Ever wonder what your neck of the woods looked like a long time ago? A while ago, I stumbled across a set of aerial photographs from 1936 at the King County Records site. Looking at many areas of Crown Hill using the online IMAP Geographic Information System, I visualized the area before it was converted to the present day densely packed grid of mostly single family houses. The whole area bore a distinctly rural character, with scattered rectangular arrays of orchard trees, agricultural plots and out buildings. Holman Road existed, though it appears unpaved and deeply rutted. The red dot on the photo below is at the intersection of present day 12th Ave NW and NW 95th.

What must it have been like to live here in 1936, seventeen years before I was born? The aerial photo depicts a more rural, less crowded, more open space environment. I always imagined a lush tree canopy then, but the photographic evidence demonstrates more open fields. The diagonal walking paths from point to point invoke visions of a time where walking accounted for a far greater percentage of trips out of the front or back door.  The houses are set back from the long streets (present day avenues) on privately maintained access roads, many of which exist to this day.  Did the paths crossing Holman exist before Holman? They intersect Holman at right angles unlike the streets of then and now. 13th Ave NW does not exist here. Mary Ave extended southward only to 95th. Like now, Holman bisects the area, but certainly carried far less traffic, and there were no businesses facing it then.

Children likely walked to the Crown Hill School from their houses unaccompanied by parents, and played in the vast fields, rode their bicycles, and skinned their knees on the dirt paths and roads. Residents shopped for groceries in the market at the site of the present day Safeway(15th and 85th).  Definitely a different time and place. If only I could zoom in to see the people! I imagine the people  would be hale and hearty farmers with big pots of soup on their wood burning stoves and loaves of fresh baked bread in the ovens.

I encourage you to make use of this tremendous online historical resource at King County Records. It is free for non-commercial use and takes but a few short minutes to learn how to use the system. The time spent is rewarded with a view into the history of Crown Hill.

1. Point your web browser to: http://www.kingcounty.gov/operations/GIS/Maps/iMAP.aspx
2. Click on the “Start iMAP” button. A new window or tab should open in your browser.
3. In the right hand column are the various layers you can choose. Expand the “imagery” node at the bottom of the column and check the 1936 b/w aerial photos item.
4. In the left hand column, click on the ‘Property Search’ button, and you can enter a parcel number, or search by address or intersection.
5. You may want to uncheck various other layers in the right hand column to get the best picture.
6. You can save a copy by clicking the save icon (just to the right of the printer under “output) in the left hand column. The picture will appear in a new browser window and can be saved to disk from there.
7. Enjoy! Share with your neighbors. Post comments below.

We have a number of history-themed articles planned in the next few months, so keep checking back. If you know of historical photographs, articles, artifacts, stories, etc. about Crown Hill, let me (dennis@crownhillneighbors.org) know, and I may include it in a future article here. If you would like to help out, great and let me know as well.
I would also like to work on a couple of oral history interviews of people and families that were in Crown Hill prior to about 1950, let me know as well.