Home delivery
Contact us
Your account

E-mail article     Print view

Pooling Our Resources

PREV |  of  | NEXT

COURTESY OF DAN KERLEE THEN: The view of the city's "low reservoir" on Capitol Hill was photographed in 1910, only nine years after it was first filled with the pure waters of the Cedar River. The steeple, left of center, tops the otherwise hidden Welsh Presbyterian Church that was then at the southeast corner of 10th Avenue East and John Street. PAUL DORPAT / THE SEATTLE TIMES NOW: Renamed Cal Anderson Park in 2003, the area for play and relaxation was then considerably enlarged with the building of a useful lid over the reservoir. Part of the reflecting pool shimmers at left.

BOTH THE HISTORICAL photograph of Lincoln Reservoir and the contemporary one of the new "waterworks" in Cal Anderson Park were photographed from very near the center of the triple block that for $10,800 the city purchased from the estate of John Nagle in 1897, a year after his death. Nagle, a Seattle pioneer from the 1850s, developed much of what later was named Capitol Hill.

The choice of repeating the contemporary photograph from near the same spot as the 1910 postcard view came with a conflict. Because the primary subject of the historical photograph is the geyser, I might have chosen to repeat it "thematically." That is, I could have moved closer to the source of the park's new fountain, the cone-shaped water slide seen in the "now" left of the figures passing through the shadow of the reservoir's preserved pump house. However, by staying with the more faithful "repeat" of the historical prospect, I could show more of the renewed park — including its central promenade, elegant light standards and traditional park benches.

The city first mused aloud about covering this "low service reservoir" in 1912 when the football teams from Broadway High were regularly sending clouds of dust from the playground half of the park in the direction of the city's drinking water. The lid was promoted again in the 1970s when it was feared that LSD might be laced into the water.

In the mid-1990s neighborhood activists embraced the city's third go-round with the lid and shaped it into the beautiful "central park" that was dedicated last year. Kay Rood, a member of this "Groundswell Off Broadway," as they called themselves, has recounted the story of their success on historylink.org, our online encyclopedia of regional history.

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