This piece of Green Lake history comes to us from Glenn Hanbey. Glenn, a recently retired Air Force Pilot now working for Boeing and living in the Auburn area, is the great, great grandson of Green Lake pioneer Robert Weedin. Glenn has been doing genealogical research on his Weedin roots for many years. He is currently researching the Weedin brothers’ participation in the bloody guerrilla warfare that took place in Missouri and Kansas during the Civil War. The stories of Robert and William Weedin are typical of the early pioneers who settled in the Northwest. Though they are typical, that…
Posts Tagged ‘1890s’
When Green Lake froze: A look back at winters past
Updated at 11:45 a.m. with some additional links – thanks seattler0cks! Updated at 12:55 p.m. with a memory from a reader of the winter of 1972 – thanks James! It’s a chilly Thanksgiving here in Green Lake. This weather is balmy, however, compared to some winters past. In a HistoryLink.org essay surveying the history of severe weather in Seattle, Paul Dorpat cites the winter of 1893. 45 inches of snow dropped between January 27 and February 8. A temperature of 5 degrees below zero was recorded at Woodland Park, and Green Lake froze over. The ice was six inches thick. …
Old trolley pilings removed from East Green Lake Beach
My Green Lake reader Rebecca wrote to us earlier today (Tuesday, June 22, 2010) with this query: Just wondering if you know why the east side of Greenlake swim area is closed off. I was walking down there today and was bummed to see it closed since it’s so warm outside. We contacted Evans Pool Aquatic Center Coordinator Donna Sammons and asked about closures at the lake. Sammons told us that five old pilings are being removed from the swimming area at East Green Lake Beach. The pilings are part of a trolley line that was built along the eastern…
Two children playing in Green Lake, circa 1894
All right, enough talk of fire engines and police cars … Check out this great shot, uploaded to The Commons on Flickr by the University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections: Found on the back of the photograph: “Shore line of lake in front of Woodland Park. Robert T. MacDonald.” You can order a reproduction directly from the UW Libraries. If you do so, cite Order Number SEA0520.
Early history of the area around 65th and Latona in east Green Lake
Last week we told you about a Seattle Times article, written by Russ Hanbey, which gave some insight into one of the earliest* Green Lake families, the Weedin family. In the comments to our post, Hanbey, himself a direct descendant of the original Weedin clan, shares some more information about this fascinating family. Hanbey explains that brothers Robert and William Weedin arrived in Green Lake as homesteaders in or about 1873. They brought their wives, themselves two sisters. The brothers fought in the civil war and had a connection to Frank and Jesse James. Robert Weedin cast his first vote…
