Words, Writers, Southwest Stories Presents:
Olmsted in Seattle: Creating a Park System for a Modern City
Thursday, February 13, 2025 at 6 pm via Zoom
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In the midst of galloping growth at the turn of the 20th century, Seattle’s city leaders seized on the confluence of a roaring economy with the City Beautiful movement to hire the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm to design a park and parkway system. Their 1903 plan led to a supplemental plan, a playground plan, numerous park and boulevard designs, changes to park system management, and a ripple effect, as the Olmsted Brothers were hired to design public and private landscapes throughout the region. The park system shaped Seattle’s character and continues to play a key role in the city’s livability today.

Join us for a talk by historian Jennifer Ott about the stories she uncovered in her research for Olmsted in Seattle, including what became the West Duwamish Greenbelt – the subject of the Log House Museum’s current exhibit, Seattle’s Forest.

Jennifer Ott is the executive director at HistoryLink and an environmental historian. She is a past president of Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks (including serving as board president) and former chair of the Volunteer Park Trust steering committee. Jennifer is also the co-author with David B. Williams of Waterway: The Story of Seattle’s Locks and Ship Canal (2017) and the general editor and co-author of Seattle at 150: Stories of the City through 150 Objects from the Seattle Municipal Archives (2018). She has also contributed articles on Washington state history to HistoryLink.org, Seattle magazine, and the Oregon Historical Quarterly. Her newest book, Where the City Meets the Sound: The Story of Seattle’s Waterfront, will be published this summer.