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Fremont

Once a town now part of the city of Seattle and is in the central region of the city at the northwest end of Lake Union where the lake meets the ship canal. After the area was logged in the early 1880s, it was platted as a town by David Denny and Judge John P. Hoyt. In 1892, the name was given by L. H. Griffith when he laid out a subdivision there. It was for his original home in Fremont, Nebraska.

Points of Interest Points of Interest icon

Fremont Building

Located in the center of an early 20th century business district, the Fremont Building was built in the first years of the 20th century but remodeled to its present form in 1911 following realignment of the district’s streets. The resulting long, curving façade and distinguished veneer give the Fremont Building a visual prominence that underscores its historical associates with long-term business and civic institutions in the Fremont district. The building serves as a keystone in the core of old Fremont and establishes the basic character of the district.

Fremont Bridge

Designed as part of Lake Washington’s Ship Canal, three double-leaf trunnion bascule bridges of the transverse cross-girder type were constructed to span the waterway at Fremont Avenue between 1915 and 1919. The bascule bridge design was selected because of the advantage, from the navigator’s point of view, that it provides a perfectly clear and unobstructed channel permitting the passage of a vessel of any height.

Wagner Houseboat

Moored at the base of the Aurora Bridge, the Wagner Houseboat is an early, virtually unaltered houseboat built prior to 1912. At their peak, over 1200 houseboat resided on Seattle’s waterways. The Wagner Houseboat was built prior to 1912 as a summer home on Lake Washington and was towed in later years to its present location on Lake Union.

Gas Works Park

Gas Works Park was originally a gas manufacturing plant called Lake Station operated by the Seattle Lighting company. First built in 1906 and subsequently altered in the 1930s and 1940s, the gas works functioned at this location until 1956. Parts of the former industrial site remains, including steel towers, concrete railroad trestles and several buildings. Between 1973 and 1978, the site was redesigned to serve as a recreational park for the city of Seattle. The present public park represents a radical reformation of what was previously considered a park through its combined conservation of industrial history while introducing a groundbreaking experiment in bioremediation into urban life. The park also represents the work of master landscape architect Richard Haag and is a resource that embodies the distinctive characteristics of landscape architecture in the 1970s.