Engineers Complete Survey for Lake Washington Ship Canal
In 1891, engineers surveyed the path for a ship canal to connect Lake Washington to the Sound, envisioning a future where vessels could cleanse their hulls of barnacles in fresh water and double Seattle's commercial capacity.
Field work for the survey of the ship canal to connect Lakes Washington and Union with Puget Sound, begun on November 1, 1890, by a corps of engineers under P. G. Eastwick, was completed yesterday. Mr. Eastwick reports that there are no engineering difficulties in the way of building the canal, and he is of the opinion it can be constructed at a moderate cost. The proposed canal, including the two miles of channel through Lake Union, will not exceed five miles in total length. Through the portages, the maximum cut would be about forty feet, and there will be no excavating in rocky or difficult formations. The elevation to be overcome by locks is but ten feet. Mr. Eastwick highlighted the commercial benefits, noting that the fresh water of the lake would save ships from the 'salt-water pest,' the teredo, which destroys pilings in tide water. With this canal, Lake Washington would become a great, tideless haven, affording 100 miles of harbor frontage and potentially transforming Seattle into a global maritime power.
“The vessels constantly arriving from all parts of the earth clogged with barnacles... could clean their bottoms at slight cost by bathing in the fresh waters of the lake.”
The project discussed here eventually became the Ballard Locks, completed in 1917. The environmental trade-off mentioned—lowering Lake Washington six feet—permanently altered the local ecosystem, diverting the Black River and drying up the original channel, a reminder of the massive scale of human intervention that created the modern Seattle waterfront.
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