COURTESY OF LAWTON GOWEY

Not much except the landscape has changed in the roughly 75 years between this week's "then" and "now." Most of the homes survive.   PAUL DORPAT

When the Portage School was opened, the children voted to change its name to Montlake, the newest name for their neighborhood. Portage, however, is still more descriptive for what was special about this place. No doubt for thousands of years this was where the native peoples made a relatively easy move between the two lakes. The 1856 federal timber survey noted two Indian trails crossing the portage. At least since 1854, when pioneer Thomas Mercer named Lake Union, the portage had been the band of land where the "union" Mercer had in mind was expected to be fulfilled.

For painting the new territorial university, Harvey Pike was paid with this land in 1861. Pike made the first but short-lived attempt — single-handedly — to cut with pick and shovel a channel through his property. Next he set aside a wide swath where he hoped the government would proceed to join the two lakes. Platting his land, he called it Union City. Here we are on the eastern border of Union City, looking into its heart.

In 1884 a log canal was at last cut through the portage, followed 30-plus years later by the Lake Washington Ship Canal. Still, Union City was off the beaten path and decidedly not united with its neighbors north of the canal until the Montlake Bridge was completed across it in 1925, the year, perhaps, of this scene.

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