The Fight for Woodland Park
A bold move by the Seattle City Council to secure 100 acres of prime land sparks a municipal debate over the future of the city's green space.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A bill providing for the purchase of Woodland Park by the city at a cost of $100,000 was the most important business transacted at the meeting of the City Council last night. The terms are as follows: $5,000 to be paid in cash, $15,000 on January 1, and $15,000 on the first day of July, 1900, and $15,000 each year until the whole amount has been paid. The bill passed its first reading. The street work bill, which also provides that all improvements on Street Avenue from Front to Second, on Western Way from First to Second, and on Second from Front to Pike, and on Pike from Fourth to Fifth, must be of either vitrified brick or some similar material. The resolution stating that a board of assessment should be appointed to sit with the street commissioners regarding the confirmation of assessments was introduced by Councilman Hill.
“A bill providing for the purchase of Woodland Park by the city at a cost of $100,000 was the most important business transacted at the meeting of the City Council last night.”
Today, Woodland Park stands as a crown jewel of Seattle’s park system, but its origins reflect the city’s perpetual struggle to balance municipal expansion with land acquisition. The $100,000 price tag in 1899—equivalent to several million dollars today—mirrors ongoing modern debates about the cost of public land versus the long-term benefit of preserving space in a rapidly densifying urban core.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.