Naming Rights: Wallingford
This is the latest in a series of posts examining the naming origins of our Seattle neighborhoods. Last week we stopped by Ballard, but we're following Rob's lead from Monday's Re:Take and heading over to Wallingford.
In most towns, getting a neighborhood or street named after you doesn't require an act of heroism, or decades of sterling public service. You just need to be a real estate developer. Hence, Wallingford takes its name from developer John Noble Wallingford Jr.
Wallingford arrived in Seattle in 1888 at age 55 and purchased a large parcel of land between Lake Union and Green Lake. This Historylink piece by Paul Dorpat gives some basic background:
He was born in Maine, and served in the Civil War on the Union side. Before moving to Seattle he ran a general store in Minnesota, and a lumberyard in Napa City, California. Once in Seattle, he interested himself in civic affairs. He served on the Seattle City Council twice and as Police Commissioner for a time.
Beyond these details, we don't know a lot about the man who gave his name to one of the city's most charming, and bungalow-filled, neighborhoods. Wallingford actually left more of a mark on the Green Lake neighborhood, says Dorpat, developing two tracts of land within that neighborhood's boundaries. His daughter Emma also married a man named William Wood, the primary developer of the Green Lake district who would also serve as Seattle's mayor.
The area was annexed to Seattle in 1891. By the time Wallingford died in 1913, his namesake neighborhood was just getting started, thanks in part to a streetcar line that ran from the Fremont corner of Lake Union up to Green Lake. Another streetcar line was completed in 1907 that ran from the University District down 45th Street, creating what remains Wallingford's major commercial center to this day.
