Golden Gardens Park Improvements – Seattle WA

Description

The Seattle Park Department utilized funds and labor from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to complete a series of improvement projects at Golden Gardens Park. Much of the work aimed at stabilizing the steep hillsides in the eastern section of the park. Between 1935 and 1936, WPA workers excavated more than 7500 cubic yards of earth from a landslide-prone area along Golden Gardens Drive and used it to fill in a low area north of the park bathhouse, adding two acres of usable beachfront to the park.

During this period, workers also cleared timber and removed tree stumps throughout the eastern section of the park, opening up space for the construction of drainage ditches, stairways, and trails. The rock-lined drainage ditches were intended to control the erosion along two streams that run down the hillside. In conjunction with these efforts, workers constructed two sets of concrete steps leading up from the beach area, as well as several hundred feet of new trails in the eastern section of the park, providing connections to 85th Street and Sunset Hill Park. Workers also spent part of 1936 widening Golden Gardens Drive between the park entrance and the main parking area and smoothing out the sharp curve in the roadway near its junction with Seaview Place.

Additional projects in 1937 and 1938 brought about the construction of a concrete walkway between the bathhouse and the main parking area and the extension of the hillside retaining wall along the entire length of the parking area. WPA workers also reconstructed many of the older trails in the eastern section of the park during this period. Then, in 1939 and 1940, workers installed curbs and concrete walks around the parking area and built a new path into the park from West 80th Street. One final project in 1940 provided for the construction of a model yacht sailing basin on Meadow Point at the northern end of the beach area, funded through a contribution by the Lions Club and Model Yacht Club.