Seattle Now & Then: Licton Springs

jrsherrard

7 years ago

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: Before it became a city park, Licton Springs was run as a health spa. The distant home, left-of-center, at the northeast corner of N. 97th Street and Densmore Avenue N., survives in Jean Sherrard’s repeat. It can be found on the left above the Y in the Licton Springs Park pathway. And the house on the hill can also be found below just above Jean’s salutations, my response and Ron’s llinks. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archives)

NOW: Jean Sherrard estimates that for his repeat he needed to move forty or fifty feet to the northeast to escape a planted woodland of park trees that now crowd the prospect taken by the city photographer for the 1945 photo of the Licton Mineral Springs health spa.

In The Seattle Times Sunday Magazine for September 24,^,1978, the wit Tom Swint, then one of this newspaper’s humorist feature writers, confessed that while on his “daily walker around the Green Lake track, I have often wondered about the scud of beer suds that from time to time formed on the north shore.” Jean Sherrard, the ‘repeater’ for this feature, confirms Swint’s observation. In addition to walking around the lake, Jean also lives near its north shore and has seen the “suds.”

The source for this froth was the mineral-rich springs that are a mere mile north of Green Lake. The Native Americans named them Liq’tid, or Licton, for the maroon mud that once it was blended at the springs, sloshed south in a small stream to Green Lake. What the Indians applied as a cosmetic, E.A. Jensen attempted to exploit as a natural panacea. In the 1930s Jensen opened a spa at the springs that as the sign in the 1945 “then” reads, “Home of Licton Mineral Springs Thermal Baths Relief for Rheumatism Neuritis Arthritis Asthma.” Jensen installed a steam plant to make these cold springs hot for soaking.

We chose this week’s subject to thank public historian Mimi Sheridan for her prolific contributions to Seattle cultural heritage. Jean has posed her right-of-center in his “now” repeat of the 1945 Seattle Municipal Archive photograph. Almost anyone who researches local history will have learned from Mimi, who has proved to be something of a renaissance woman. Her delving and delivering has become a great local resource on subjects of local heritage, big subjects and small, from the Seattle waterfront to countless local landmarks.

Mimi has also enriched our understanding of many neighborhoods, including the one that rings the restful green Licton Springs Park from the Aurora Avenue’s stuttering speedway on the west to the Northgate commercial parking lot on the east. Apropos the Springs, you may wish to take the time to read Mimi Sheridan and Carol Tobin’s historical study of the greater Licton Springs neighborhood. Here’s the link: http://www.lictonsprings.org/localin/history.html On the fate of the Springs we learn that “the City of Seattle annexed the area and sought acquisition of the property in a 1954 park bond. “ It was approved in 1960.

Twenty years ago Mimi Sheridan earned her degree in Urban Planning and Historic Preservation from the University of Washington. About a year ago a life-changing plan came to her in a flash. She calls it her “Saul on the road to Damascus” moment. Mimi, who moved to Seattle from California in 1973, has now returned to it, choosing Monterey, which she reminds us, was the “first capitol of Alta California.” While she has left much for us to learn, we will still miss Mimi.

BELOW: The House on the Hill at the northeast corner of N. 97th Street and Densmore Avenue North as seen in the featured NOW AND THEN at the top.

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, lads? Yup. Ron has found a few repeats that keep to the neighborhood – with one exception for you to find. Ron has also added a clue at the bottom with a 1946 aerial of the then still future park. You will find both spa and the home “as clue” at 97th and Densmore. A clue to the last clue: it is near the upper-right corner.