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Unbuilt Magnolia

By Monica Wooton

Dreams die with the road to nowhere

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If city planners of the early 1900s had their way, Magnolia would be a much different place than it is today. The West Garfield Trestle and the south shore of Magnolia are intertwined in this story—a story of how the neighborhood came to be, and how the trestle became a road to nowhere.

 

Who would have guessed that Magnolia was designated in the early 1900s as one of the main commercial connections in the early planning for Seattle’s economic future? That the south shore of Magnolia Bluff was the battleground for local residential developers going against one mighty developer who deigned Magnolia a critical part of his make-it-rich plan? That an unusual, long wooden trestle was intended to unite the isolated, unpopulated, peninsular Magnolia with the rest of Seattle, and therefore was part of the plan to build a bustling commercial industrial network on the south shore of the neighborhood?

 

And, that this unbuilt Magnolia was a long-envisioned complex plan for ferry terminals, wharves for moving coal, a berth for huge shipping vessels doing robust lucrative trade with Asia, an immigration processing center, and a subway tunneled under West Thorndyke Street to a rapid-transit connection at 30th Avenue West.

 

But as they say: the best-laid plans...

Looking back to a time of hope and despair

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HistoryLink notes that “James W. Clise arrived in Seattle the day after the great fire of 1889 had burned down the business district. He promptly founded a real estate company, launching a career that made him one of the most prolific real estate developers in the region” (1).

Fig. 1. Cartoon of James Clise with a bag of money labeled “EASTERN CAPITAL,” published in The Argus circa 1906.

Image source: “Clise, James (1855–1939),” HistoryLink, 27 Sept. 1999, https://www.historylink.org/File/1688

Clise was an attorney working in Seattle in the wake of the Klondike Gold Rush (2, 3). He was born in Lancaster, Wisconsin in 1855 and then became involved in the mercantile business in Stockton, California. He was then part of the lumber industry in Denver, Colorado until he came to Seattle. He was the agent for several prominent capitalists from the East Coast investing their money in Seattle enterprises. His largest sale was to Lyman C. Smith, who built the Smith Tower on land he bought from Clise. James Clise, with his brother Harry, also an attorney, formed the Globe Navigation Company with hopes to augment and add to a large sailing fleet centered in Seattle, and to take part in and expand Pacific commerce (4).

Fig. 2. James W. Clise.

Image source: WikiTree. https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Clise-21

Clise’s obituary states:

…The Globe Building was the product of…Clise…one of the city’s most prominent business-men, and it was the headquarters of his many interests. In it were the offices of several Clise firms: the Globe Navigation Company, the Globe Investment Company, and the Globe Construction Company. Occupying the key first floor corner office was the Washington Trust Company, organized by Clise and one of the strongest banking institutions in the city at that time. Clise had a hand in almost every major effort that contributed to Seattle’s growth….(5)

Imaginations sparked for development

 

What sparked the imaginations of Seattle’s big-city developers, like Clise, was a well-orchestrated Chamber of Commerce. Back in 1873, well before Clise entered the picture, Seattle’s earliest businessmen—like Arthur Denny, Franklin Henry Yesler, John J. McGilvra, James M. Colman, and Dexter Horton (familiar names due to the streets and buildings named after them)—were anxiously anticipating a potentially devastating announcement. Indeed, they had to face the sad economic reality that Tacoma was chosen over Seattle as the terminus for the Northern Pacific Railway (6).

 

Despite that, by the early 1900s Clise was running the Seattle Chamber of Commerce (7), and just west of Magnolia’s south shore, Smith Cove had a burgeoning business district and a bustling railroad operation. James J. Hill’s Great Northern silk trains and shipping docks were the longest on the Pacific, supporting a thriving trading business with Asia (8). Shipments from Japan arrived via boat at Smith Cove and were loaded onto trains to go east. The silk trains had precedence over other trains due to their precarious and precious cargo. Marshals rode along in specially-designed cars that helped ensure “that moisture, heat, fumes and punctures from longshoremen’s cargo hooks” could be managed. According to Hal Will, “On December 2, 1910, the Great Northern Railway ran its first silk train on record from its Pier 38 in Smith Cove.” By 1920, the average silk train would carry cargo worth five million dollars. This continued until the late 1930s (9). And that was only one of the many business enterprises going on at Smith Cove.

Trains, businesses, and a lot going on

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Trains and business had been coming and going at Smith Cove over the last two decades of the 1800s. The Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway was formed in 1885, and in 1896 it became the Seattle and International Railway.

Fig. 3. “Train using the former Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway tracks at Smith Cove. At the time of this photo, the track was owned and used by Northern Pacific Railway. Great Northern Railway passed through on the other tracks shown in the photo. The spur track (curving to the right) carried trains to load and unload at a short-lived glassworks. Note: The Rope Walk-Portland Cordage Company in the background was a factory that made hemp rope. The backwater in the photo was before Smith Cove was filled” circa 1911.
Courtesy of John Cox (10).

Fig. 4. “Great Northern Piers 38 and 39 (later Piers 88 and 89). A Great Northern Railway train travels full steam ahead from Interbay toward the downtown Seattle waterfront. Photo appears to be a staged image to be used for publicity by James J. Hill’s Great Northern Steamship Company.” Circa 1906.

Courtesy of John Cox (11).

[Smith Cove] was briefly a candidate to be the heart of the emerging city. The cove and its tide flats once stretched as far north as what is now the Interbay Athletic Field. James J. Hill bought 600 acres (2.4 km squared) of these tide flats in 1892 and had them filled in for the western terminal of the Great Northern Railway. At one time, the terminal included a switchyard, roundhouse, grain elevators, and warehouses as well as piers for oceangoing ships. (12)

The Seattle versus Tacoma fight for economic dominance appeared again over the placement of a regional Army base. It was a protracted negotiation—an on-again, off-again affair. Seattle Chamber of Commerce President Edward O. Graves participated in the negotiations, promising the Chamber would provide well-suited land for free to the Army as incentive to bring what they saw as economic opportunity to their city. The Chamber managed the buying and selling of land in the land swap (13).

 

Clise, Chair of the Chamber’s Land Committee and one of the main land deed brokers, is credited with persuading the Army to place the fort on Magnolia (14). The Chamber provided, writes Mike Davis, a “munificent tour of Seattle, entertained them, used a special trolley to take them to Ballard, boarded a Simpson lumber mill tug for a trip around the bluff, stopped at Salmon Bay to inspect plans for the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, and generally extolled the advantages of a fort on Magnolia Bluff.” The Chamber arranged a deal for the Army to get over 700 acres of land for free, put on a wine-and-dine, and dispatched officials to talk to the Army brass and influence the decision (15). Clise and the Seattle Chamber won that hard-fought battle, and a fort was to be built in Magnolia in 1898 (16, 17).

What comes next is surprising and not surprising

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In 1900, Clise became President of the Chamber and established a Railroad Committee (18). By February of 1901, Hill, Clise, and others were moving to expand commercial business in Smith Cove in dramatic ways with railroads and shipping. Clise reportedly traveled to the East Coast in his capacity as Chamber President to tout Seattle as a “boom town” ready for big things, including a robust trade with Asia, a naturally wide harbor better than San Francisco’s, the best railroads, and great resources—he specifically mentioned coal (19).

 

One month later, on April 11, 1901, Clise managed to buy a large, 62-acre piece of property encompassing much of the south shore of Magnolia, adjacent to Smith Cove and bounded by West Howe Street, 32nd Avenue West, and the Wolf Creek Ravine. The handwritten deed explains that H. R. Clise (James’s brother) served as owner M. L. Whitman’s duly appointed attorney, and for $1, her property was transferred to James Clise (20).

 

In March 1902, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Chamber passed a “Novel Plan to Solve Manufacturing Problem.” They “hit upon the plan” that authorized its officers to create a company to buy land: “The concern will be incorporated for a term of fifty years…empowered to purchase, own, control, manage, lease, let and sell real estate and personal property, rights and franchises….” The secondary object of this company was to work to “secure for manufactures transportation facilities from the railroads.” James Clise served on the first Board appointed (21). Clise was also working with “prominent and wealthy bankers, railroad men” on the China Investment & Construction Company of America by 1903 (22). Smith Cove, with its railroads and emerging commerce, looked to be an attractive part of any plan for commercial development.

Magnolia surrounded by commercial enterprises in early 1900s

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Interesting goings-on surrounded Magnolia at the turn of the century. Back in 1900, James Clise and J. A. Moore, another leading real estate developer (23), proposed a World’s Fair, or the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (AYPE), in Seattle.

Organizers hoped to promote commercial trade with Pacific Rim countries and encourage visitors to fall in love with, and relocate to, the Seattle area. The AYPE met those expectations; over the course of that single summer, publicity generated by the fair changed the perception of Seattle forever. Once considered an unsophisticated lumber town (when it was considered at all), Seattle was reborn as a progressive port city perfectly situated to capitalize on trading ventures with interests in Alaska and Asia. (24)

Fig. 5. Japanese trade delegation’s arrival at the Great Northern Steamship Company dock in Smith Cove to attend the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Expedition. September 1, 1909.

Image source: Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons via the University of Washington Special Collections.

Voters approved plans to begin construction on Fishermen’s Terminal in 1912, and it was built by 1915.

The Port recognized the importance of building a facility that would give a place for fishermen to moor, repair, and provision their boats in the offseason. Until that time there wasn’t a home port for fishermen who were forced to look for moorage wherever they could find it. Knowing the economic importance of the fishing industry, the Port built a central home.

 

Fishermen’s Terminal was the first construction project for the Port of Seattle, with pile drivers hammering the supports for the Salmon Bay docks on February 15, 1913. When the terminal opened it had more than 1,800 feet of moorage with space for 100 boats, a two-story warehouse, and ample space for repairing nets. (25)

Fig. 6. Opening day at Fishermen’s Terminal, 1913.

Courtesy of Gordon Strand, Nordic Heritage Museum (26).

Additionally, the long-planned Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Ballard was finally built between 1911 to 1917 (27).

The locks and ship canal opened the region’s waterways to maritime commerce, and Seattle became a major port city, with nearly 50,000 vessels a year traveling through the locks on their voyages to and from the Sound. The waterway provided a route for boats to bring cargo to and from the region, from oil and steel to hats and coats, and to push and pull tons of logs into Lake Washington from logging camps around Puget Sound. And many new maritime businesses also opened on the shores of Lake Union and Salmon Bay, including boat builders, sawmills and William Boeing’s first seaplane factory. (28)

Fig. 7. The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Ballard being built in the early 1900s. The Locks are part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which stretches between Lake Washington

and Shilshole Bay and officially opened July 4, 1917.

Photo by US Army Corps of Engineers, VIRIN: 170210-A-DT641-002.JPG.

The Salmon Bay Rail Bridge, or Bridge 6.3 on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (formerly Bridge 4 on the Great Northern Railroad), was authorized to be built in 1912. Described on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe website as “an economic lynch pin,” it spanned Salmon Bay from the Magnolia side to the Ballard side (29).

Fig. 8. Salmon Bay Bridge with the logo of the Great Northern Railway goat.

Courtesy of BNSF. 1922.

Smith Cove’s clean air was threatened at the beginning of the twentieth century when the Citizens Light and Power Company started to drive piles for a coal gasification plant just offshore. It was built in the early 1900s as a manufacturer of gas from burning coal.

 

In 1904, J. W. Clise and his brother H. R. Clise were attending to the organization of a new company, merging with other local and national power plants (30, 31).

Fig. 9. Gas plant at Smith Cove using coal. Circa 1910.

Image source: Courtesy of MOHAI, #1982.65.4.

Fig. 10. Monica and Jon Wooton research and original design. Paul Langland Design, final design. 2025 

A grandiose plan is set in writing

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The development of Seattle was being forced, loosely planned, authorized to be built, or under construction in 1909.

…urged by certain individuals, the American Institute of Architects (Seattle office) called a meeting, during which was formed the Municipal Plans League, from which was formed the Municipal Plans Commission in 1910.

 

The Commission called upon Virgil Bogue to prepare a Plan for Seattle. His plan encompassed all phases of Seattle's activities; highways, civic center (five blocks southwest of present Seattle Center), boulevards, park improvements, municipal decorations, harbor improvements, Port of Seattle and transportation steam trains, rapid transit, tunnels, interurban cars, street trolley cars and ferries. (32)

The Chamber made sure the Garfield Street Trestle stood ready for that development, unconnected to land. Clise was deep in the midst of organizing the commercialization of Magnolia. And so the trestle just stood, only being used by a few families in the area for parking their cars, walking to and from connections they’d built from their properties, and driving to jobs in town (33). Meanwhile, Magnolia’s local developers were working on various visions for a residential district to draw folks to live in this remote area, and they needed to create better connections than susceptible and shaky wooden trestles to get them there.

Virgil Bogue’s plan for Seattle and Magnolia

 

In 1911, Magnolia was part of the Bogue Plan as a central element of the urban development of Seattle for decades to come. Magnolia would have become a bustling industrial and commercial center under the plan. It was likely that many developers used their influence over or priviness to the Bogue Plan as an opportunity to make money and invested accordingly (34).

Fig. 11. Map from Virgil G. Bogue and the Seattle Municipal Plans Commission. Magnolia forms part of a commercial triangle along with West Seattle and downtown. A close look at Magnolia reveals many things: proposed ferries, wharves, and piers all around the entire Bluff.

Image source: Public domain from Wikimedia Commons.

Fig. 12. This section of the above map illustrates the Magnolia connection to downtown and West Seattle as a hub of wharves, ferries,

and commercial transportation. The entire circumference of the Bluff is slated for commercial use.

Image source: Public domain from Wikimedia Commons.

The Bogue Plan (note its rendering of Smith Cove as “Smith’s”) envisioned for Magnolia and Seattle:

The principal ferry terminals on Elliott Bay will be in the Central Waterfront District, including Madison and Harrison Streets. Ferries from West Seattle, Alki Point, Harbor Island, the foot of Twenty-eighth Avenue Southwest, and the Magnolia Bluff District in the vicinity of Wolf Creek…will be operated to and from these terminals. (35)

The plan continues:

…In the vicinity of Smith’s Cove there may be developed a Port Terminal rivaling, if not exceeding, the Harbor Island district, in desirability as a terminal for cargo vessels. West of Smith's Cove, both commercial and industrial development will probably take place, the industrial feature predominating...

 

Two waterways about two thousand four hundred feet long may be constructed, one on each side of Smith’s Cove Waterway. The easterly one should be approximately two hundred fifty feet wide, and the westerly one three hundred fifty feet wide, in the clear. Between each of these waterways and Smith’s Cove Waterway, solid filled piers may be constructed which should be approximately four hundred feet in width between fender lines. Between the Westerly Waterway and Thirtieth Avenue Northwest, three slips from one thousand to one thousand four hundred feet in length may be constructed. A width of approximately five hundred feet between slips would permit the making of desirable areas for industrial concerns requiring waterfront locations...

 

Opposite Wolf Creek Gulch, in the vicinity of Thirty-second Avenue West, a public landing place should be located. [NOTE: James W Clise held the deed for this property] Ferry service from this point should be provided at some future day. The easy grade which may be obtained to the top of the hill, along Wolf Creek, will make of this a desirable place for the delivery by water of coal, building material, etc...

 

…Four Mile Rock…is an excellent location for a large coal dock and bunkers...

 

…Between Logan Avenue [West] and the foot of the bluff the existing plat will answer very well for larger industrial purposes...

 

West Point Spit and the tidelands between it and West Point Avenue will make an admirable location for the United States Immigration Station. A slip and other facilities for immigration and revenue service vessels can readily be provided…

 

At the time of the establishment of Fort Lawton, [NOTE: James W Clise had been very influential in getting the Fort placed there] the United States Government acquired the tidelands in front of the military reserve. Only a limited area thereof is adapted to government uses, but it is of such value for harbor purposes that Congress should be persuaded to turn over that portion south of West Point Avenue to the city or Port of Seattle, and to appropriate funds to aid in the construction of West Point Waterway and Pier.

 

…In case it becomes desirable to form a free port district in Seattle, a logical location for it is on the tideland area between West Point and West Ray Street, produced. Whether a free port or otherwise, a magnificent harbor terminal can be constructed in this location with apparently little difficulty. (36)

The Plan also included a well-defined all-city rapid transit system, and a subway section for Magnolia that would run underground from Thorndyke to 30th Avenue West (37).

Hopes dashed!

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But by 1912, Seattle voters dashed the hopes articulated by the Bogue Plan, dramatically voting the plan down by two to one. Citizens said it was too expensive, and for businessmen with property in Pioneer Square, the current center of the city, it moved the business district too far north for their liking (38). Ironically, however, much of the urban planning of the Bogue Plan is still reflected in modern-day Seattle.

Back on the road to nowhere: A complicated tussle with the Seattle Park Board

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The first evidence of the “built” West Garfield Street Trestle comes in an article in The Seattle Times from May 6, 1911, which stated the “newly completed trestle” was waiting for its 32nd Avenue West upland connection (39). But a complicated history proves that never happened; the trestle would never connect to the south shore of Magnolia. This, and the fight for a piece of Clise’s land needed for the Magnolia Boulevard plan, became the source of an ongoing argument with the Seattle Board of Park Commissioners. Clise had declined an early offer of $50,000 from the Park Board for the property (40). In Park Board minutes of April 25, 1910, David Eastman—motivated to make connections that would help Magnolia develop as a commercial force—proposed a condemnation process of the land. The suit was filed. On September 26, 1910, Clise asked the Board to survey the proposed condemned land. They agreed to do so. On October 24, 1910, Park Board minutes reported that this survey had been completed (41). On April 24, 1911, the Board met with Clise: “Clise asks a committee be proposed to agree on a reasonable price which he would accept as a stipulated verdict in the condemnation case to come to trail in June…” (42). A committee was thusly formed.

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On April 28, 1911, the Park Board again met with Clise in Executive Session, and no progress was reported. On May 2, 1911, the Board asked for a strip of land 150 feet wide for Boulevard purposes. (Again, this land was not included in the Boulevard Path—which was always north of the ravine, then over Howe Street as a wooden trestle, and then as a concrete bridge.) On May 5, 1911, the Board received a letter from Clise saying he would give a 150 foot strip west of Wolf Creek Ravine. They accepted. The condemnation case went forward but was dropped as of Park Board minutes from July 7, 1911 (43). A week later, Clise objected to a clause in the agreement of property transfer, and the Board dropped it from the agreement. Not until January 19, 1912 would Parks authorize and begin clearing and grubbing of all proposed Magnolia Boulevard property, including a 32nd Avenue West piece (44).

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It appears there was delay, confusion, and ultimately inaction on work at 32nd Avenue West—the land connection for the West Garfield Trestle—for several years because of the multiple government entities involved, pending legal cases, wrangling with Clise over the property, and ultimately, the City and the Park Board not moving forward in a timely manner. Eastman regularly appeared before the entities to remind them of this. His residential development was not progressing as planned because it lacked a direct connection to the lots he owned.

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This slowness also appeared to have been in part because Magnolia’s South Bluff did not draw the development hoped for by city businessmen. There were only two connections to Magnolia at this time: over the short West Dravus Street Wooden Trestle then over and up the steep Grand Boulevard (now West Dravus Street), and the 23rd Avenue West Trestle to West Newton Street that landed you only south-ish on Magnolia. Transportation connections and commerce went hand-in-hand. And Magnolia was lacking because the West Garfield Trestle was not connected to the south shore area.

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According to the Seattle Engineering Vault, roadwork commenced on 32nd Avenue West in November 1915, and final inspection of the land took place in February 1917. By this time, the south shore section of the West Garfield Street Trestle was having serious problems with teredos, shipworms that bored into the wood and weakened the timber. Some of the wooden piles were fixed around 1916; however, by 1919, more damage was incurred, and the trestle was condemned—although foot traffic was still allowed (45).

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On April 14, 1920, according to The Seattle Times, 1,500 feet of the trestle suddenly collapsed (46). The rest of its 600 feet collapsed over the following days, taking the south shore section down (47). The article quotes Charles R. Case, superintendent of streets, as saying: “There is little likelihood of the bridge being rebuilt…It was built originally at the behest of certain real estate interests and the Chamber of Commerce which hoped for certain industrial developments in that part of the city which failed to materialize” (48).

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Sunk as well were the various dreams of Magnolia’s local developers. The failed Bogue Plan and poor connections designated Magnolia as a sleepy little late-developing residential neighborhood that would grow slowly, over many decades, to become a unique in-city suburb of downtown Seattle. The Bogue Plan, and Clise’s final donation of that 150-foot strip of land for what would become the West Howe Street Bridge, at least formalized the vision for Magnolia Boulevard (49). But only eventually, and again with a lot of wrangling, would that become a reality in the 1950s (50).

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​Though the voters rejected Virgil Bogue’s plan and saw no promise for Magnolia’s commercial development, local developers David Eastman and Arthur Phinney wrestled with each other and with James Clise for years to come over Magnolia’s South Bluff. Phinney and Eastman tried to manifest their own personal desires for Magnolia as a residential park development, while Clise’s odd resistance kept the local developers’ plan from happening easily. Clise seemed stuck. He was tied to an unarticulated, grand money-making plan for his land. He also had the advantage that he did not need the money and could move as slowly as he desired to release his land for any development.

It was a time of hope and despair!

 

David Eastman—from the early 1900s to early 1920s—and Arthur Phinney—from 1915 to the early 1920s—kept hope alive, pushing their ideas for Magnolia’s real estate. They were politically active in getting Parks funding and pushed for a new steel and concrete bridge connection when the Wheeler Street and Lawton trestles caught fire. This fire made the Dravus Trestle the only connection to Magnolia for several years, according to Park Board minutes. The two developers persisted in promoting and advertising their neighborhood idea for Magnolia as a residential park (51).

 

David Eastman took out many ads and created a beautiful and intricately detailed brochure (figures 14–17) to advertise his lots for sale.

Fig. 13. Images from developer David Eastman’s brochure touting his vision of the vistas and virtues of the
up-and-coming neighborhood of Magnolia Bluff. Circa 1907.

Courtesy of the Holcomb family (52).

Fig. 14. Eastman had to use the Fort Lawton trolley, far from his properties, as his main connection to get buyers to his centrally located lots. He hoped Thorndyke would soon be open to cars so visitors could get closer to his south shore section of lots.

Courtesy of the Holcomb family (53).

Fig. 15. Eastman saw Magnolia’s development as centering around 28th Avenue West.

Courtesy of the Holcomb family (54).

Fig. 16. This drawing depicts that 28th Avenue West vision.

Courtesy of the Holcomb family (55).

David Eastman decided to move in 1921 from Magnolia to Juanita Point, east of Lake Washington, where he became the sole developer of a then-remote property that one day became a sought-after, expensive waterfront community (56). Eastman died in 1929 (57). He would never see the new Garfield Street Bridge he’d fought for bring traffic past his former house, still standing on the east corner of 28th Avenue West and West Galer. The bridge took cars past 32nd Ave West to the developing Magnolia Village, but 28th Avenue West would never become Magnolia’s center and boulevard as Eastman worked so hard to realize.

 

Arthur Phinney, also aggressive in his selling and advertising, had overextended himself by the early 1920s. According to research done by Lawrence Kreisman, author of six publications on regional architecture and historic preservation:

Magnolia’s Carleton Park dates from 1915… Ambitious real-estate promoter Arthur Phinney named the Carleton Park Plat for his father Guy Carleton Phinney, whose own grandiose estate dreams of the 1890s ended up as the city’s Woodland Park. Following in his father’s footsteps, the son platted 800 tracts on acres of logged land extending from West Raye Street to Puget Sound and from 32nd Avenue West to 45th Avenue West. He built himself a grand home, complete with swimming pool, and set up a short-lived real-estate office [Jones & Phinney] at the corner of Viewmont Way West and West Parkmont Place. But he was overextended financially, and his development quickly slipped into receivership. (58)

Fig. 17. Ad for Arthur Phinney’s Carleton Park lots.

His house is pictured.

Image source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 14 May 1922, p. 155.

Fig. 18. Key Map Carleton Park An Addition to the City of Seattle, May 1915. King County Auditor, Volume #21, Page #94.

Courtesy of King County Archives, Washington.

Aleua Frare writes of Phinney:

…his yacht and all night gin parties landed on the rocks… With the failure of the Scandinavian Bank, receivers took a quick look at the overextended Phinney and were in a state of shock…receivers set up big tents and went about luring customers from far and near hoping, with frenzied excitement they could get some of their money back…but by 1924 there was a total of twenty homes. (59)

Selling lots in Magnolia did not mean building houses there. According to Frare, the thirties brought about fifty built homes a year to Magnolia. In 1947, after the building boom of World War II, there were 4,444 homes in total, less than half of them occupied (60). Today, there are 10,588 housing units in the neighborhood (61).

 

Clise finally auctioned off his many remaining acres for $1 “property now” lots as part of the Carleton Park Plat for $67,000 in 1928 (62, 63). The demand for coal, which Clise had hoped would make him loads of money, was being replaced by oil, natural gas, and electricity (64). It was not until the sweeping concrete and steel West Garfield Street Bridge (now the Magnolia Bridge) was opened ten years later—combined with the post-World War II baby-boom buyers another decade later in the 1940s—that Magnolia became popular and populated, comprised mostly of standard residential lots, and having no cohesive or creative urban planning. And Magnolia Boulevard received that one small strip of land from Clise and was completed in the 1950s.

 

Meanwhile, most business at Smith Cove had fizzled. It was taken over by the Navy and developed for the war effort during World War II, then turned back to the Port of Seattle, which has used it for various things: wholesale warehouses for fishing or restaurant supplies, parking imported cars shipped there, and now a cruise ship terminal and parking lot (65). Smith Cove Park is also being redeveloped.

More stories still to be told: Legal wrangling with Clise property for decades to come

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The battles with J. W. Clise’s money-making ideas for Magnolia were not over. They would become an issue again in 1955. Over seventy acres of tidelands, and some shoreline land, that Clise had acquired in the 1890s generated a legal fight regarding whether they were zoned for commercial or residential use. Commercial zoning would increase the value of the land. Fighting against J. W. Clise’s son Charles F. Clise was the Magnolia Community Club and seventy-six individual property owners in the area (66). And yes, when the Elliott Bay Marina was proposed in the early 1980s, Clise’s tidelands again begat more legal wrangling (67).

Monica Wooton began the investigation of a small piece of this story in 2015 when hired to do historic research on the area by the Magnolia Community Club (now Council). An intensive research project that took many hours, it dawned on her that there was a much larger story to be told. She picked up the research in the summer of 2024, thinking it could be published in the fall collection of the newly planned online book, Magnolia: More Memories & Milestones. After many hours of research, writing, and rewriting, it became clear it would be nowhere near done by the fall deadline. Putting the pieces together took over seven months of extensive research, then writing and much rewriting to get the complicated pieces together, end-noted, and in relatively clear exposition. She is relieved it is over. She wants to thank those that helped get this fascinating but complicated story to “Done!” Big thanks go to: Jon Wooton, Jeannie Fisher, Greg Lange, Paul Langland, Brian Hogan, and most especially Sherrie Quinton, who served patiently and steadily as her peer editor—steering her in the right direction. And lord knows she was constantly wandering away on a tangent and going down rabbit holes!

Notes

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  1. “Clise, James (1855-1939),” HistoryLink, 27 Sept. 1999, https://www.historylink.org/File/1688.

  2. “Globe Navigation Company, Office Building, Downtown, Seattle, WA.” Pacific Coast Architecture Database, Alan Michelson, https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/building/6277/.

  3. “Smith Tower,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 9 Mar. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Tower.

  4. “Description: The Clise Investment Company.” Barry Lawrence Ruderman, Antique Maps Inc. https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/74812/seattle-washington-the-clise-investment-company.

  5. David M. Hansen. “Globe Building, Beebe Building, Hotel Cecil.” National Register of Historic Places Inventory—Nomination Form. US Department of the Interior, 29 Apr. 1982, https://npgallery.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/NRHP/Text/82004235.pdf.

  6. Heather M. MacIntosh and David Wilma, “Northern Pacific Railroad announces Tacoma terminus on July 14, 1873,” HistoryLink, 22 Feb. 1999, https://www.historylink.org/file/922.

  7. “That Railroad Committee.” The Seattle Daily Times. 1 Oct. 1900, p. 4.

  8. “Smith Cove (Seattle).” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 21 Mar. 2024, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Cove_(Seattle).

  9. Hal Will, “Early Railroad Days.” Magnolia: Making More Memories. Magnolia Historical Society, 2007, p. 63.

  10. “Early Railroad Days.” pp. 59–61.

  11. “Early Railroad Days.” p. 59.

  12. “Smith Cove (Seattle).”

  13. “The Army Post Site: Chairman Clise of the Committee Makes a Showing of the Status of the Case-Deeds to 475 Acres have been Secured.” The Seattle Daily Times, 25 Mar. 1897, p. 2.

  14. “Clise, James (1855-1939).”

  15. “The Army Post Site.”

  16. Mike Davis with Monica Wooton. “Change, the Only Constant: Fort Lawton.” Magnolia: Making More Memories, pp.148–151.

  17. Duane Colt Denfeld. “Fort Lawton to Discovery Park,” HistoryLink, 23 Sept. 2008, https://www.historylink.org/File/8772.

  18. “That Railroad Committee.”

  19. “Tells in the East of Seattle: J. W. Clise Gives Newspapers Facts Regarding City.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11 Feb. 1901, p. 5.

  20. Clarence L. Hobark. “Deed 207 378,” 11 April 1901, King County Archives.

  21. “Will Organize A Corporation.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 20 Mar. 1902, p. 7.

  22. “To Build Road in the Orient: Managers Include Railroad Men and Bankers, J. W. Clise Being Among Them.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 19 Oct. 1903.

  23. “International Exposition in 1905.” The Seattle Daily Times, 13 Aug. 1900, p. 1.

  24. Ina Zajac. “1909 Alaska Yukon Pacific Exhibition was a fair to remember,” University of Washington Magazine, June 2009, https://magazine.washington.edu/feature/1909-alaska-yukon-pacific-exhibition-was-a-fair-to-remember/.

  25. “Fishermen’s Terminal History,” Port of Seattle, 2024, https://www.portseattle.org/page/fishermens-terminal-history.

  26. Sam L. Sutherland. “Fishermen’s Terminal: Million-Dollar Industry.” Magnolia: Memories & Milestones, Magnolia Community Club, 2000, p. 102.

  27. “Ballard Locks,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 13 Apr. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballard_Locks.

  28. Niki Stojnic, et al. “How the Ballard Locks Changed Seattle Forever.” Seattle Magazine, 29 June 2017. https://seattlemag.com/seattle-living/2xyvqpw/.

  29. “The Salmon Bay Rail Bridge Project,” BNSF Railway Company, 2024, https://salmonbayrailbridge.com/.

  30. Paul Dorpat. “Now & Then – Smith Cove Gas,” HistoryLink, 3 Mar. 3, 2001, https://www.historylink.org/File/3026.

  31. “One Company is to Handle Gas.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 18 Mar. 1904, p. 6.

  32. “Other Descriptive Information,” Don Sherwood Parks History Collection, 1884-1979, Seattle Municipal Archives, 2012, Archives West, https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv19503?q=Don%20sherwood.

  33. “Wreck Recovered.” The Seattle Daily Times, 11 Apr. 1920, p. 4.

  34. “Plan of Seattle. Report of the Municipal plans commission.” Lowman & Hanford Co, 1911, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/planseattlerepo00bogugoog/mode/2up.

  35. “Plan of Seattle,” p. 136.

  36. “Plan of Seattle,” pp. 74–76.

  37. “Plan of Seattle,” pp. 181.

  38. Kit Oldham. “Seattle voters reject Bogue Plan for city development and elect George Cotterill mayor, and King County voters approve plans and funding for Port of Seattle, on March 5, 1912.” HistoryLink. 3 Mar. 2020, https://www.historylink.org/file/160.

  39. “Park Board to Submit Plans for Boulevard.” The Seattle Daily Times, 6 May 1911, p. 9.

  40. Board of Park Commissioners Minutes, 5 May 1911, Seattle Municipal Archives.

  41. ——— 24 Oct. 1910, Seattle Municipal Archives.

  42. ——— 24 Apr. 1911, Seattle Municipal Archives.

  43. ——— 7 Jul. 1911, Seattle Municipal Archives.

  44. ——— circa 1912, Seattle Municipal Archives.

  45. ——— circa 1915–20, Seattle Municipal Archives.

  46. “Fifteen Homes Menaced When Trestle Drops.” The Seattle Daily Times, 14 Apr. 1920, p. 1.

  47. “Wreck Recovered.”

  48. “Fifteen Homes Menaced.”

  49. Board of Park Commissioners Minutes, 5 May 1911, Seattle Municipal Archives.

  50. Claudia Isquith, “Magnolia Boulevard West,” Magnolia: Making More Memories, Magnolia Historical Society, 2007 pp. 46–47.

  51. Board of Park Commissioners Minutes, circa 1915–20, Seattle Municipal Archives.

  52. Monica Wooton. “One Man’s Vision Developing Magnolia.” Magnolia: Making More Memories, Magnolia Historical Society, 2007, p. 300.

  53. Monica Wooton. “One Man’s Vision Developing Magnolia,” p. 301.

  54. Monica Wooton. “One Man’s Vision Developing Magnolia,” p. 302.

  55. Monica Wooton. “One Man’s Vision Developing Magnolia,” p. 303.

  56. “Just Cogitating: Juanita Point Platting Was Begun in 1921.” The Seattle Daily Times, 7 Mar. 1960, p. 36.

  57. “Friends Mourn for Eastman.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer 15 Jul. 1929, p. 2.

  58. Lawrence Kreisman. “From Good to Grand—Magnolia’s Carleton Park Offered Something for Every One.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Northwest Living, 24 Nov. 1996, p. 231.

  59. Aleua Frare, “Phinney’s Folly.” Magnolia: Yesterday and Today, Magnolia Community Club: 1976, p. 24.

  60. Aleua Frare, “Houses All Over the Place.” Magnolia: Yesterday and Today, p. 25.

  61. “Magnolia, Seattle, WA Demographics,” Point2Homes, 2023. https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/WA/Seattle/Magnolia-Demographics.html.

  62. “Clise Will Auction Off Last of holdings on Magnolia Point.” The Seattle Daily Times, 7 Oct. 1928, p. 33.

  63. “Carleton Park Lot Auction Brings in Return of $67,000.” The Seattle Daily Times.

  64. “History of coal mining,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 6 Apr. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coal_mining.

  65. “Smith Cove (Seattle).”

  66. “Courthouse Report: Tideland Rezone Benefits Told.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Magnolia, 13 Dec. 1955, p. 10.

  67. Glen Carter and Sally Gene Mahoney. “Port Considering Swap of Tidelands to Obtain Site for Possible Marina.” The Seattle Daily Times, 19 Jan. 1983, p. 31.

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