Ferries

A Port on the Lake

BY margaret Laliberte, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER

Growth on the Eastside during the first half of the 20th century was possible only because of the motley assortment of boats, from small launches to sizeable steamers and double-ended ferries, that serviced numerous docks between Juanita and Newcastle and on Mercer Island. Many may have heard of John Anderson, who built up something of an empire, certainly a monopoly, his little steamers and launches linking Seattle with Eastside landings and wharves.  A story perhaps lesser known is that during that period public entities created public ferry systems on the lake.  Between 1901 and 1950 the relationship between public and private groups ricocheted between bare-knuckle competition and close intertwining rife with conflict of interest, as various arrangements and systems were experimented with. The concept of a ferry system as a public utility was evolving.  It fit in with the Progressive political movement popular in the state in the early 20th century, but its parameters remained unclear.

As early as 1892 John Anderson was running the ‘Winnifred’ between Leschi and Newcastle. (He was not the first or only operator on the lake.)   Over the years he bought and sold vessels and eventually began building them as well.  In 1900 the King County commissioners bought a ferry, the ‘King County of Kent,’  from Moran Brothers shipyards in Seattle. However, rather than operate the boat itself, within a few months the county leased it for three years to Bartsch and Tompkins Transportation Company (which operated a shipyard at Houghton that eventually became the Lake Washington Shipyards.) That decision precipitated a lawsuit; it wasn’t yet at all clear just what public ownership and operation of a ferry system ought to entail.  It might be acceptable for public funds to be used to buy boats, but some groups believed the operation should be left to private enterprise. Eventually the state Supreme Court upheld the county’s contract.  Meanwhile, King County purchased several docks around the lake for ferry use, beginning with those at Madison Park and Kirkland.  Over the next few years it added ones at Mercer Slough, Juanita, Newport, Medina, and Kennydale.

L 75.0106b - Ferry ‘King County’ at the Kirkland dock, about 1910. She was the first double-ended ferry on Lake Washington

L 75.0106b - Ferry ‘King County’ at the Kirkland dock, about 1910. She was the first double-ended ferry on Lake Washington

In 1906 Anderson incorporated the Anderson Steamboat Co., and in November of that year he merged it with the Bartsch and Tompkins company. As manager of the new company, Anderson inherited the ‘King County‘ lease along with several boats that B&T had built, owned and operated. A year later Anderson bought Bartsch and Tompkins’ Houghton shipyard and renamed it Anderson Shipyard.

In 1908 the ‘King County’ became derelict and sank near Houghton.  However, the county was having a new ferry, the ‘Washington,’ built. Until it could be launched, the county contracted with Anderson to run his own boats, for a monthly “subsidy” of $300, on the ‘King County’s’ route. (This was a significant improvement for Anderson: the county’s lease for the “King County’ had provided a monthly payment of $200.) He was to run three round trips daily between Kirkland and Madison Park and charge “regular fares.”  In future years, whenever the ‘Washington’ was out of service, Anderson would step in with his own boat.  (Controversy continued over how much he ought to be paid. In 1911, for example, when the ‘Washington’ was out of service for repairs, Anderson charged the county $800 for the use of his ‘Dorothy’ and a scow for a month on the Madison Park-Kirkland run.)

The ‘Washington’ was launched in early May.  Meanwhile the county set the new fares.  Foot passengers—and sheep—each paid 10 cents one-way, car and driver 25 cents.  Commuting school children got 20 trips for $1.00. 

By Fall public support for the new ferry and its service appeared in the newspapers.  Writers noted that fares and freight charges had been much reduced and the number of daily runs increased. One writer noted that the county had saved the bonus it would have paid Anderson for “the worst attempt at service it was possible to imagine.”  Meanwhile, Anderson continued to build up his fleet of lake steamers.  The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition was coming next year, and he would be ready to offer lake excursions on his fleet of 14 boats.  Once the AYPE was over, he was able to buy boats that a competitor, Interlaken Steamship Co., had lost to its creditors.

2013.046.092 - Rubie Sharpe’s ticket on Interlaken SS Co, “Meydenbauer Bay Route”

2013.046.092 - Rubie Sharpe’s ticket on Interlaken SS Co, “Meydenbauer Bay Route”

1911 brought a major development: in March the state legislature enacted the Port District Act. It authorized a county’s voters to establish a local port district to develop and operate waterways, wharves, railroad and water terminals and ferry systems. King County activists, fed up with the stranglehold the railroad companies had over the waterfront on Elliott Bay, rushed to draft legislation for the September election.  It was adopted, the county-wide Port of Seattle was created, the first such port in the state.  Port commissioners were named who set to work to create a plan for projects and financing, to be presented to the voters in March for approval. The final plan proposed included a $150,000 bond issue for a lake ferry.

The public weighed in, pro and con.  The Seattle Times and Seattle Star carried advertisements from the Bellevue Ferry Committee, a pro public ferry group formed to represent the interests of Eastside farmers, who wanted to transport their horse teams across the lake with their produce.  The Taxpayers’ Economy League and John Anderson were opposed.  Some accused supporters of being real estate speculators on the Eastside, just in it to benefit from increased land values.  A public ferry would inevitably be a “ruinous” financial proposition. The Ferry Committee countered that the private ferry business had a death grip on Eastside farmers. It appealed to Seattle Star readers, who it claimed subscribed to the paper because it had always stood for “reasonable public ownership as a relief from private monopoly.”

Proposition 6 passed easily on March 5, 1912.  The Port commissioners, who would run its new ferry system on the lake until 1919 alongside the county’s operation, commissioned a new double-ended vehicle ferry. The ‘Leschi’ was launched December 6, 1913 before a crowd of between 4,000 and 5,000 people. She could carry 2,500 passengers and 50 autos and teams. 

L75.0090 - The venerable ‘Leschi’ ferried vehicles and passengers between 1913 and 1950. She had a brief second act on the route between Seattle and Vashon Island and finally ended her days as a salmon cannery in Alaska

L75.0090 - The venerable ‘Leschi’ ferried vehicles and passengers between 1913 and 1950. She had a brief second act on the route between Seattle and Vashon Island and finally ended her days as a salmon cannery in Alaska

The Port began proceedings to condemn Anderson Steamboat Co.’s dock property at Leschi, for use of the ferry run to Bellevue and Medina.  The matter was finally settled in 1914 with the payment to Anderson of $20,000 for the facility.

Anderson built two ferries in 1914, the ‘Lincoln’ for the Port of Seattle’s Madison Park-Kirkland run and the smaller ‘Issaquah’ for his own route between Leschi and Newport, where cars connected to the Sunset Highway (today’s I-90) heading East.  The ‘Issaquah’ had a hardwood dance floor for the evening cruises she made on the lake after a day ferrying cars.  But Anderson was losing money on the ferry segment of his business.  In 1917 he withdrew his last boat, the ‘Issaquah’ from the lake and, with the opening of the Ballard locks, turned to building large ships in the Houghton shipyard for the looming world war. Eastside residents immediately complained about the loss of ferry service with Anderson’s withdrawal from the scene. The Port Commission contracted with him once again to run the ‘Issaquah’ until the end of the year. Anderson sold her to a Bay Area ferry concern the next year.

By 1918 the whole state of affairs was complicated, and hardly anyone was happy. The Port of Seattle was expanding vigorously and would have been profitable had not its ferry operations run large deficits. On Lake Washington the County and Port ran large vehicle ferries between Madison Park and Kirkland and Leschi and Bellevue/Medina respectively, on the rationale that these routes connected to important public highways and roads in the area. A newspaper article suggested that neither entity wanted to assume control of a consolidated system, even though that would be more efficient. Anderson’s ‘Issaquah’ was gone now. Private interests had to try to make profitable businesses serving the smaller docks on the lake, such as Mercer Island, Juanita, Beaux Arts, etc. The Port competed in these areas as well when it had the launches ‘Mercer’ and ‘Dr. Martin’ built and placed them on runs from Leschi  to Mercer Island and Yarrow Point respectively. It became virtually impossible for private interests to remain on the lake.  Public opinion was divided: Some felt public ferries should be limited to the routes to Kirkland, Medina and Bellevue.  Others believed the entire system ought to be in public hands, which the Seattle Daily Times pointed out would amount to a public Mosquito Fleet.

On August 15, 1918 the port and county commissioners reached an agreement whereby the Port of Seattle would transfer its two ferries and two launches to King County on January 1, 1919. The ferry ‘Robert Bridges’ ran on Puget Sound, the others on Lake Washington.   The position of Superintendent of Transportation was created.  When the man appointed to the post died unexpectedly within a week, the position was given to---John Anderson. Anderson named Harrie Tompkins, his long-time business associate, Assistant Superintendent.

Thus began a long period of intertwining public and private interests.  Anderson as a public official was now in the position of benefiting himself as a private businessman.  Initially the County leased all of his boats; in 1920 it bought them all, for $88,000. Subsequent investigations alleged that between 1919 and 1921 the County, under Anderson’s leadership, spent huge amounts on facilities and boats, repairing and repainting vessels (often in Anderson’s own Houghton shipyard). Repairs on the ‘Leschi’ alone totaled over $70,000.  There was apparently some unusual bookkeeping: costs of improvements such as docks were treated as operating expenses for the current year, rather than being spread out over their lifetimes.  The new waiting room constructed at a new, second Medina dock had a dance floor and was apparently used as a community center as well.   Anderson maintained an office in the Alaska Building rather than in the County’s workaday facility at the Leschi dock. At the same time the seven daily runs to Meydenbauer Bay in Bellevue were terminated; the boat now left just from Medina.  As the years’ operating deficiencies came to the taxpayers’ attention, some suspected that the commissioners might be deliberately creating a financial disaster in order to give them an incentive to offload the system.

1998.02.11 - King County Ferry System. “When Foggy Please Ring Gong.” Schedule lists times for both Seattle-Kirkland route and Seattle-Medina route.

1998.02.11 - King County Ferry System. “When Foggy Please Ring Gong.” Schedule lists times for both Seattle-Kirkland route and Seattle-Medina route.

And that is just what happened in December 1921.  The county commissioners leased its entire operation to John Anderson—apparently officially to a corporation called Lake Washington Ferries-- for a period of 10 years. No bids had been called for, and the whole matter was conducted almost surreptitiously. The agreement provided for no lease payments. In exchange for keeping all the system’s revenues, Anderson had to maintain routes and service and keep the boats in top condition at his own expense.  He could not raise fares. But he could return boats whenever he wished.   Finally, in lieu of a cash bonus for taking on the system, he was promised 20,000 barrels of oil, worth (according to some) $30,000.

The question that was in the air was,  How could Anderson make the ferry system profitable when under his watch it so clearly hadn’t been?  The public, particularly a Bellevue group led by Tom Daugherty, pressured the county until a grand jury was convened. Its report, after a nine-week investigation into the situation of the past several years, led to the county prosecutor’s  returning indictments in July 1922 against the three county commissioners, John Anderson, Harry Tompkins, and Johnson’s brother Adolf, for misuse of county funds for three specific vessel repairs and refurbishing and for misappropriating $700 in fuel oil.  Tompkins declared that the charges were “a bunch of bunk originating in Bellevue.” Defense attorney Fulton stated, “The indictments are the work of disgruntled people who have been unable to get personal favors from the commissioners.” A trial of the three commissioners was set for September in view of the November general election.  Tompkin’s and the Andersons’ trials would follow.

But the indictment imbroglio turned out to be something of a house of cards.  On the morning of the commissioners’ September trial, the prosecutor, in the presence of four of the grand jurors, interviewed his witnesses. (Bizarrely, one of the witnesses was John Anderson, who was to testify about the repair contracts’ terms.)  To his dismay, they all either couldn’t remember having given their testimony, couldn’t recall the facts charged, or claimed now that those facts could not possibly be true.  Faced with a total debacle, the prosecutor asked the judge to dismiss the three charges against the commissioners for lack of evidence.  He agreed.  The three still faced two indictments on repairs of the launch ‘Mercer’ and misuse of the fuel oil. 

L 80.028 - The ferry “Washington” of Kirkland on Lake Washington.

L 80.028 - The ferry “Washington” of Kirkland on Lake Washington.

While the remaining charges were still pending against all the defendants, the local media kept the affair in the public spotlight.  Beginning in January 1923 the Seattle Star published a series entitled “The Ferry Deal.”  It began with six brief pieces by W.E. Chambers, a former King County commissioner, who explained how the county had gotten into the ferry business and its entanglements with John Anderson.  In mid-March, “in line with [its] policy to publish both sides of any controversy,” the Star had Thomas Daugherty offer his own six-part interpretation of events.

 Two weeks before his own trial at the end of March 1923, John Anderson was called before the county commissioners to explain how in one year he was able to take the ferry system he had run as a county employee and, as the private lessee, turn 1921’s $234,000 deficit into 1922’s $40,000 profit and decrease disbursements by 200%.  He explained quite simply that he could run the system now as a business—cut salaries, employees, unfavorable routes-- free from the constraints he had had as a public official, when “politics interfered.” (Left unmentioned was the fact as Superintendent of Transportation he had front-loaded the huge expenditures for new facilities and refurbished vessels before the commissioners turned the system over to him.)

The rest of the story ended abruptly.  When the Anderson group went to trial at month’s end, the judge, after hearing all the county’s evidence and without waiting for the defense to present its case, issued a directed verdict in favor of the defendants and chided the prosecutor for having brought the indictments on the weak evidence he had.  That ended the matter for the commissioners as well.

The lake ferries were now all being operated privately, although the county owned the boats leased to Anderson. In 1924 Anderson’s Lake Washington Ferries advertised daily excursions on the county’s steamer ‘Atlanta’  between Lake Washington and the Seattle waterfront through the Ship Canal and locks.  Lake cruises and excursions were more lucrative than the ferry routes.  In 1925 Anderson announced that he would turn boats back on the following January 1 (which the lease allowed him to do) unless the county would pay $70,000 to buy and install a new engine on the ‘Lincoln.  ’ Or the county could just give him the boat and he would pay for the engine. As one wag suggested in the newspaper, maybe Anderson could compromise with an Evinrude outboard.

Anderson persevered; in 1927 his lease was extended without fanfare until 1951. But it was becoming clear that the real culprit in the “unprofitability” of ferry service was the automobile.  Paving of the highway encircling the lake was completed in 1923, and the East Channel bridge to Mercer Island’s east shore opened in that year.  A floating bridge between the island and Seattle had been proposed in 1921, but it wasn’t seriously considered until 1930.  After funds became available through the Public Works Administration and serious planning began, one final major showdown over the ferry lease developed.

The Washington Toll Bridge Authority feared  it would be difficult to pay off the bonds, which had financed the bridge,  with bridge tolls  so long as competition in the form of lake ferries continued.  Under this pressure, in December 1938 the county commissioners cancelled Anderson’s lease.  He fought back by filing a claim for anticipated damages.  Negotiations among the three parties finally led to a settlement.  The county would not cancel the lease, and the Toll Authority would pay Anderson $35,000. In exchange, he would terminate the Leschi-Medina route and the runs to Mercer Island once the bridge opened. The run between Madison Park and Kirkland would continue to operate.

There was one final unpleasant chapter to play out.  The floating bridge opened on July 2, 1940 and that month Anderson announced that he was returning the ferry ‘Washington’ and the docks at Medina and Roanoke to the county and planned to return the launch ‘Mercer’ the following month.  When the boats were returned they were found to be in very poor condition. One had had its federal license cancelled because of unseaworthiness. The commissioners ruled that Anderson would have to pay a sum, as yet undetermined, in lieu of repairing the vessels.  Anderson countered that the boats were “just wore out” and that if they had been owned by a private business, they would have been “depreciated off the books long ago.”  The lease, however, provided that he was to return all boats leased in good condition.  Appraisers from each side were unable to agree on the present value of the boats; the county’s property agent was left to salvage what he could from the two boats.

John Anderson died of a heart attack on May 18, 1941.  His widow, Emilie, and his longtime right-hand man, Harrie Tompkins, continued to operate the Kirkland ferry under the lease with the county.  During World War II the ferry ‘Lincoln’ ferried shipyard workers between Madison Park and the  Lake Washington Shipyard at Houghton.  The ‘Leschi’ continued to make the Kirkland-Madison Park run.

In July 1947 Emilie Anderson wrote the county commissioners announcing that Lake Washington Ferries would not continue its lease beyond the end of the year and might suspend ferry service before then. But the enterprise just kept staying afloat.  On January 30, 1950, however, the Seattle Times ran three photos of teary longtime passengers and onlookers—including faithful Harrie Tompkins--saying goodbye to the ‘Leschi’ on what was expected to be its final run.  But no, there was still more.  Members of the union operating the boat attempted to continue to operate it so long as revenues could meet wages.  Their effort could not be sustained, however.  On August 31, 1950 the Leschi made its truly final run on the lake, and vehicle ferry service between the Eastside and Seattle ended.  In November the county commissioners voted to offer to the cities of Kirkland and Seattle the piers and land adjacent to them at their old ferry landings, for use as public parks. And so this colorful and complicated piece of local history finally came to an end. 

1998BHS.027.027 - Leschi’s last trip, leaving Medina

1998BHS.027.027 - Leschi’s last trip, leaving Medina

References

Books

The H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest, Gordon Newell, ed., Seattle: Superior Publishing Co. 1966

Ely, Arline, Our Foundering Fathers: The Story of Kirkland, Kirkland Public Library, 1975

Faber, Jim, Steamer’s Wake, Seattle: Enetai Press, 1985

McDonald, Lucile, The Lake Washington Story, Seattle: the Superior Publishing Co., 1979

Oldham, et. Al, Rising Tides and Tailwinds: The Story of the Port of Seattle, Seattle: Port of Seattle, 2011

Articles

McCauley, Mattthew, The Era of the Double-ended Ferry on Lake Washington,” Kirkland Reporter, Aug. 31, 2001

HistoryLink Essays #9726 (Port of Seattle Commissioners Meet), #2638 (ferry ‘Leschi’ last run), #2040 (‘Leschi’ launch)

John Anderson, Shipbuilder, en. Wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Anderson_(shipbuilder)

Newspaper articles

Seattle Daily Times

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Seattle Star

Eastside Stories: Ferry Landings of Lake Washington--Part II

No. 8 | May 15, 2019

Eastside Stories

Ferry Landings of Lake Washington--Part II

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and famil…

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and family.

In the first part of our tour of ferry landings on the east side of Lake Washington we covered the north part of the lake, from Juanita to Hunts Point. Now we will pick up the story continuing around the Points.

For the most part, the public ferry docks and wharves were built and maintained by King County. Except for Kirkland, which became a city in 1905, the eastern shore of the lake was all unincorporated and county government was the default provider of local government services and infrastructure.

When a group of settlers decided they needed a road or ferry dock they would petition the County Commission and make their case for the investment. If the county agreed to build the facility, property owners would be required to donate the necessary land. Roads were usually unpaved at first, and residents would have to undertake the entire process again to get a road widened and paved.

Periodically the county would send out an intrepid engineer to inspect the ferry docks. The logbooks for these inspections are in the King County Archives and provide insight into the challenges of maintaining these critical links. At a time when treated lumber was a rarity, there were perennial problems with rot and dangerous conditions.

And as ferry service declined and then ended, the county was left with a collection of mostly decrepit piers that had been gradually adapted to public uses.

Fairweather Wharf. We'll begin just south of where we left off in Fairweather Bay, between Hunts and Evergreen points, with the strange case of the Fairweather Wharf. Where today there is an engineered yacht basin between the two points, there was originally a wetland. In 1918, after Lake Washington was lowered and the wetland more fully exposed, King County decided that a wharf was needed at this location. This required construction of an elaborate structure--the Boddy-Hindle Trestle--across the wetland, with a spur to the wharf.

While the Boddy-Hindle Trestle became an important route through the Points, linking Evergreen Point to the base of Hunts Point, where there was a school and market, the wharf was never much used. No one lived in the immediate area and more convenient wharves were available on the points.

The image shows Fairweather Wharf when it was relatively new, with the section to the left leading to the Boddy-Hindle Trestle. A wharf inspector's report from 1930 indicates that the wharf is badly rotted and that everything above the water needed replacing. An inspector's report from 1946 indicates that the wharf had completely disappeared and no sign of it remained. The inspector was not bothered, though, noting that the wharf "was in a location not suitable for any reasonable construction supported by piling or otherwise."

304-jpg.jpg

Evergreen Point-Lake Lane . This pier served Evergreen Point and was a regular stop for the steamer Ariel. Its origin seems somewhat uncertain, as the Wharf Inspector of 1946 cannot find records of it having been built by King County. By 1946 ferry service had ended and the inspector noted that the pier was used for public access to the lake for swimming and boating--activities of which he approved! This location remains a public dock maintained by the City of Medina. (Photo courtesy of Washington State Archives)

Old Medina Dock-jpg.jpg

Original Medina dock . Medina enjoyed regular ferry service from Seattle as early as the 1890s, with this robust pier at the foot of what is today N.E. 8th Street, near the "Green Store" and post office. The lakefront land for the wharf was donated to the county by Thomas Dabney, one of the first residents of the area. When a new car ferry landing was built to the south, the new owner of the Dabney property, Captain Elias Johnston, went to great lengths to reclaim the land from the county.

Old Medina car jpg.jpg

First Medina car ferry landing . The Port of Seattle introduced car ferry service to Medina and Bellevue in 1913, and this was the original wharf at the foot of Evergreen Point Road. This pier was left high and dry just a few years later when Lake Washington was lowered by nine feet with the opening of the new Ship Canal. The identity of the child on the beach is not known.

Medina ferry dock 1937-jpg2.jpg

Medina Ferry Terminal . Following the lowering of Lake Washington and the exposure of new shoreline, King County built a new car ferry dock and terminal building. The original dock was built immediately adjacent to the terminal building and later moved to the south as shown in this image. When ferry service ended, the terminal building became a community clubhouse and, later, Medina City Hall. A much-remodeled city hall and beach park remain on the site today.

clyde wharf 1908-jpg.jpg

Clyde landing, Meydenbauer Bay, Bellevue. This pier stood at the foot of Clyde Road (now 92nd Avenue NE), which was named by an early resident with Scottish roots. It is not clear how much ferry service was provided to this location, as it is close to the main Bellevue dock. But the property did remain in public ownership and was converted into Clyde Beach Park, which is maintained by the City of Bellevue.


Learn more about the Eastside. Books available from Eastside Heritage Center include:

Lake Washington: The Eastside

Bellevue: the Post World War II Years

Our Town, Redmond

Medina

Hunts Point

Bellevue: Its First 100 Years


Our Mission To steward Eastside history by actively collecting, preserving, and interpreting documents and artifacts, and by promoting public involvement in and appreciation of this heritage through educational programming and community outreach.

Our Vision To be the leading organization that enhances community identity through the preservation and stewardship of the Eastside’s history.


Eastside Heritage Center is supported by 4 Culture

Eastside Heritage Center is supported by 4 Culture

Eastside Stories: Ferry Landings of Lake Washington

No. 5 | April 3, 2019

Eastside Stories

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and famil…

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and family.

Ferry Landings of Lake Washington, Part I

The first edition of Eastside Stories described the ferries that connected the Eastside to Seattle before the floating bridges. These vessels had to land somewhere, and we'll begin the story of the ferry landings on the east side of Lake Washington.

Captain Robert Matson, who began working on Lake Washington ferries as a boy, drew up a map that shows over 30 formal wharves from Juanita to Kennydale in service in 1909. Many other known docks are not shown on his map, so it would be safe to say that well over three dozen formal stops existed on the Eastside at one time or another. This large number of stops makes sense for a couple of reasons.

First, there were few roads around the Eastside at the time, so once off the ferry, it would be tough to travel far. Life around the lake was really oriented toward the water. Front doors were on the water side and in some areas property owners were required to grant easements on their shoreline so local residents could walk along the beach to the ferry.

Second, most of the ferry service was via passenger steamer, with vehicle service offered only to Kirkland, Medina and Bellevue. So ferries needed to drop their passengers off close to home.

Many of these landings exist only in distant memories or on sketches like Captain Matson’s. But others have remained in public ownership and are now enjoyed as parks and fishing piers, sometimes known mostly to the neighbors.

Following are five of the wharves on the north end of the lake. In future editions, we’ll look at wharves on the southern half of the lake as well as on Mercer Island and in Seattle.

Juanita Bay . Juanita, originally known as Hubbard, was settled in the 1870s as a farming and timber community. It later became a popular beach that attracted people from around the area. Juanita Bay itself is quite shallow, so the wharf had to be built some distance from the shore. A stack of cordwood to fuel the steamers is visible at the end of the pier.

Kirkland . As the major city of the Eastside, Kirkland was the first to get vehicle ferry service in 1905. (In that year, most of the vehicles would have been horse-drawn wagons). And Kirkland was the last Eastside community to enjoy car ferry service , which ended in 1950, ten years after the Mercer Island bridge had opened. The Kirkland ferry dock was located where the current public pier sits in downtown Kirkland.

Northup . This pier, among the earliest on the Eastside, was situated on the east side of Yarrow Bay in the community of Houghton. (Yarrow Point and Hunts Point are in the background.) The Northups and several other families settled the area in the 1870s. These children would have attended the Houghton School which was just to the north of the ferry landing or the Northup School further to the south.

Penrose Landing, Hunts Point . Hunts Point had more than its share of ferry landings because it had a relatively large number of daily commuters, at least in the summer months. This landing was on the east side of Hunts Point, in Cozy Cove. A passenger who missed the ferry here could run across the point to the Club House dock and likely make it there before the ferry rounded the point. (Photo courtesy of Washington State Archives)

Club House dock, Hunts Point . This image shows the Club House dock on Fairweather Bay, during an Independence Day celebration in 1915. (Photo courtesy of Town of Hunts Point)


Learn more about the Eastside. Books available from Eastside Heritage Center include:

Lake Washington: The Eastside

Bellevue: the Post World War II Years

Our Town, Redmond

Medina

Hunts Point

Bellevue: Its First 100 Years


Our Mission To steward Eastside history by actively collecting, preserving, and interpreting documents and artifacts, and by promoting public involvement in and appreciation of this heritage through educational programming and community outreach.

Our Vision To be the leading organization that enhances community identity through the preservation and stewardship of the Eastside’s history.


Eastside Heritage Center is supported by 4 Culture

Eastside Heritage Center is supported by 4 Culture

Eastside Stories: The Ferries of Lake Washington

No. 1 | February 6, 2019

Eastside Stories

Subscribe to Eastside Stories by emailing us at: info@eastsideheritagecenter.org

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and famil…

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and family.

Welcome to Eastside Stories, a new series from the Eastside Heritage Center. Through these periodic postings we will bring Eastside History to life and highlight the people, places and events that have shaped its remarkable evolution.

The Ferries of Lake Washington

We’ll begin our series of Eastside Stories with one of the things that made settlement of the Eastside possible: ferries on Lake Washington.

The earliest settlers got around by rowboat and canoe, but for the Eastside to grow as an agricultural area and as a commuter suburb, it would need reliable transportation to the burgeoning city of Seattle.

 
The Leschi, in her early steam sidewheel configuration. She was later converted to diesel engines with propellers. (Photo courtesy of Puget Sound Maritime)

The Leschi, in her early steam sidewheel configuration. She was later converted to diesel engines with propellers. (Photo courtesy of Puget Sound Maritime)

By the 1880s, entrepreneurs had seen enough people settling around Lake Washington to justify ferry service. The first problem was to get boats onto the lake, since the Lake Washington Ship Canal was still just a pipe dream. Some early ferries were built in yards in Seattle and Houghton. Others were dragged up the Black River, which drained the lake through Renton.

Early passenger steamers, like Acme , Dawn and Elfin needed a place to land. King County built a series of wharves around the lake, and most residents lived within easy distance of a ferry landing. And there was always the option of flagging a ferry for an unscheduled stop at a private dock.

By the early 20 th Century, Seattle was growing like crazy—from 50,000 people in 1890 to 250,000 in 1910—and all those new people needed to eat. Eastside farmers could supply produce, but loading it on and off small steamers would not do the trick. So, ferries for wagons and the growing fleet of cars and trucks began to ply the lake. The vehicle ferries Kent , Washington and Lincoln served on the Madison Park-Kirkland route beginning around 1900.

 
The Ariel operated on a route from Madison Park to Houghton, serving wharfs on Evergreen, Hunts and Yarrow Points. She was owned by the Johnson brothers and was the only steamer on the lake that stayed out of the hands of Captain Anderson. She ended…

The Ariel operated on a route from Madison Park to Houghton, serving wharfs on Evergreen, Hunts and Yarrow Points. She was owned by the Johnson brothers and was the only steamer on the lake that stayed out of the hands of Captain Anderson. She ended her days serving as student housing on Portage Bay. (Photo courtesy of Puget Sound Maritime)

The most ambitious ferry project was the Leschi, a steel-hulled ferry commissioned by the new Port of Seattle in 1912. The ship canal had still not opened, and there were no yards on the lake that could build a steel hull. So the hull was fabricated on the Duwamish, disassembled and re-assembled at Rainier Beach. The Leschi originally served Meydenbauer Bay and Medina (that's the Leschi in Meydenbauer Bay in the background of the the EHC logo) but the Meydenbauer stop was dropped in 1920. The Seattle-Medina route ran until the day before the new floating bridge opened in 1940.

Car ferry service kept going to Kirkland through World War II, mostly to get shipyard workers to Houghton. The last of the lake’s passenger steamers, the Ariel, which served the Points Communities and Houghton, retired in 1945.

The early steamers were lovely to look at, but like wooden steamboats everywhere, they often had short lifespans. Fires, exploding boilers, rot and sinking were the fate of nearly all of the lake’s small ferries. When Captain John Anderson began to buy up the ferries on the lake he brought some order to the chaos, but also took some of the fun and romance out of it. 

About once a decade we get another study of returning ferry service to Lake Washington. The economics have always been a challenge, and the slow speed limit in the ship canal makes for a long trip to Lake Union. A new service from Renton is now in the offing.

But Lake Washington is still full of passenger boats doing what those early steamers all did for extra money: sightseeing excursions on the most beautiful urban lake in America.

 

Our Mission To steward Eastside history by actively collecting, preserving, and interpreting documents and artifacts, and by promoting public involvement in and appreciation of this heritage through educational programming and community outreach.

Our Vision To be the leading organization that enhances community identity through the preservation and stewardship of the Eastside’s history.


Eastside Heritage Center is supported by 4 Culture

Eastside Heritage Center is supported by 4 Culture