Drenched In Tradition

BY CAMPUS LORE the baptismal potential of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition's Geyser Basin was discovered soon after "Seattle's first world's fair" closed in the fall of 1909. A gang of sophisticated sophomores corralled a few naïve freshmen grazing on the lawn in front of Denny Hall and, after some serious deliberation, threw them into the circular pond that is now one of the very few surviving artifacts from the A-Y-P affair. Thereafter, Geyser Basin became Frosh Pond.

The accompanying splash is but one of an unnumbered roll of dunking photographs. There are, of course, many more stories. A few are legendary, like the springtime afternoon ca. 1965 when students launched about a dozen faculty into the pond en masse — or nearly. One of the lecturers prudently lurched in voluntarily. Among the christened was a visiting German professor who brought with him a more deferential tradition about the behavior of students toward faculty. Another honored member of this baptism was the now emeritus professor of architecture, Norman J. Johnston, who told me the story with considerable delight and wrote an account of it in his book, "The College of Architecture and Urban Planning: 75 Years at the University of Washington, A Personal View."

For a time after World War II, veterans returning as freshmen reversed the tradition and threw sophomores in the pond, but this did not last.

Frosh Pond has also been used for log rolling and, in the hottest days of summer, swimming. At about 6 feet, the water is just deep enough for bobbing and safe shallow plunging. But no more. The UW Police Department started citing swimmers for trespassing, explaining that "The purpose of the fountain is decorative. The fountain itself is not a swimming pool."

Paul Dorpat specializes in historical photography and has published several books on early Seattle.