Taking an online path to early day Seattle parks

Meet your local park when it was only a dream on a designer's page: Take a look in the historical archives of Seattle parks, a treasure trove for history buffs that is now available online.

Most of the records are the legacy of Don Sherwood, Seattle Parks engineer from 1955 to 1977. In the early 1970s, Sherwood discovered that many park records were being routinely destroyed and took on the mission to sort and preserve them, continuing his research and writing after his retirement until his death in 1981. His work has been preserved and continued by the Parks Department, compiled as the Don Sherwood Parks History Collection in the Seattle Municipal Archives. The online index to the Sherwood History Files starts with 11 pages listing Seattle parks, boulevards, playgrounds and landmarks. Each listing links to resources including plans, maps and an informative story written on that almost-extinct, former office mainstay, a typewriter.

Click on Golden Gardens Park for a hand-drawn 1923 map of the park and the story of its development in 1907 as an out-of-town attraction at the end of a new streetcar line and down a steep dirt road to the beach.

Visit the Kinnear Park link to learn the history of its donor, George Kinnear, who promoted construction of a wagon road through Snoqualmie Pass in 1878 before donating some of his Queen Anne Hill land for a park that was a popular local destination by the 1890s (and the site of weekly band concerts in 1910, "average attendance, 2,690").

Many of the park maps abound with information, such as who the park and other local streets and landmarks were named for and when they were purchased ("Hiawatha Playfield, 11 acres, purchased 1910, $70,374; the largest playfield in Seattle when its recreation center was opened in 1911").

The Sherwood History Files are online at www.pan.ci.seattle.wa.us/seattle/parks/history/sherwood.htm and available at Seattle Municipal Archives, 600 Fourth Ave., Third Floor, Seattle, open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The archives also include annual reports of the Parks Department from 1894 to the 1990s, historic photographs and a collection related to park sports programs. For more information, call the archives at the Office of the City Clerk, 206-233-7807 or 206-684-8353.

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