1851 - November 13 - Schooner Exact drops off the 22 people of the Denny party, considered to be the founders of Seattle.

1876 - City purchases 40 acres on top of what becomes Capitol Hill for a cemetary.

1884 - David Denny gives 5 acres of land for first city park. Surrounded by woods on the outskirts of town. Still in same location.

1887 - George Kinnear gives 14 acres for park on Queen Anne Hill.

1887 - City condemns cemetary on top of Capitol Hill and creates a park named Lake View Park.

1888 - Reverend William Beck and his wife purchase wooded ravine north of Lake Union, name it Ravenna Park, and charge $.25 for entry.

1888 - Leschi amusement park, privately owned, established at terminus of Yesler Way trolley line. Includes pavilion, casino, dance hall.

1890 - John McGilvra establishes Madison Park, another amusement grounds at the end of trolley terminus. Includes 500-seat pavilion, ball park, and horse track. Likened to a public carnival or Coney Island.

1890 (or thereabouts) - Union Trunk Lines, another trolley company, establishes amusement park at end of trolley terminus at Madrona.

1892 - City hires a new park superintendent, Edward Otto Schwagerl, who prepares a comprehensive plan for Seattle parks. Little work completed because of economic downturn in
1893.

1900 - City begins to purchase land that becomes Washington Park from Puget Mill Company. Completes by 1904.

1900 - City buys Woodland Park for $100,000 from the Guy Phinney estate. With the purchase, Seattle gained over 100 acres of mostly cleared land, along with Phinney's personal zoo including herds of wild deer, elk, and buffalo.

1900 - Assistant City Engineer, George Cotterill, produces a plan for a 25-mile system of bicycle paths around the city.

1901 - City Park, the former Lake View Park, renamed Volunteer Park, to honor veterans of Spanish-American War.

1902 - Seattle Board of Park Commissioners decides it wants a more elaborate park system and contacts Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., who is ill. His son, Frederick Jr., had joined the firm, now known as the Olmsted Brothers, but he was teaching and could not make it to Seattle. The firm wrote that their senior partner, John Charles Olmsted, was available. The dubious Board wanted to know more about this 'other' Olmsted. After the firm sent a letter listing his extensive park planning work, which they normally felt was rather unnecessary, the Board finally hired John Charles Olmsted.

1902 - September 21 - Full-page article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer urges the city to acquire more land and to develop an elaborate park system. The story, Let Us Make a Beautiful City of Seattle, ends with sparkling endorsements for parks from many of the city's leading citizens.

1903 - April 30 - John Charles Olmsted and assistant Percy Jones arrive in Seattle from Portland. They spend month of May surveying the city by horse, trolley, foot, and boat. They leave on June 6 and send their formal report back to Seattle on July 2, 1903.

1903 - October 19 - Seattle City Council approves the Olmsted Brothers' "A Comprehensive System of Parks and Parkways." The central feature of the Olmsted plan was a twenty mile-long parkway that ran from Bailey Peninsula (Seward Park) to Fort Lawton (Discovery Park). From Bailey the pleasure drive would snake along the lake shore, climb up and wrap along the bluff that now encompasses Colman and Frink Parks, dive back down to the water at Madrona Park, and eventually turn inland to Washington Park. From here the roadway would cut to the UW campus, pass through it to Ravenna Park and the adjacent ravine (Cowan Park), and eventually parallel the brook that flowed from Green Lake. The parkway would continue through Woodland Park, descend to the northwest corner of Queen Anne, wrap around the hill's north end and through Interbay to Smith's Cove with a final extension along the Magnolia bluffs to Fort Lawton.

1905 - State of Washington gives Green Lake to City.

1906 - John M. Frink and wife purchase 15.5 acres and give land to city for Frink Park.

1906 - Seattle citizens vote $500,000 bond for park land acquisition.

1906 - City acquires land from Charles Cowan.

1907 - Ferdinand Schmitz donates 30 acres, some of last old growth in city, to Seattle.

1908 - Seattle citizens vote $1,000,000 bond for park land acquisition.

1909 - City acquires three trolley parks, Madrona, Madison, and Leschi.

1909 - Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition held on grounds of University of Washington. AYP is designed by Olmsted Brothers.

1910 - Seattle citizens vote $2,000,000 bond for park land acquisition.

1910 - City acquires Colman Park, old pumping ground for city water, from estate of James M. Colman.

1911 - City condemns and acquires Bailey Peninsula for $322,000, becomes Seward park.

1911 - City condemns and acquires Ravenna Park.

1920 - February 24 - John Charles Olmsted dies in Brookline, Massachusetts.

1936 - Olmsted Brothers' employee James Dawson designs Arboretum in Washington Park.