B.F. Day Playground

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HOURS

4 a.m. - 11:30 p.m.

ABOUT THE PARK

B.F. Day Playfield is adjacent to B.F. Day Elementary School in Fremont, at the corner of Fremont Avenue N and N 41st Street.

The park has a children's play area that is accessible to youngsters with disabilities, a grass soccer/baseball field, and a shelterhouse built in 1911, making it one of the oldest in the system.

HISTORY

Fremont Avenue is named for the hometown of some early Seattle homesteaders, Fremont, Nebraska. The area that is now B.F. Day Playfield was used for agriculture, fishing and logging. A trolley car ran from Fremont to downtown Seattle starting in 1900; the Lake Washington Ship Canal was built in 1917. The construction of the Aurora Bridge in 1932, which improved transportation links, also funneled traffic--and potential business--away from the community.

B.F. Day Playfield is named for the neighboring B.F. Day School, in turn named for Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin F. Day, Fremont realtors who in 1892 donated part of their 160-acre farm as a permanent home for the school. The school was across N 40th to the south until N 40th was vacated in 1907.

The Days also gave five acres to the City in 1883 that became David Rodgers Park on the east slope of Queen Anne Hill. (Edited from the files of Don Sherwood, 1916-1981, Park Historian.)