THEN: Photographed in the late 1950s, the floating restaurant’s huge on deck hooligan got no competition as yet from the Space Needle (1962) in breaking the horizon.NOW: With its 21st century improvements, the southwest corner of Lake Union has replaced its industrial charms with artful landscaping.
On the Friday morning of June 8 1956, the graduating seniors of Bellevue High School were served a “pirate breakfast” aboard the Four Winds floating restaurant at the southwest corner of Lake Union. By then many of the 194 seniors were surely nodding after an “All Night Party” of movies, dancing Dixieland, and a night club show at Seattle’s Town and Country Club. All was paid for by their parents who also selflessly served in two-hour relays of 25 as chaperones.
For the seniors the “pirate theme” was extended that morning with on board gifts of jewelry, aka booty. For the city the thieves’ theme was marked around the clock by what the eccentric restaurant’s management advertised as their “huge pirate atop the ship Four Winds, Headquarters for the Seattle Seafair Pirates.”
Ron Edge found a print for this subject years ago in Bernie’s antique shop on Bothell Way before Bernie closed the shop for good. Ron Jensen, the photographer, is listed in the 1956 City Directory as a City Light photographer, and this kindles an irony. On July 22, 1966, the Surfside 9 (its last name) sank at this southwest corner of Lake Union for want of paying City Light. When the bilge pumps failed the restaurant tipped and dropped to the shallow bottom while its piano floated around the cocktail lounge.
First built in Everett in 1900 as the City of Everett, the long-lived mosquito fleet steamer was later widened into the auto ferry Ballard for routine Puget Sound crossings to Port Ludlow.
The ferry Ballard leaving Ludlow for its crossing to Ballard. (Courtesy, Dan-E)Surely an early study of the City of Everett (Courtesy Michael Maslan)Courtesy, Michael Maslan
The Four Winds aka Surfside 9 will be remembered by many Pacific Readers, for the sunken vessel rested rusted and rotted until lifted ton by ton in 1972 by Mason Construction’s floating derrick, the Viking. In the environmental spirit then prevalent, Mason donated the Viking’s labor and the Army Corp contributed two haul-away barges. The pieces were buried by the Corp in a land fill near Everett, the vessel’s original home port.
Not to be mistaken with the San Mateo, the ferry that arrived to this little waterway at the southwest corner of Lake Union later and also left too soon for Canada and a slow collapse in its Fraser River slip.
ALSO – NOT TO BE MISTAKEN WITH THE GOLDEN ANCHOR
Three Seattle Times clips for the Golden Arches, another converted Mosquito Fleet steamer, and one easy to confuse with the Everett. Below, she is being towed thru the Montlake Cut on her way, most likely, to West Seattle.
WEB EXTRAS
Anything to add, Paul?
Surely Jean, beginning with links to four or five past blogs, each of which trails a variety of features with maritime subjects – including Lake Union. Ron Edge will put those up first. Later this evening I’ll add more pixs – those that I find by then.
A RANDOM SAMPLER of LAKE UNION SUBJECTS Briefly Noted
Probably the oldest photograph of any part of Lake Union, the south end a decade before the Western Mill opened there. Here locals await their inaugural day “free rides” for citizens on the railroad that ran from the here to the Pike Street dock and coal bunkers. The date is late 1871. By the end of the 70s the coal cars were rerouted on a new line from Newcastle, thru Renton and so directly around the south end of Lake Washington to a new coal wharf at the waterfront foot of King Street (seen many times in these now more than 400 pages) thereby avoiding barges altogether on both Lake Washington and here on Lake Union.
Dated 1887 it is also a very early record of the lake. (Courtesy Michael Maslan)Looking east across the south end of Lake Union to most of an early Western Mill, and perhaps the oldest photograph of it, ca. 1884. Capitol Hill is on the horizon. This most southern end of the lake has been long since filled in.These two tots in the tooleys are the Brown kids. The father was a plumber and played the clarinet in the popular Wagner’s Band. The live in the neighborhood on Dexter Ave. Western Mill is beyond and Capitol Hill on the horizon. The Westlake Trestle, before the landfill here, protected this southwest corner of the lake, which on the evidence of the Brown negatives – several – was a popular cove for summer sports. I used this image on the cover of my first “now and then” book. It has been very very good to me. (You can inspect/read it in this blog’s library or bookstore attached nearby with its own button. And you can do the same with Vols. 2 & 3 and several more books.
Jean, Berangere and I used the Brown classic for our “Repeat Photography” exhibit at Mohai in 2011. We recorded photos like this one of every framed part in the exhibit and also interpreted them all on video with a mind to making a documentary about it all. Perhaps. We got busy. If you double-click this you may be able to read the caption. Maybe.
Work in progress on the landfill that reclaimed the swimmer’s cove for commerce. The photo is from the Municipal Archive and is dated Oct. 28, 1915. Capitol hill is again on the horizon, and Western Mill may be glimpsed, far right.Before the fill and, most likely recorded from the Westlake trestle. Part of the cove is here used by Western Mill for its mill pond. The tank is on the west side of 9th Avenue near Republican Street. (Courtesy, Michael Maslan)The south end of Lake Union with a Queen Anne Hill horizon. The view dates from ca. 1902. Western Mill is, again, evident, and the Westlake Trestle with the temporary cove beyond it to the west.
Returning the above look, here from the Queen Anne side, although a few years earlier. The rough grades climbing capitol hill include Mercer, Republican, Harrison Street and Denny Way. A small glimpse of First Hill beyond Pike Street is on the far right.An early panorama of the lake most likely from the mid-late 1880s. Western Mill is there but not yet the Westlake viaduct. This was taken from near Boren Ave. and John Street.An early look to Lake Union and the milltown at its southern end, taken from Denny Hill. The view below approximates the historical photographer’s prospect. I recorded it about 30 years ago for a Pacific feature then. An approximate or circa date is 1885.A circa 1982 repeat of the woodsy scene above it.A look from above north thru the lake on March 20, 1949. The post-war lake was then mostly still a “working lake.” Courtesy Ron Edge.An early King County generated map of the first claims on the lake. The names and dates are recorded.Shoreline changes on Lake Union, from a geography project of the Fed. Commerce Dept. The project covered all the reclaimed shorelines hereabouts, and not just Lake Union’s. Note the fill to all sides of Westlake at the south end of the lake.A detail of that corner of the lake pulled from the 1912 Baist real estate map.An early 20th-century impression of the important of the neighborhood, and long before its recent and on-going “Allentown” make-over.
4 thoughts on “Seattle Now & Then: The Four Winds”
Feel free to “confuse” the Golden Anchor (not the “Golden Arches” as referred to in the caption) with the Surfside 9 all you want–they’re the same vessel. Check out the photo of the Golden Anchor being towed stern-first through the Locks against the aerial photograph in the story (thrid one down).
You’re incorrect on your assertion that the Golden Anchors and the Ballard are two separate vessels.See below, excerpt from Marine Digest:
CITY OF EVERETT
Ship Type: Steamer
. 5. “Transformation of the City of Everett,” Marine Digest. November 16, 1985, p. 6. “Final transformation into waterfront restaurant, first as Golden Anchors on the Duwamish River, then as Four Winds on Lake Union,” Marine Digest. November 23, 1985,p. 6.
Feel free to “confuse” the Golden Anchor (not the “Golden Arches” as referred to in the caption) with the Surfside 9 all you want–they’re the same vessel. Check out the photo of the Golden Anchor being towed stern-first through the Locks against the aerial photograph in the story (thrid one down).
You’re incorrect on your assertion that the Golden Anchors and the Ballard are two separate vessels.See below, excerpt from Marine Digest:
CITY OF EVERETT
Ship Type: Steamer
. 5. “Transformation of the City of Everett,” Marine Digest. November 16, 1985, p. 6. “Final transformation into waterfront restaurant, first as Golden Anchors on the Duwamish River, then as Four Winds on Lake Union,” Marine Digest. November 23, 1985,p. 6.