(click to enlarge photos)
Is it obvious that here is a work-in-progress? Evidences of a new city addition in the throes of creation include the rough ground cover on the far right. It is in need of a home. A meandering clue is the fresh and hardly-stained concrete ribbon that has laid its eccentric path both beyond and behind the line of unfinished homes that cross thru the scene’s center. That the last two or three of the eight or nine homes built here all in a row are the least finished, at least suggests that most of the motorcars parked here belong to carpenters, realtors perhaps more than to prospective buyers.
This is Conkling Place, named for the family of pioneer historian Thomas Prosch’s mother, Susan Conkling Prosch. In the late 1890s Thomas Prosch wrote the Chronological History of Seattle that a century later historylink, the popular on-line encyclopedia of Washington history and heritage, used for the first factoid construction of its webpage. Although the Prosch mansion was on the south slope of Queen Anne Hill, in the early 20th century the family purchased these acres near the northwest corner of the Hill. They submitted the plans for their Queen Anne Addition to the city on September 27, 1909.
The Conklin Place Jean Sherrard recently visited to repeat our featured “then”, begins at the corner of W. Bertona Street and 10TH Avenue West. Prosch’s Conklin was different, it was cut to the southwest with one long straight block to the center of the addition drawn but never developed. Had it been fulfilled with homes they would have crossed through the footprints of first four or five residences standing here since 1926, the year this concrete was first given its serpentine pour.
It seems that the new developers were aesthetes allured by the poetic platting and curvilinear inclinations of the City Beautiful Movement. They named their sensitive acreage the Queen Anne Hill Addition and started building along romantic lines diversely styled residences fit for their curving streets. The developer’s model home, built in a Spanish style at 3042 10th Avenue West, survives well kept on the avenues pointed corner with West Etruria Street. It stands one long block and a few feet south of Jean’s prospect above Conklin Place. Should you decide to explore this unique addition you will discover that most of the homes showing here on Conklin Place in 1927 or 1928 still hold to their uniquely foot-printed lots.
On February 21, 1926 the F.W. Keen and Company announced in that the building of their new forty-acres residence addition on Queen Anne Hill was underway. “The plat was filed last week. This is one of the last large close-in tracts suitable for platting. It will contain 235 lots, with the streets laid out to take advantage of the natural contour of the ground. The addition has been designated Queen Anne Park.”
To learn much more on the history of this neighborhood, we recommend an essay by the Queen Anne Historical Society’s Florence Halliesen.
WEB EXTRAS
For those enchanted by this lovely prospect, please know that the ‘Now’ view was accomplished with aid of my 21-foot extension pole. A blown-up detail reveals a portion of I-5 and Gasworks Park through the trees:
Anything to add, kids?
Yes Jean but a little late. I fell to sleep twice at my desk while preparing this and so was not able to coordinate with Ron Edge for more attractions before he he climbed his own stairs to his own nighty-bears. (I think he embraces our bears although I do not remember asking him about the same.) It is now 6am. Ron is usually up by now. I suspect that he will get the features he gathers into the blog before most of you (dear readers) have left your Sunday Times and visited this blog. [These uninvited naps of mine are the “gift” of my increasingly ancient metabolism, I figure. ] I do know that Ron also climbs stairs to reach his bed, unlike you who sleep on the same floor as your gas oven.
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THE BELOW IS RESERVED FOR RON ONCE HE RISES.
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