Naming Rights: Magnolia

This is the latest in a series of posts examining the naming origins of our Seattle neighborhoods. Last week we discussed the mysterious John Wallingford. Today it's over the bridge to Magnolia.

As the local legend famously goes, in 1856, naval geographer George Davidson mistook the native madrona trees lining the windswept bluff facing Puget Sound for warm-weather magnolia trees and the name stuck. This was just the beginning of the military's influence on this somewhat isolated peninsula that even today remains impervious to the faster pace of other parts of the city.

The area became part of Seattle in 1891, part of a major annexation that doubled the city's size overnight. Wallingford, Green Lake and the area currently known as the University District were also part of that acquisition.

The U.S. Army created Fort Lawton in 1898. While the complex was never central to US coastal defense efforts, it did play a significant role in preparing troops for battle in the first few decades of the 20th century. According to this HistoryLink essay:

During World War I, Fort Lawton served as a training post for troops bound for Europe. During the isolationist period that followed the Great War, the Army saw little need for keeping the installation active and in 1938 attempted to surplus it to the city. The city council declined the offer because Seattle's meager, depression-era coffers were insufficient to pay for maintenance of the grounds.

Had the city accepted, the Army would no doubt have revoked the gift a few years later, following America's entry into World War II.

After the Korean War, military presence on the Pacific dwindled in subsequent decades, federal legislation ultimately returned 85 percent of the land to the city--a more complicated process than when the land was offered to Seattle in 1938 for just a dollar.

No less a celebrity than Tricia Nixon presided over transferring the land back to the city in 1972 and the bulk of it became Discovery Park.