Ballard is a neighborhood in northwestern Seattle, Washington, United States. Formerly an independent city, the City of Seattle's official boundaries define it as bounded to the north by Crown Hill (N.W. 85th Street), to the east by Greenwood, Phinney Ridge and Fremont (along 3rd Avenue N.W.), to the south by the Lake Washington Ship Canal, and to the west by Puget Sound's Shilshole Bay. Like many neighborhoods in Seattle, its boundaries are loosely defined; these are the ones recognized by the city's municipal departments.
Landmarks in Ballard include the Ballard (Hiram M. Chittenden) Locks, the National Nordic Museum, the Shilshole Bay Marina, and Golden Gardens Park.
The neighborhood is located entirely within Seattle City Council District 6, which also includes the neighborhoods of Green Lake, Phinney Ridge and Greenwood, along with parts of Magnolia, Fremont, Interbay, North Beach and Crown Hill. Ballard is part of the Seattle Public Schools and the Washington State Legislature's 36th legislative district. At the federal level, Ballard is part of the United States House of Representatives's 7th congressional district.
History
Early settlement As with all of Seattle, the area now called Ballard was settled by the ancestors of today's Coast Salish people at the end of the last glacial period, specifically the Duwamish (dxʷdəwʔabš) tribe. There were plentiful salmon and clams in the region. When settlers from the United States arrived, the area around Shilshole and Salmon Bays was home to a settlement (called šilšul) that has since been excavated; its artifacts are in the collection of the Burke Museum in the University District. According to oral traditions from before European contact, the group living around Shilshole may have been in decline due to a "great catastrophe". The decline of the Shilshole village was thought to have been due to raids from the slave-holding Haida people from the Queen Charlotte Islands (Now called Haida Gwaii) in British Columbia, and these raids also alarmed non-Indigenous settlers. The remaining dozen or fewer families were evicted by American settlers in the mid-19th century. The last member of the Shilshole village, named Hwelchteed but better known as "Salmon Bay Charlie", was evicted and forcibly removed in 1914 to make room for the construction of the Hiram Chittenden Locks.:File:Washington edu Salmon Bay Charlie%27s house at Shilshole w canoe offshore, c 1905, 83.10.9067.jpg
The first White resident in the area, homesteader Ira Wilcox Utter, moved to his claim in 1853. Utter hoped to see a rapid expansion of population, but when this did not happen, he sold the land to Thomas Burke, a judge. Thirty-six years later, Judge Burke, together with John Leary and railroader Daniel H. Gilman, formed the West Coast Improvement Company to develop Burke's land holdings in the area. They anticipated the building of BNSF's Great Northern Railway along the Salmon Bay coastline on the way to Interbay and central Seattle. The partners also built a spur from Fremont's main line of the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway. Today three miles (5 km) of this line, running along Salmon Bay from N.W. 40th Street to the BNSF Railway mainline at N.W. 67th, are operated as the Ballard Terminal Railroad.
During the late 19th century, Captain William Rankin Ballard, owner of land adjoining Judge Burke's holdings, joined the partnership with Burke, Leary, and Gilman. In 1887, the partnership was dissolved and the assets divided, but no one wanted the land in Salmon Bay so the partners flipped a coin. Capt. Ballard lost the coin-toss and ended up with the "undesirable" tract.
The railroad to Seattle stopped short at Salmon Bay because the railroad company was unwilling to build a trestle to cross the bay. From the stop at "Ballard Junction," (as the terminus was called) passengers could walk across the wagon bridge and continue the journey to Seattle. In addition to gaining notoriety as the end of the railway line, the fledgling town of Ballard benefited economically from the railway because it provided a way to import supplies and to export locally manufactured products. This trade connection spurred the growth of mills of many types. After the Great Seattle Fire in 1889 the mills provided opportunities for those who had lost jobs in the fire, which in turn spurred the growth of the settlement as families moved north to work in the mills. Ballard's first mill, built in 1888 by Mr. J Sinclair was a lumber mill; the second, finished the same year was a shingle mill. The local western red cedar's wood was extremely well-suited to the creation of shingles, and Ballard quickly became the center of shingle production in the region, earning the nicknames "Shingletown" and the "Shingle Capital of America." Ballard High School's mascot was the Shingle Weavers until the 1950s, when it switched to the Beavers, referencing the timber industry more generally. Ballard experienced an influx of Scandinavian immigrants during this period, and Scandinavian culture and traditions would be influential on Ballard as it developed.
City of Ballard
With the rapid population growth, residents decided that laws were needed to keep order in the community, a process that would require a formal government. In the late summer of 1889, incorporation as a town was discussed but eventually rejected. However, several months later, on November 4, 1889, the residents again voted on the question and this time they voted to incorporate. The first mayor of Ballard was Charles F. Treat. A municipal census, conducted shortly after the passing vote showed that the new town of Ballard had more than 1500 residents, allowing it to be the first "third-class town" to be incorporated in the State of Washington, which had been admitted to the U.S. just a week after the vote.
By 1900, Ballard's population had grown to 4,568, making it the seventh-largest city in Washington, and was faced with many of the problems common to small towns. In 1904, the drinking and gambling had become so bad that the mayor ordered the City of Ballard officially closed for the day to prevent gambling. The city had troubles with loose livestock, and so the Cow Ordinance of 1903 made allowing cows to graze south of present-day 65th St. a punishable offense. Ballard also faced more serious problems: the lack of both a proper water supply and a sewer system. Due to its location on Salmon Bay, there was a lack of nearby freshwater springs, which meant that water came from groundwater wells. The absence of a proper sewage system contaminated the ground water, compounding the problem.
The town continued to grow and reached 17,000 residents by 1907 to become the second-largest city in King County. However, like many of the other small cities surrounding Seattle, it continued to be plagued by water problems. The growing population had overwhelmed the city's ability to provide services, particularly safe drinking water and sewers, and Ballard's city government had tried unsuccessfully to deal with the crises. That made the citizens begin to consider asking Seattle to annex the town. In 1905, the residents voted, deciding against annexation in hope of another solution, but the water issues remained. In July 1906, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that Seattle was not allowed to provide water service to surrounding communities. Ballard had been dependent on a water sharing agreement with Seattle, but the Supreme Court decision left it with inadequate water and forced a second vote on the annexation question. The inability of local resources to cope with the situation caused the majority of residents to vote in favor of annexation. On May 29, 1907 at 3:45 a.m, the City of Ballard officially became part of Seattle. On that day, Ballard citizens demonstrated mixed feelings about the handover by draping their city hall with black crepe and flying the flag at half-mast.
Modern history
During the early 20th century, the Ballard area was home to the Ballard Shipbuilding Company, which produced ships for the US Navy during World War II as well as ships for civilian purposes. The area was also home to a significant number of fisheries and canneries. These marine industries formed the backbone of the Ballard economy for much of the 20th century.
At the end of the 20th century Ballard began to experience a real-estate boom. By early 2007, nearly 20 major apartment/retail projects were under construction or had just been completed within a five-block radius of downtown Ballard. This growth in urban density is the result of the neighborhood plan created by former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice. Mayor Rice's plan aimed to reduce suburban sprawl by targeting certain Seattle areas, including Ballard, for high-density development.
Ballard Historical Society
The Ballard Historical Society is a volunteer-run non-profit historical society located in the Ballard neighborhood. The organization does not have any traditional exhibition space, but maintains a community presence through its self-guided historical tours, historical markers, lectures, community events, and collections. The Ballard Historical Society's collections include memorabilia, historical archives, photographs, and other objects relating to Ballard History. The society has made its photo archives available online. The organization has 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
Formed in 1988 with encouragement from the Ballard Centennial Committee in celebration of the Washington state centennial in 1989, the organization's establishment coincided with the publication of Passport to Ballard, a collection of essays on the neighborhood's history from pre-European settlement up through the 1980s. In April 2007, the Ballard Historical Society unveiled its Historic Markers, which can be seen on buildings in the Ballard Avenue Historic District.
The organization also co-produced, along with the Nordic Heritage Museum and Swedish-Finn Historical Society, Voices of Ballard: Immigrant Stories from the Vanishing Generation (2001), a book collecting oral histories from long-time Ballard residents who have made the neighborhood home since before the 1960s. The Ballard Walking Tour, a self-guided tour created by the organization, highlights 20 different historic sites on and around Ballard Avenue. The most recent illustrated Tour Brochure was released in February 2009.
Every three years the Ballard Historical Society organizes the Ballard Classic Homes Tour and features a different set of vintage homes in Ballard during each parade of houses.
Culture
Ballard is the traditional center of Seattle's Scandinavian community, who were drawn to the area because of the salmon fishing opportunities.In recent years the proportion of Scandinavian residents has decreased, but the neighborhood still celebrates their part in its heritage. Ballard is home to the National Nordic Museum, with exhibits on both the community of Ballard and more general Scandinavian history. Scandinavians unite in organizations such as the Sons of Norway Leif Erikson Lodge and the Norwegian Ladies Chorus of Seattle. Each year the community celebrates Norwegian Constitution Day (also called Syttende mai) on May 17 to commemorate the signing of the Norwegian Constitution, with a parade that is one of the largest outside of Norway itself. Locals once nicknamed the neighborhood "Snoose Junction," a reference to the Scandinavian settlers' practice of using snus.