Then and Now - A 1912 Scene Tells Lake Forest Park's Early Story

One of my most favorite historical photos is this fascinating one taken about 1912 in the brand new community of Lake Forest Park.  The photographer is standing on the Mosquito Fleet pier looking back at the entrance to Lake Forest Park.  There is much to be gleaned from this great vignette.  

Lake Washington rises nearly to the edge of the barely discernible railroad tracks.  Today, the lake is generally more than 100 feet from the Burke Gilman trail, where the Seattle, Lakeshore and Eastern trains used to run.  Some people may not know that the trail once sported train tracks, let alone that in 1916, the Hiram Chittenden Locks were completed, along with the Montlake cut and ship canal. As a result, Lake Washington permanently gained many feet of new shoreline as its water migrated into the much-closer-to-sea-level Lake Union.

Also in the circa 1912 photo, the shoreline is denuded, and in fact the well grown, lush park “front” we know today is nowhere in evidence here.  The trees are scraggly, barely second growth, and Ballinger Way is just a slash of dirt across the middle background of the photo.  A billboard on the right proclaims lots for sale in the newly platted Lake Forest Park.  It’s impossible to tell if the Gerhart Erickson Road (Bothell Way) has already been paved, but on the far left of the photo, it seems that there is some activity and equipment on or near the road.  Could it be that the photographer has actually captured the road crew in the act of laying the bricks?  

Instead of the stately Wurdemann Mansion (built in 1914) announcing the Park's entrance, a tiny real estate office is perched on the property amid numerous stumps.  When the Wurdemanns took possession of the corner lot, this unpretentious little building was moved to Alexander Reid’s property at 47^th Avenue NE and NE 178^th, and became Lake Forest Park’s first school.  The building still stands today in that very same place on 47^th, where the current owners take good care of it, and have placed a sign that reminds everyone of its origins.

Today’s scene at the front of Lake Forest Park is much different, and it is impossible to replicate the exact “then” view.  If we were to stand near the lake shore on the dock in front of the civic club, which is about where the latter-day photographer was standing,  we would not be able to see the forest for the trees, so to speak.  The close canopy of “the nodding willows, the stately cedar, the majestic fir, the quivering cypress” and the abundant undergrowth “with which Nature has blessed this lakeshore,” are what Lake Forest Park’s creator, Ole Hanson, envisioned for his residents, even though early photos demonstrate that it would take some time for Hanson’s idea to become reality.  Does anyone have a cypress tree in their yard?!