; whereas that one actually rises directly over the Burke-Gilman Trail, this one is off a few feet to one side.  A photo similar to the one of tower 2:

The Burke-Gilman Trail

A photo showing bits of the tower as backdrop to a nice grassy area on the same side of the trail:

Fremont Canal Park

My efforts to find something to photograph of the next site took me all the way to the park sign at its 3rd Ave NW end, so I figured I should take another landscape photo while there:

Sewer R/W 205 NW 36th St

This is a construction site adjacent to the Burke-Gilman Trail directly across from tower 1.  I figured it was probably part of the Seattle Public Utilities tunnel project, so I circled it.  This entailed some danger from traffic on Leary Way NW, because in their infinite wisdom SPU put the sign explaining the work on the side where they'd pre-empted the sidewalk.  Anyway, I finally inched my way to it.  It's more informative than I remembered the sign in Fremont being, so even though taggers have managed to deface it badly, I took a broader photo:

and one specifically focused on its map:

Bright Street Parcel

We end on a boring note:  this is just a Seattle Department of Transportation-owned parking lot at Leary Way NW and NW Bright St.

Well, that's it for Ross; next up, southeastern Ballard, but again not right away.  Until later, dear Diary.