Union Bay is a body of water located in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

. Part of

Lake Washington Lake Washington () is a large freshwater lake adjacent to the city of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the largest lake in King County, Washington, King County and the second largest natural lake in the state of Washington (state), Was ...

, it is bounded by the Laurelhurst neighborhood to the north and the Montlake and Madison Park neighborhoods to the south. The

Evergreen Point Floating Bridge The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, also known as the 520 Bridge and officially the Governor Albert D. Rosellini Bridge, is a floating bridge that carries Washington State Route 520 across Lake Washington from Seattle to its eastern suburbs ...

, which carries State Route 520, crosses over a portion of the bay. Marsh Island and Foster Island are located in Union Bay, and are connected to the mainland (and each other) by the

Arboretum An arboretum (: arboreta) is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees and shrubs of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arbor ...

Waterfront Trail and the Foster Island Trail. Union Bay ends at the eastern opening of the Montlake Cut, which connects Union Bay with Portage Bay (an arm of

Lake Union Lake Union () is a freshwater lake located entirely within the city limits of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is a major part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which carries fresh water from the much larger Lake Washington on the east t ...

) to the west—this marks the beginning of the

Lake Washington Ship Canal The Lake Washington Ship Canal is a canal that runs through the city of Seattle and connects the fresh water body of Lake Washington to the salt water inland sea of Puget Sound. The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks accommodate the approximately diff ...

, which runs through Seattle and connects Lake Washington to

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ; ) is a complex estuary, estuarine system of interconnected Marine habitat, marine waterways and basins located on the northwest coast of the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As a part of the Salish Sea, the sound ...

. Broken Island is adjacent to

Husky Stadium Husky Stadium (officially Alaska Airlines Field at Husky Stadium for sponsorship purposes) is an outdoor American football, football stadium in the Northwestern United States, located on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle, Wa ...

and was formed in 1916 when Lake Washington was lowered several feet by the opening of the

. The island, and the wetlands in which it sits on the lake's shore, were "the result of conversion of shallow water lake habitats following lake level lowering." The island's soil is mostly

peat Peat is an accumulation of partially Decomposition, decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, Moorland, moors, or muskegs. ''Sphagnum'' moss, also called peat moss, is one of the most ...

laid down from earlier times.

History

When the level of Lake Washington was dropped nearly in 1916 as a result of the opening of the Ship Canal, a good portion of Union Bay and Union Bay

Marsh In ecology, a marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous plants rather than by woody plants.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p More in genera ...

and

wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

became dry

land Land, also known as dry land, ground, or earth, is the solid terrestrial surface of Earth not submerged by the ocean or another body of water. It makes up 29.2% of Earth's surface and includes all continents and islands. Earth's land sur ...

, furthered by

landfill A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. It is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was ...

activities. The marsh and much of the bay was filled from 1911 to 1967. The Montlake Landfill (in use from 1926 to 1967) was the fictional home of television clown J. P. Patches, resident 1958 through 1981. The University Village

shopping center A shopping center in American English, shopping centre in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English (see American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, spelling differences), shopping complex, shopping arcade, ...

(1956) and most of the east main campus of the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

(UW) but for

sit on this land today. What remains of Union Bay Marsh is the restored remnant within the Union Bay Natural Area of the UW. As well as providing the outlet for Lake Washington, Union Bay receives the water of Arboretum Creek, and Ravenna Creek via pipeline from Ravenna Park through south

Ravenna Ravenna ( ; , also ; ) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire during the 5th century until its Fall of Rome, collapse in 476, after which ...

, daylighted past the restored Union Bay Natural Area. The shores of what is now Union Bay have been inhabited since the end of the last

glacial period A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...

, about 10,000 years ago. Ancestors of the Native American Duwamish tribe today, until the 1850s the ''Dkh^w’Duw’Absh'', "the People of the Inside", of the (Skagit-Nisqually) Lushootseed

Coast Salish The Coast Salish peoples are a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They speak on ...

nations had villages around Union Bay. The village of ''hehs-KWEE-kweel'' ("skate") was of the ''hloo-weelh-AHBSH'' (from ''s'hloo-WEELH'', "a tiny hole drilled to measure the thickness of a canoe"), for the narrow passage through then-large and resource-rich Union Bay marsh. Traces of the marsh survive as the Union Bay Natural Area and the Foster Island area of north Washington Park Arboretum. The trees and the island of ''Stitici'' (Stee-tee-tchee) were their ceremonial burial ground. ''Stitici'', Little Island, is now called Foster Island. The village was at the northeast tip of what is now Madison Park. One of the

longhouses A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building for communal dwelling. It has been built in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and North America. Many were built from timber and often re ...

(forerunners of

cohousing Cohousing is an intentional, self-governing, cooperative community where residents live in private homes often clustered around shared space. The term originated in Denmark in the late 1960s. Families live in attached or single-family homes wi ...

for tens of people) may have been used as a potlatch house. The Duwamish Tribe is today leveraging the sacred site in the path of substantial enlargement of State Route 520 through south Union Bay between Redmond and

Interstate 5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway System, 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 thro ...

, in their quest for recognition. The prominent village of ''SWAH-tsoo-gweel'' ("portage") was on an abundant and much larger Union Bay, and what is now

was their backyard before the arrival of European settlers,Dailey, 26 and 27, ref. 2, 8) Laurelhurst in summer. The

Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway The Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway (SLS&E) was a railroad founded in Seattle, Washington, on April 28, 1885, with three tiers of purposes: Build and run the initial line to the town of Ballard, Seattle, Ballard, bring immediate results ...

was built around 1886 along what is now the Burke-Gilman Trail, following what was the shoreline past where the UW power plant and University Village are today. A longhouse was near the present UW power plant (across Montlake Boulevard from the IMA building), others were around the north shores which were about mile farther north than today, and shores east of what is now the Union Bay Natural Area, with a longhouse or two between what is now the Center for Urban Horticulture and Children's Hospital. Villages were diffuse. Cheshiahud or Lake John and his family were among the memorable residents around Union Bay in the early decades of Seattle.

References

#Higman, Harry Wentworth. Union Bay, the life city". Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1951. Print.

Bibliography

*
Page links t
Village Descriptions Duwamish-Seattle section

Dailey referenced "Puget Sound Geography" by T. T. Waterman. Washington DC: National Anthropological Archives, mss. .d. ef. 2
''Duwamish et al. vs. United States of America, F-275''. Washington DC: US Court of Claims, 1927. ef. 5
"Indian Lake Washington" by David Buerge in the ''Seattle Weekly'', 1–7 August 1984 ef. 8
"Seattle Before Seattle" by David Buerge in the ''Seattle Weekly'', 17–23 December 1980. ef. 9
''The Puyallup-Nisqually'' by Marian W. Smith. New York: Columbia University Press, 1940. ef. 10
Recommended start i
"Coast Salish Villages of Puget Sound"
*

Center for Urban Horticulture, Departments, University of Washington (n.d., 1999 pe
"Montlake Landfill Information Summary, January 1999"
on page), retrieved 21 April 2006. * * Phelps, Myra L., ''Public works in Seattle''. Seattle: Seattle Engineering Department, 1978. .

Seattle City Clerk's Neighborhood Map Atlas (n.d., map.jpg c. 17 June 2002), retrieved 21 April 2006. Note caveat in footer.
Maps "NN-1030S", "NN-1040S".jpg dated 17 June 2002. *
Rochester referenced Christine Barrett, ''A History of Laurelhurst'' (Seattle: Laurelhurst Community Club, 1981, revised 1989);
Paul Dorpat, ''Seattle: Now & Then'', Vols. II and III (Seattle: Tartu Publications, 1984 and 1989);
Lucile Saunders McDonald, ''The Lake Washington Story'', (Seattle: Superior Publishing Co., 1979);
Brandt Morgan, ''Enjoying Seattle's Parks'' (Seattle: Greenwood Publications, 1979);
Harry W. Higman and Earl J. Larrison, ''Union Bay: The Life of a City Marsh'', (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1951);
J. Willis Sayre, ''This City of Ours'' (Seattle: Seattle School District No. 1, 1936);
Sophie Frye Bass, ''Pig-Tail Days in Old Seattle'' (Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort, 1937);
Roger Sale, ''Seattle: Past to Present'' (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976). * Stein, Alan J
"Patches, Julius Pierpont"
''HistoryLink''. 2 March 2003, retrieved 21 April 2006. Stein referenced Jack Broom, "The J.P. Generation," ''Pacific Magazine'', ''The Seattle Times'', 4 April 1993, pp. 6–11,14-17;
Bill Cartmel, "Hi Ya, Patches Pals," ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'', 11 April 1971, pp. 6–7;
Erik Lacitis, "Patches Understands – and Survives," ''The Seattle Times'', 23 February 1978, p. A15;

o title O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), ...

''The East Side Journal'', 31 May 1962, p. 3; Ibid. 14 May 1969, p. 19. *
"University District"
Seattle City Clerk's Neighborhood Map Atlas (n.d., map.jpg 13 June), retrieved 21 April 2006. Note caveat in footer.

External links

Union Bay Natural Area
(Official site)
Seattle Photographs Collection
- University of Washington Library {{coord, 47.65, -122.29, format=dms, display=title, type:adm3rd_region:US-WA Landforms of Seattle Bays of Washington (state) Bays of King County, Washington

History

See also

References

Bibliography

External links