Learn History With a Drive Around Town

While the Lakewood Historical Society works to leap frog from its storefront on Motor Avenue to a grand museum elsewhere, there are landmarks around the city to help people understand the depth of history below their feet.

1. Clover Park Technical College's Building 5

The first stop on this grandeur road tour is on the grounds of Clover Park Technical College’s Building 5. It is known to historians as Mueller Harkins Hangar that was located in the center loop of what was the Tacoma Speedway.

The airport opened in 1924 and the hangar came five years later. The marker is placed on the west entrance to the hangar, Building 5.

2. Lakewood's speedway

The speedway opened in 1912 and operated until 1922. The marker is located near Building 2 at Clover Park Technical College. Across the street is the Echelon Apartment, which was the site of the original , the first dedicated building for education in the area.

3. Bradley Block House

A few blocks away from Lakewood Drive to Custer Road at 74th is a marker in the Union Station parking lot that denotes the Bradley Block House, which was built in the 1840s as a safe house during the Indian Wars. The Flett House, built in 1889 is the wood-framed house near the corner.

4. Chief Leschi hanging

A short drive along Custer to Steilacoom Boulevard will uncover a marker noting the spot where Chief Leschi was hanged.

5. Highway 6 military road

Further west on Steilacoom Boulevard is a rock pyramid at the Western State Hospital main entry. The stone maker tells the story of Highway 6, which was a military road that ran through the region. The four remaining buildings of what was Fort Steilacoom can be seen within the grounds of Western State Hospital.

6. Discovery signs

On the park side of Fort Steilacoom, there is a collection of discovery signs around Waughop Lake that provide information about the landscape. Another marker can be found on the hill that provides step stones denoting the area’s history in just a few yards of earth. The nearby patient cemetery for Western State Hospital is a restoration project in the works to add names to the numbered headstones as an effort to celebrate the lives of patients who died.

7. Construction of Walla Walla Highway

There is another rock pyramid directly over the overpass in Ponders following Steilacoom Boulevard to Farwest Drive and then Military Road toward Interstate 5 that notes the construction of the highway to Walla Walla.

8. Visitation Villa Catholic School

Follow Pacific Avenue to Bridgeport Way and onto Lakewood Towne Center Boulevard and see a market that commemorates the Visitation Villa Catholic School, a Catholic school that opened in 1923 and operated until 1954. The marker is placed near the right entry door to the Safeway Store in the Lakewood Towne Center.

And with that, the tour comes to an end with a bit more appreciation for the area and its past.