The New 'Maynard's Lake Washington Addition' Hits the Market
A sprawling 366-acre tract of land near the lake is now being subdivided into 131 blocks, sparking a rush of early interest from investors.
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.
The plat of Maynard's Lake Washington addition to the city of Seattle was filed yesterday by O. C. Phinney, its owner. It consists of a tract of 366 acres of land on the west side of Lake Washington, extending from the shore halfway to the Bay of Seattle. The ground is said to lie very prettily for townsite purposes, approaching the lake very gently on the west and rising from the middle to both the north and the south. In the center, twenty-five acres—equivalent to eight blocks—have been reserved for a park. Along the entire front, Lake Avenue extends, following the meander of the lake. There are in all 131 blocks, fifteen of which are fractional due to the shoreline. The streets running east and west are named A through N, while those running north and south are named after poets: Milton, Irving, Bulwer, Goldsmith, Abbott, Payne, Bryant, Whittier, Holmes, Tennyson, Moore, Barnes, Scott, Pope, and Bos. Forty-eight blocks in this addition were sold before the surveys were even completed.
“Forty-eight blocks in this addition were sold before the surveys were completed and the plat prepared.”
This 1884 expansion mirrors the rapid development cycles that continue to shape Seattle’s geography. While the names of these streets changed over time, the impulse to carve new 'additions' out of the forest remains a central, often contentious, feature of the city's growth narrative.
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