Lake Washington Ship Canal
| Chittenden Locks and Lake Washington Ship Canal | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
 The Lake Washington Ship Canal |
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| location | Salmon Bay, Seattle | ||
| Coordinates | 47 ° 38 '35.5 " N , 122 ° 20' 5.4" W | ||
| Built | 1911-1934 | ||
| architect | Bebb and Gould and others | ||
| Architectural style | Late 19th And 20th Century Revivals and others | ||
| NRHP number | 78002751 | ||
| The NRHP added | December 14, 1978 | ||
The Lake Washington Ship Canal , which runs through the city of Seattle , connects the freshwater Lake Washington with the saline inland sea of Puget Sound . The locks of the Hiram M. Chittenden Lock overcome the six meter difference in height between the water levels of Lake Washington and the Sound. The canal runs in an east-west direction and connects Union Bay , Montlake Cut , Portage Bay , Lake Union , Fremont Cut , Salmon Bay and Shilshole Bay , the latter part of the sound.
history
| Building history | |
|---|---|
| 1854 | Thomas Mercer suggests connecting Lake Union and Lake Washington to the Puget Sound . |
| 1860 | Landowner Harvey L. Pike is trying to dig a trench himself to transport tree trunks between Portage Bay and Union Bay . |
| 1871 | Pike, Thomas Burke and Daniel Hunt Gilman found the Lake Washington Canal Company, which builds a streetcar line, not a canal. October The US Army proposes a naval base on Lake Washington with a northbound channel to Elliott Bay . |
| 1883 | David Denny and Burke hire Chinese workers to dig the Portage Canal, a 4.9 km wide canal with a lock for rafting. |
| 1880s | The canal is finished from Lake Union to Salmon Bay . It contains a wooden lock near Fremont (now part of Seattle). |
| 1893 | Eugene Semple tries to build a canal through the south of Beacon Hill (King County, Washington) and to land the tidal flats on southern Elliott Bay, today's Harbor Island . |
| 1900 | Washington State Legislature approves the northern route through Lake Union. |
| 1901 | Due to delays, the planned freshwater naval base on Lake Washington will be cashed in favor of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Bremerton . |
| 1902 | The United States Army Corps of Engineers rejects the route over the Semple Canal. The Rivers and Harbors Act grants funds and assigns three officers to investigate a possible canal route in Seattle. |
| 1904 | After the financing became more and more difficult and Semple resigned, the work on the Beacon Hill Canal was stopped, although the landed mud flats were usable. |
| 1906 | Contractor James A. Moore Receives United States Congress Approval for a Private Canal Construction Project from Salmon Bay to Shilshole Bay April Hiram M. Chittenden becomes new District Commander of the United States Army Corps of Engineers for Seattle; he advocates Moore's Canal Route, but criticizes the plans for being too modest and underfunded. |
| 1908 | Chittenden is retiring, but continues to lobby Congress for the Ballard Locks system . |
| 1910 | Congress approves $ 2.275 million for the locks; the King County is responsible for the rest of the canal. |
| 1911 | November 10th Construction of the locks begins. |
| 1912 | July The locks are closed and filled with fresh water from Salmon Bay . |
| 1916 | A temporary dam at Montlake is breached. |
| 1917 | May 8 The Government (or Ballard) locks are officially opened to shipping. |
| 1934 | Construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal is completed. |
| 1956 | The Government Locks are renamed in memory of Chittenden (died 1917). |
The project to build the ship's canal began in 1911 and was officially completed in 1934. Before the construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, also known as the Salmon Bay Waterway, Lake Washington ran over the Black River , which flowed from the southern end of the lake into the Duwamish River.
From 1854 at the earliest, there were considerations to create a navigable connection between Lake Washington and the Puget Sound in order to be able to transport raw wood and processed wood and to enable fishing boats to move around. Thirteen years later, the United States Navy approved a canal project that included building a naval base on Lake Washington. In 1891 the United States Army Corps of Engineers began planning the project. Some preparatory work was started in 1906 and the real work began five years later. The delays in the planning and construction of the canal led to the construction of the US Navy's Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton , which is opposite Seattle on the Sound.
Early Efforts
For centuries people have transported boats between the lakes over land and given the places where this happened, names such as sxWátSadweehL (German for "carry in a canoe"). In 1854, Seattle pioneer Thomas Mercer proposed connecting Lake Union and Lake Washington to Puget Sound ; he did so in a speech to mark the first Independence Day celebration in the Seattle area's first permanent white settlement shortly after it was founded. Mercer gave the lakes their current names and ignored the original names from the Lushootseed , which is spoken by the Duwamish , such as tenas Chuck or XáXu7cHoo (dt. "Small big water") for Lake Union and hyas Chuck or Xacuabš (dt. about "big water") for Lake Washington. "Lake Union" was chosen to suggest the future connection of the waters and "Lake Washington" in honor of George Washington .
In 1860 the landowner Harvey L. Pike tried to dig a ditch himself with a pick and shovel in Montlake for the transport of wood between Portage Bay and Union Bay . He did so in hopes of adding value to his properties along the route. After he gave up digging the first Portage Canal himself, he founded the Lake Washington Canal Company together with Thomas Burke from Seattle and Daniel Hunt Gilmandie in 1871 and signed his land over to the company. Instead of completing the canal, the company built a tram line to transport coal that was barged in across Lake Washington. In 1883 David Denny and Burke hired a group of Chinese workers to complete the canal in Montlake. These created a 4.9 m wide canal, including a sluice, which was suitable for carrying rafts from Lake Washington to Lake Union.
The United States Army Corps of Engineers examined Puget Sound for military defense and selected Lake Washington as the most suitable location for a naval base because the waters were safe and freshwater, coal, and wood supplies were assured by the proximity of the springs and besides, the fresh water would attack the wooden hulls less. A report by Lieutenant Thomas H. Hardy dated October 13, 1871, forwarded to Congress by Army General BS Alexander of the Board of Engineers of the Pacific Coast , states that the Seattle Coal and Transportation Company's coal reserves , two miles (3, Located 2 km) east of Lake Sammamish , it could provide 1,500 tons of coal suitable for steamships , potentially twice as much. The direct route across the closest part of Seattle, i.e. Semple's Canal from Leschi (now part of Seattle) straight to today's Harbor Island (also part of Seattle), was rejected in this report because the 200 ... 300 feet (60 ... 90 m) high hills should have been cut. The route over the Black River and Duwamish Rivers would make an arc of several miles, up sandbars rather than deep water, and would require recurrent dredging of the sand carried by the river. About the route connecting Lake Union to Shilshole Bay - the final route chosen - General Alexander had "serious concerns" - including the cost, the need to dig a canal, the fact that the canal route would end in shallow water, the more severe Exposed to the sea, and the fact that the end of the route was difficult to defend in times of war because it was "exposed to the cannonade of an enemy". Alexander was less opposed to a route straight south from Salmon Bay through Interbay (now Seattle) to Smith Cove , but it would also end in shallow water if it were as costly as his preferred route from Lake Union through Mercer's Farm to Elliott Bay and would be worse to defend. The estimated cost of the project was US $ 4.7 million.
In the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1902, Congress ordered the War Department to set up a panel of three officers to carry out a feasibility study for a canal and lock system connecting Puget Sound and Lake Washington. Lieutenant Colonel William H. Heuer, Captain William Campbell Langfitt and Lieutenant Robert P. Johnson met in Seattle in August 1902 and conducted an exploration of possible routes. They checked a Lake Washington Waterway Company route across Shilshole Bay, as well as a route from Lake Union to Smith Cove, the Montlake Coal Railway, and Thomas Mercer's Farm. In November 1902 a public meeting was called in the Chamber of Commerce, but it was quickly postponed because no speaker came.
In 1906, as the local debate about the canal's route continued and funding from the federal capital was delayed, Seattle builder James A. Moore, now known for the Moore Theater and Moore Haven , proposed a canal that would keep traffic smaller ships and wooden locks to be built between Salmon Bay and Shilshole Bay. Moore secured Congress approval for the project, which gave him the rights to build. In April of that year, Hiram M. Chittenden became the new Army District Engineer in Seattle. Chittenden favored the same route to Shilshole Bay as Moore, but found the plan too modest and potentially unsafe. Chittenden said Moore's hope for a US $ 500,000 budget would be inadequate, the locks should be built for larger ships, and the wooden locks would eventually deteriorate and collapse if Lake Washington were drained into Puget Sound.
Instead, Chittenden proposed a double concrete bolt with steel gates that would allow smaller ships to pass with fewer losses. A single pair of locks at the west end of Salmon Bay was intended to replace the small wooden lock near Fremont Avenue, which would lower the level of Lake Washington to that of Lake Union. A single lock between Puget Sound and the freshwater lake would reduce the risk of flooding and reduce the overall cost of the project. Before he could go any further, Chittenden would have to get local leaders to stop supporting Moore's project. After enthusiasm for his canal had subsided and funding became increasingly uncertain, Moore transferred his rights to a public-private entity, the Lake Washington Canal Association, in 1907 . Though Chittenden hoped to crown his career building the locks, his poor health demanded that he retire in 1909; he continued lobbying for the project with Congress and served as a consulting engineer and manager of the Seattle port until his death in 1917.
Canal crossings
The canal can be crossed from east to west as follows:
- through the University Link Tunnel with the Link Light Rail
- over the Montlake Bridge with Washington State Route 513 ( Montlake Boulevard NE ) over the Montlake Cut
- across University Bridge with Eastlake Avenue across Portage Bay
- over the Ship Canal Bridge with Interstate 5 over Portage Bay
- over the George Washington Memorial Bridge (commonly called Aurora Bridge ) with Aurora Avenue N. ( Washington State Route 99 ) over the western part of Lake Union
- across the Fremont Bridge, which joins 4th Avenue N. with Fremont Avenue N. across the Fremont Cut
- on the Ballard Bridge with the 15 th Avenue on the Salmon Bay
- via the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks (pedestrians only)
- over the Salmon Bay Bridge of the BNSF Railway over Salmon Bay
Landmarks in Seattle
The Lake Washington Ship Canal and Hiram M. Chittenden Locks are listed on the National Register of Historic Places . The Montlake Cut and the Montlake Bridge are part of the City of Seattle Designated Landmarks (ID # 107995).
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Coll-Peter Thrush: Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place . University of Washington Press, 2009.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Robert E. Ficken: Seattle's “Ditch”: The Corps of Engineers and the Lake Washington Ship Canal . In: Pacific Northwest Quarterly . 77, No. 1, January 1986, pp. 11-20.
- ^ Walt Crowley: Seattle residents celebrate July 4, 1854, and adopt names for Lake Union and Lake Washington . July 1, 1999. Retrieved July 27, 2015.
- ↑ Walt Crowley: Lake Washington Ship Canal . July 1, 1999.
- ↑ a b c Priscilla Long: Harvey Pike starts to dig a canal connecting Seattle's Union and Portage bays in 1860 . June 24, 2001. Retrieved July 27, 2015.
- ↑ a b c d e f B.S Alexander, Thomas H., Lt. Handbury: Report to accompany bills pp. 1202, 2135, Congressional Edition , Volume 2176 May 1, 1884.
- ↑ a b Office of Chief Engineers: Report of a Board of Engineers upon the feasibility and advisability of constructing a canal with necessary locks and dams, connecting Puget Sound with Lakes Union and Washington, of sufficient width and depth to accommodate the largest commercial and Naval vessels, with plans and estimates of cost thereof . United States Army, January 27, 1903, p. 2340- (Retrieved August 23, 2015).
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Adam Woog: Images of America; The Ballard Locks . Arcadia Publishing, 2008.
- ^ Salmon Bay Harbor Map, Seattle Public Library, SEAMAP G4284.S4 P53 1892.S6
- ↑ Landmarks Alphabetical Listing for M ( Memento of the original from July 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Individual Landmarks, Department of Neighborhoods, City of Seattle. Retrieved December 28, 2007.
