On May 29, 1907, Ballard officially became part of Seattle. Ballard was the second-largest city in King County — with about 17,000 residents in 1906 — when troubles over the city’s water supply led to a historic vote to become annexed by the city of Seattle. “The Ballard water system was no prize,” explains an […]
Tag: history
Hundreds of 1970s Ballard photos added to Seattle Municipal Archives
Update: Um, it seems we’ve crashed the Municipal Archives site with all the traffic. So you may have a little trouble clicking the links below for a bit. Earlier: If you’re like us, you love Ballard history. So when Seattle City Photo Archivist Julie Irick told us about 738 new Ballard photos from the 1970s […]
Vintage photo of the Ballard Bridge in 1933
From time to time, we like to share old Ballard photos from the Seattle Municipal Archives. This is the Ballard Bridge under repair in February of 1933 — 16 years after the completion of the Ballard Locks and 27 years after the quickly-growing town of Ballard was annexed into Seattle. Note the sign, “Government Locks […]
Ballard Historical Society event set for this month
Sunset Hill Community Association (3003 NW 66th St) will host Ballard Historical Society on Wednesday, April 19, for a special event focusing on the role of the Lake Washington Ship Canal over the past century. Author David B. Williams will inform locals about what drove civic leaders to plan a waterway in a city already surrounded by water.Williams is […]
Throwback Thursday: Winter in Ballard
It seems that the cold weather is now officially upon us, so the My Ballard team wanted to take a look back at some photos of Ballard winters in times gone by. The photo below features the home of John Nowicki at 6756 22nd Avenue NW taken in 1895 during a heavy fall of snow. […]
Throwback Thursday: The “new” Ballard Bridge turns 76
The Ballard Bridge, as we know it today, officially opened on June 8, 1940, so we wanted to celebrate with this week’s Throwback Thursday post. The first Ballard Bridge, pictured below, opened in December 1917. By 1940, however, the old wooden bridge was considered too dangerous to carry the increased traffic and was replaced by […]
Mapping Historic Ballard Project celebration set for Saturday
The team at Ballard Historical Society is excited to announce that their Mapping Historic Ballard project is almost complete. After a citizen-sourced effort to map and survey all the pre-1965 structures north of the commercial district they have found over 2500 structures (out of 7307) with high level historic integrity. Funds provided by a Small and […]
Locals invited to “dig deeper” at Historic Seattle event
Locals are invited to learn more about Ballard’s past at the Digging Deeper event next Saturday, May 7, from 10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. at the Sunset Hill Community Association (3003 NW 66th St). The Digging Deeper series is Historic Seattle’s multi-session program designed to provide attendees with behind-the-scenes insight to primary research materials in the […]
Throwback Thursday: Ballard streets then and now
Our friend Sue over at the Vintage West Woodland blog featured some “then and now” photos of Ballard streets and we wanted to share them with our readers in today’s Throwback Thursday post. The below photos show a “then and now” view of the area surrounding 1148 NW 54th Street. Originally, Ballard Street Department Barn […]
Throwback Thursday: Then and Now
Today’s Throwback Thursday post, courtesy of our news partners at The Seattle Times, features a glimpse into the past of a home still standing on the corner of 4th Ave NW and NW 60th St. According to the report, the home was built in the 1890s most likely by carpenter-contractor Rasmus “Robert” Jensen who stands on […]
Throwback Thursday: March in years gone by
Today, we wanted to search through the Ballard Historical Society photo archives for some photos of the neighborhood taken in the month of March in years gone by! The below photo, taken in March 1908, shows two vessels being built at Cooke and Lake Boat Building Yard. This photo was taken on March 20, 1914, […]
Throwback Thursday: The February Snow Storm of 1916
With it being the 100th anniversary of the huge February 2 snow storm of 1916, we thought we would take a look back at how Ballard fared that day. Below is the torn image of the Ballard Ave street scene during the 1916 snow storm. Jeweler’s street clock can be seen on the left and Ballard City Hall and bell […]
Recent Comments