August 27, 2008
Gas Works Park was the second stop on the first day of my Seattle Trip. Here's what Seattle Parks says about the history:
"This 20 acre point on Lake Union was cleared in 1906 to construct a plant to manufacture gas from coal - later converted to crude oil. Import of natural gas in the 1950's made the plant obsolete. The city acquired the site for a park in 1962. The park was opened to the public in 1975. The boiler house has been converted to a picnic shelter with tables, fire grills and an open area. The former exhauster-compressor building, now a children's play barn, features a maze of brightly painted machinery."
We didn't spend too much time in the park, but we walked around the picnic area/boiler house a bit. I'm not really sure what the arched structures were, but they were really interesting and covered with moss. Monica and I stood at the point for a while and looked out over Lake Union towards downtown Seattle and the Space Needle. We watched a few "Duck" tours go by and a pontoon plane land on the water and decided that one of the houses we could see was the one from Sleepless in Seattle, but which one is still up in the air!
"This 20 acre point on Lake Union was cleared in 1906 to construct a plant to manufacture gas from coal - later converted to crude oil. Import of natural gas in the 1950's made the plant obsolete. The city acquired the site for a park in 1962. The park was opened to the public in 1975. The boiler house has been converted to a picnic shelter with tables, fire grills and an open area. The former exhauster-compressor building, now a children's play barn, features a maze of brightly painted machinery."
We didn't spend too much time in the park, but we walked around the picnic area/boiler house a bit. I'm not really sure what the arched structures were, but they were really interesting and covered with moss. Monica and I stood at the point for a while and looked out over Lake Union towards downtown Seattle and the Space Needle. We watched a few "Duck" tours go by and a pontoon plane land on the water and decided that one of the houses we could see was the one from Sleepless in Seattle, but which one is still up in the air!
