A centennial celebration today at The Mount, which sent this report and photos:

Exactly 100 years ago today, Providence Mount St. Vincent opened its doors in the same location that it is today on 35th Avenue SW. Today “The Mount,” as it is informally called, kicked off a year-long celebration with a special centennial Mass honoring the Sisters of Providence. The Most Reverend Paul D. Etienne, Seattle Archbishop, presided.

(Photos by Jennifer Richard)

The Sisters of Providence founded Providence Mount St. Vincent with a goal of caring for the poor and vulnerable elders in the community with dignity, compassion, respect and love. In 1924 it was known as the “St. Vincent Home for the Aged.” The Sisters and novices relocated Providence’s Provincial headquarters from Vancouver to the West Seattle site.

Today, The Mount serves more than 200 residents on site; 125 children in the child-care center; and nearly 1,000 patients annually in its sub-acute Transitional Care Unit. It is recognized internationally for its intergenerational programs that bring together older adults and children.

On April 26, 2024, Providence Mount St. Vincent will host a Centennial Community Open House Celebration—exactly 100 years since the building was dedicated and officially opened to the public on April 26, 1924.

That event will be open to the public – watch for more details to come.

Time for the only year-end look back that we publish every year – the 10 WSB stories that drew the most reader comments. Not necessarily the most-read stories or the most-important stories, but this is one thing our publishing system allows us to objectively quantify. So, with hours remaining in 2023, here’s this year’s countdown:

#10 – LINCOLN PARK COURT-CONVERSION OPPONENTS RALLY, PLOT STRATEGY
October 21, 2023 – 190 comments
If you are a frequent reader, you won’t be surprised to see that the uproar over Seattle Parks’ plan to build pickleball courts on a paved pad that once held tennis courts has multiple spots on this year’s list. As of now, the plan remains on hold, at least until warm-weather season.

#9 – COUNCILMEMBER HERBOLD ASKS PARKS TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING ON PICKLEBALL PLAN
October 27, 2023 – 198 comments
They did, sort of – an online briefing about West Seattle projects including this one.

#8 – DEMONSTRATION ON WESTBOUND WEST SEATTLE BRIDGE
December 29, 2023 – 200 comments (so far)
A few cars stopped traffic on the bridge, briefly, and people inside them waved Palestinian flags out the window. The minutes-long demonstration touched off a days-long discussion.

#7 – WORKERS RETURN TO LINCOLN PARK COURT-CONVERSION SITE, WITH POLICE
October 23, 2023 – 225 comments
Back to the park pickleball plan.

#6 – OPPONENT KEEPING VIGIL AT PICKLEBALL SITE; CITY TO ESTABLISH ‘WORK ZONE’
October 17, 2023 – 249 comments
For a while, city crews were under orders to push ahead with the plan.

#5 – SEATTLE PARKS SAYS IT’S ‘PAUSING PROJECT CONSTRUCTION FOR TWO WEEKS’
October 31, 2023 – 254 comments
This was the most-commented pickleball-related story. The “two-week pause” has so far lasted two months.

#4 – MAN SHOT AND KILLED NEAR WHALE TAIL PARK
May 13, 2023 – 295 comments
To date, no arrest has been announced in the shooting death of 25-year-old Davonte Sanchez.

#3 – 2 DRIVERS TO HOSPITAL AFTER COLLISION ON ALKI AVENUE PUSHES 1 CAR INTO THE WATER
July 16, 2023 – 311 comments
A man slammed his car into Madison Kelly‘s car so hard that she and her car were pushed over the seawall and into Elliott Bay; bystanders pulled her out. She spent many weeks in the hospital/rehab. To date, the driver who hit her has not been charged.

#2 – HERE’S WHAT THE PICKETING OUTSIDE THE ADMIRAL THEATER IS ABOUT
November 10, 2023 – 320 comments
Some current and former workers at West Seattle’s only movie theater announced they were going on strike. They picketed off and on for some days afterward; the theater remained open.

#1 – FIREWORKS OFF BAINBRIDGE ISLAND STARTLE THOUSANDS
September 16, 2023 – 337 comments
A huge Fourth-of-July-quality fireworks show off the west side of Puget Sound was heard around the region. To date, no official confirmation of who it was for, but The Seattle Times followed the trail quite a distance.

PREVIOUS YEARS: Here are our previous most-commented-stories lists, going back to 2011:

2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011

(Image by starline on Freepik)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

The city-landmark building at 2656 42nd Avenue SW is now home to history beyond its own.

The former Christian Science church and ex-Sanctuary at Admiral is the new home of the Washington State Black Legacy Institute.

You’re invited to one of WSBLI’s first public events, the Business Festival During Kwanzaa, Friday, December 29, through Sunday, December 31. (More on that later.)

We visited the building to talk with WSBLI’s curator Roger Evans about what’s taking shape. The goal is to unearth the stories of Black Washingtonians whose successes go back as far as the 1800s, not just to ensure those stories aren’t lost in the mist of time, but also to present them to new generations that can be inspired to take action when they see what these people achieved.

The WSBLI will be more than a place where you can go and look at exhibits, Evans explains, saying he and those working with him were drawn to the building because it has so many spaces where visitors can engage with materials and stories interactively. What he’s working with includes a 1926 copy of Who’s Who in Washington State, “centered on the Black community,” including businesspeople who comprised “a hidden Black Wall Street.” Evans is eager to “retell the story … to empower people to be contributors, not disrupters … to let them know they are valued.”

The WSBLI has its roots in the Seattle Griot Project, documenting Black history, and in a trip Evans took to Tulsa last year that reminded him and his traveling partner of the urgency of historic preservation.

They’ve already worked on some displays, portraits, and framings spotlighting historic figures – people like James Shepperson, who recruited Black miners to move to the Roslyn area in the 1880s, and Dr. Nettie Craig Asberry, an activist and founder of the Tacoma NAACP.

Evans has so many people to talk about – there’s also William Grose, “one of the richest Black men in Seattle at the time,” a wealthy landholder.

And there’s a historic figure on his own family tree, his uncle Willie Craven, who in the ’70s became the first African-American elected mayor in Washington State, leading Roslyn, where his grandfather had come to work in the mines.

There have been other efforts to assemble this history, Evans notes, such as the African-American Museum founded in Tacoma in the mid-’90s, lasting about a decade.

(WSBLI has clippings and other materials from its heyday.) Now it’s time, he says, with technology like a touchscreen kiosk in the works for the WSBLI entryway, to “bring our history into the 21st century.”

In addition to developing programming and exhibits for the West Seattle building, including a Hall of Pioneers, they plan to develop traveling materials.

In the new year, Evans says, WSBLI will also be working on a funding campaign to complete their purchase of the building (which is bringing in a bit of income for starters, with a church meeting there weekly). But first – the Business Festival During Kwanzaa. It’s planned for 2-7 pm Friday, December 29, 11 am-7 pm Saturday, December 30, and 11 am-5 pm Sunday, December 31. The goal is “to empower, inspire entrepreneurship, bridge educational gaps, and foster collaboration.” Evans shared some of the workshops that are planned:

The festival and workshops are free, but WSBLI requests RSVP through Eventbrite – here’s the Friday link; here’s the Saturday link; here’s the Sunday link.

Evans promises the festival is just the start – watch for more from WSBLI as they work to remember and honor the past while empowering and inspiring the future.

Scott McMurray is on a quest. Part of his Morgan Junction building on the northwest corner of California/Fauntleroy was a hospital a century ago, and he’s looking for a photo. He’s already tried everything else you could suggest – newspapers, historic archives, libraries, even the family of the hospital’s namesake. Now he’s asking you:

As a final try, I thought I would ask the West Seattle community to see if someone could find a picture in their grandmother’s scrapbook. There was a time, around 1916 to the early 1930s, when about half the babies born in West Seattle saw the first light of day in Dr. Charles Boudwin’s hospital in Morgan Junction.

Here is the 1930s map. This building on the northwest corner of California and Fauntleroy will have its 100th anniversary in 2028. On this map, the Boudwin Hospital is listed as 6506 Fauntleroy Avenue which is roughly in the back of today’s Whisky West located at 6451 California. Today’s ZEEKS PIZZA is at 6459 California Avenue. Sometime in the late 1930s the hospital, by then a General Hospital, was torn down. Later in the mid-1940s, a warehouse to a hardware store was added to the back of today’s building. You can see the warehouse in the Google Earth picture on the right:

West side of the Boudwin Hospital.

This is a picture of a house (6510 Fauntleroy Avenue) which was located in today’s upper parking, lot 3 of the map above. On the far right of the picture, we can see the west side of the Boudwin Hospital. As I mentioned, hospitals back then were not the big institutional affairs that we have today. In the early 1900s, many “hospitals“ were just large houses with lots of rooms.

General Hospital Sign.

By the 1930s Dr Boudwin had relocated from West Seattle and his hospital became a “General Hospital,” meaning many different nurses and doctors practised there. You can see their sign above the Piggly Wiggly corner grocery store:

… I believe it is an interesting part of West Seattle history- from caring for Spanish Flu victims to pizza and whiskey. If we locate a picture of the Boudwin Hospital it will make for a more interesting story.

If you have that photo, let us know and we’ll connect you.

Dr. Kenneth Beck wants to take you on a “Paleo Tour” of Alki – paleo as in paleontology. Even if you think you know everything about Alki’s history, his tour will almost certainly teach you something new – about something old.

Dr. Beck is a retired research scientist whose deep academic background (read about it here) includes paleontology and archaeology studies. And now he’s decided to put that to use: “I saw that few people in West Seattle knew anything about how West Seattle ‘got here,’ and that was sad. We live on one of the most interesting outcroppings in the world!”

He says the tour “will involve the ‘Adventurers’ in discovering fossils for themselves! Imagine that. Fossils from the Eocene Epoch (50 million years ago). Then, fast forward to 900 CE (AD), the Vikings were invading Ireland, the Classical Era was ending in India, and Alki rose out of the depth more than 25 feet in one of the grandest of grand earth-shattering quakes!”

The guided lecture/tour will cover two miles in two hours, on e-scooters or e-bikes (bring your own or rent one on Alki), not included in the $40/person honorarium (kids under 10 are free). You’ll meet Dr. Beck at Spud Fish and Chips (a part of Alki’s more-recent history). And this is by appointment only – he says he’ll offer the tour year-round, at low tide. You might see subtle sights like this, which he says is a fossilized clam:

If you’re interested, email him at drbeck@alkipaleotours.org.

(Photo sent by Rose)

The balloons on the recently rescued statue of Rolf Neslund mark the 45th anniversary of what led to the biggest West Seattle Bridge closure yet. On June 11, 1978, Neslund was piloting the freighter Antonio Chavez when it hit the north side of what was at the time the main bridge across the Duwamish River to/from West Seattle. That led to a bridge closure more than twice as long as the one we all recently endured. After the 1978 collision, it was six years until construction was complete on the current high-rise bridge, which was dedicated on July 14, 1984 (so next year will be its 40th anniversary). This city-produced video about the bridge’s history includes historic photos and video, as well as some of the city process that finally resulted in a plan to build the bridge, plus in the final few minutes, the dedication of the “low bridge” in 1991:

So far, no problems have been reported with the high bridge since it reopened nine months ago, following a 2 1/2-year closure.