Olmstead in Seattle: Creating a Park System for a Growing City

Many Seattle neighborhoods are distinguished by their parks and linked together by park boulevards.  This defining quality is the result of the city’s Board of Park Commissioners hiring John Olmsted in 1903 to create a park system that would make Seattle a world-class city.  Olmsted in Seattle traces the story of the park system’s expansion from the handful of parks Olmsted found upon his arrival, through the development of three citywide plans and dozens of landscape designs for parks and parkways.  This publication illustrates the influence the park system, with Olmstead’s principals and guidance, has had on the city’s development and character.

Jennifer Ott is an environmental historian and assistant director of HistoryLink. She has served on the board of the Friends of Seattle's Olmsted Parks and the Volunteer Park Trust steering committee and is the coauthor of Waterway: The Story of Seattle's Locks and Ship Canal.

Paperback: 144 pages

Publisher: History Ink; Illustrated edition (November 20, 2019)

ISBN: 9781933245560

Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 1 x 10 inches