Coal Creek is a
creek in
Bellevue Bellevue means "beautiful view" in French. It may refer to:
Placenames
Australia
* Bellevue, Western Australia
* Bellevue Hill, New South Wales
* Bellevue, Queensland
* Bellevue, Glebe, an historic house in Sydney, New South Wales
Canada ...
,
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
, United States, on
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
's
Eastside. It is named for the
coal mining
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...
industry prominent in the area in the 19th century. There is a popular trail which parallels the creek, allowing views of defunct coal mining equipment and even some bits of
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
sitting on the ground in spots.
The source of Coal Creek is 1,400 feet (425 m) above sea level on
Cougar Mountain. It flows approximately 7 miles (11 km) to the northwest, emptying into
Lake Washington at Newport Shores.
The surveyors Philip H. Lewis and Edwin Richardson first discovered coal along the creek in 1863. This coal was better located for transport to Seattle than the mines further east at
Squak Mountain
Squak Mountain is the second most westerly mountain of the Issaquah Alps mountain chain in Washington state. It is situated between Cougar Mountain to the west and Tiger Mountain to the east. Interstate 90 parallels the base of the north side ...
, and in the 1870s the mining of this coal led to the founding of
Newcastle, Washington
Newcastle is an Eastside city in King County, Washington, United States. The population was 10,380 at the 2010 census and an estimated 12,292 in 2019.
Although Newcastle was not incorporated until 1994, it has been an important settlement an ...
.
See also
*
List of rivers of Washington (state)
This is a list of rivers in the U.S. state of Washington.
By drainage basin
This list is arranged by drainage basin. Respective tributaries are indented under each larger stream's name and are ordered downstream to upstream.
Fraser River (Britis ...
References
External links
USGS gage 12119705 Coal Creek USGS Water-Date Report 2008
*
Rivers of King County, Washington
Geography of Bellevue, Washington
{{Washington-river-stub