James Reed "Jim" Ellis (August 5, 1921–October 25, 2019) was a

municipal bond A municipal bond, commonly known as a muni, is a Bond (finance), bond issued by state or local governments, or entities they create such as authorities and special districts. In the United States, interest income received by holders of municipal ...

lawyer and civic activist based in

King County, Washington King County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 2,269,675 in the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Washington, and the 13th-most populous in the United States. The county seat is Seattle, also the st ...

. Although he never sought or held elective office, at the time of his death the ''

Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington st ...

'' described him as "one of ashington'smost visionary and successful civic leaders." Among the many projects for which he was a key leader were cleaning up

Lake Washington Lake Washington is a large freshwater lake adjacent to the city of Seattle. It is the largest lake in King County and the second largest natural lake in the state of Washington, after Lake Chelan. It borders the cities of Seattle on the west, ...

, establishing

King County Metro King County Metro, officially the King County Metro Transit Department and often shortened to Metro, is the public transit authority of King County, Washington, which includes the city of Seattle. It is the eighth-largest transit bus agency in t ...

(the county's public transit system), and a series of ballot initiatives known collectively as

Forward Thrust The Forward Thrust ballot initiatives were a series of bond propositions put to the voters of King County, Washington in 1968 and 1970, designed by a group called the Forward Thrust Committee. Seven of the twelve propositions in 1968 were success ...

; he also founded the

Mountains to Sound Greenway The Mountains to Sound Greenway is a 1.5 million-acre landscape situated in the Pacific Northwest. On March 12, 2019, it was designated a National Heritage Area, to be managed by the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, as part of the John D. Dinge ...

Trust. He was also a key proponent of lidding

Interstate 5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Califor ...

to create

Freeway Park Freeway Park, officially known as Jim Ellis Freeway Park, is an urban park in Seattle, Washington, United States, connecting the city's downtown to the Washington State Convention Center and First Hill. The park sits atop a section of Interstat ...

(now officially Jim Ellis Freeway Park) and the adjacent

Washington State Convention Center The Seattle Convention Center (SCC), formerly the Washington State Convention Center (WSCC), is a convention center in Seattle, Washington, United States. It consists of several exhibition halls and meeting rooms in buildings along Pike Stree ...

(now Seattle Convention Center).

Family life

Ellis was born in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

in 1921. His parents were Hazel Reed Ellis (originally from

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Canada ...

) and Floyd Ellis (originally from

Dayton, Washington Dayton is a city in and the county seat of Columbia County, Washington, United States. The population was 2,526 at the 2010 census. History Dayton was founded in the 1860s. A town site plat was filed by Jesse N. and Elizabeth Day on November ...

. His father (although trained as a lawyer) worked in the import-export industry. He had two brothers, John (born 1923) and Robert (born 1928). After the birth of his brother Robert, the family moved to Seattle, where he attended John Muir Elementary School and Franklin High School. In the summer of 1937, Ellis's father placed Jim, Robert and two dogs on five acres of wooded land that he had purchased near

Preston, Washington Preston is an unincorporated and exurban community in the northwest United States, located east of Seattle in King County, Washington. It was named after railway official William T. Preston. Preston is a historic mill town on the northeast ...

along the

Raging River The Raging River is a tributary of the Snoqualmie River in western Washington state in the United States. It is located in the western foothills of the Cascade Mountains in east central King County, Washington. It gets its name from the large a ...

. They were given a ton of groceries, and instructions on how to build a log cabin. They had a rough summer, but by the end of it they had bonded closely, and had a livable cabin that they improved over the next several years, and that Ellis continued to use into the 2000s. Ellis moved back east to attend

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. When the U.S. entered

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Ellis enlisted into the

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an a ...

; his brother Robert joined the

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

. Ellis was told to complete his degree before reporting for duty; both brothers began active duty on the same day in March 1943. He married Mary Lou Earling November 18, 1944. He and Mary had first met in high school; she was from Alaska, and attended the private Bush School in Seattle while he was at Franklin. They reconnected in the summer of 1942, shortly after he graduated from Yale. At

Mountain Home Air Force Base Mountain Home Air Force Base is a United States Air Force (USAF) installation in the western United States. Located in southwestern Idaho in Elmore County, the base is southwest of Mountain Home, which is southeast of Boise via Interstate ...

in Idaho, Ellis served as a weather forecaster; his wife trained as a pilot, with the intention of becoming a

WASP A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...

, but the WASPs were disbanded before she could join. Ellis was reportedly "devastated" when his brother Robert was killed in action near

Trier Trier ( , ; lb, Tréier ), formerly known in English as Trèves ( ;) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the ...

, Germany in February 1945, and strongly considered volunteering for a combat role, but his wife convinced him to focus instead on what he could do to contribute to his community. Jim and Mary Lou Ellis had four children: Robert Lee Ellis II (born 1946), Lynn Earling Erickson (born 1951), Steven Reed Ellis (born 1955), and Judy Ellis (1948-1970). Robert and Lynn are both teachers; Steven is a beekeeper and environmentalist. Judy died in a car crash; Mary Lou Ellis died in 1983 at the age of 62.

Civic career

Ellis graduated from

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

law school in 1948 and joined the firm Preston, Thorgrimson and Horowitz, later

Preston Gates & Ellis Preston Gates & Ellis, LLP, also known as Preston Gates, was a law firm with offices in the United States, China and Taiwan. Its main office was in the IDX Tower in Seattle, Washington. In 2007 the firm ceased to exist, merging with Kirkpatrick ...

. In 1952, working with the King County–Seattle Municipal League, he led an unsuccessful effort to revise the King County Charter. In the wake of that failure, he focused on what could be done about the severe pollution of

, the large King County lake that forms the eastern border of Seattle. That led to the creation of the regional, intergovernmental Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle, ancestor of today's

established by a referendum September 9, 1958. and to a successful clean up of the lake. Ellis served roughly two decades as general counsel for Metro. Ellis founded the committee behind the

initiatives in 1968 and 1970, which netted some highway improvements but failed to get the required support for a regional rail-based transit system. In 1972 he led a successful effort to establish the countywide bus-based transit system that today carries the "Metro" name. In 1991 he founded the

Trust which, since that time, has put together a set of linked trails across the county. Ellis served twice in the early 1960s as president of the King County-Seattle Municipal League, chaired the metropolitan government committee of the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

, and served 12 years on the

Board of Regents. He turned down an offer from President

Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

to be the first head of the

United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...

, and received a

Jefferson Award for Public Service The Jefferson Awards Foundation was created in 1972 by the American Institute for Public Service. The Jefferson Awards are given at both national and local levels. Local winners are ordinary people who do extraordinary things without expectation ...

in 1976 and a lifetime achievement award from ''

The American Lawyer ''The American Lawyer'' is a monthly legal magazine and website published by ALM Media. The periodical and its parent company, ALM (then American Lawyer Media), were founded in 1979 by Steven Brill.1921 births 2019 deaths Yale University alumni University of Washington School of Law alumni Lawyers from Seattle Activists from Seattle