Bagley Viewpoint

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HOURS

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

ABOUT THE PARK

This is a really cool viewpoint that overlooks the SR 520 floating bridges, Lake Washington, and Bellevue beyond. The UW stadium is also visible from here, and with its easy-to-access parking lot, makes for the perfect spot to spend your lunch hour.

HISTORY

The acquisition of property to create Interlaken Park in 1908 was basically an enclosure of the 1896 bicycle path that made its way along the bluff and through the ravines in this area. The northern entrance to Interlaken Park was at 11th and Roanoke. By this time the Broadway trolley car had been extended northward on 10th Avenue, and those who enjoyed a stroll or hike along this highly scenic portion of the bike path would come by the trolley car, so this entrance became very popular. The west portion of Interlaken Boulevard split away from Delmar Drive and followed the Old Bicycle Path along the bluff and ravines to join the Interlaken Boulevard at Halfway House. Evidently little more than clearing, grubbing and park maintenance, if the path did in fact cross through this triangle, was done in this area till 1916. From this end of Interlaken Park there was a superior view of Portage Bay, the U.S., Laurelhurst, Lake Washington, and the Cascade Mountains. One could have watched the digging of the Ship Canal which was completed in 1917. One of the watchers could have been one of the originators of the Canal plan, Dr. Herman Bagley, except that he died about 1895.

In 1916 Dr. Bagley’s widow, Mrs. M.W. Glenn, presented an ornamental drinking fountain with lights to the memory of Dr. Herman Beardsley Bagley, one of the territory’s first homeopathic (vaccination) physicians and surgeons. He had been born in New York in 1845, studied medicine with his physician-father, and taught in Michigan, until he eventually left and followed his father to Seattle. He was elected president of King County and Washington Homeopathic Societies, was County Health Officer and elected to the State Board of Medical Examiners, and was president of Seattle Improvement Co. (Bagley Avenue named for him) and was a director of Washington National Bank. Elected councilman in 1879, his continued promotion of civic projects was outstanding. The fountain was appropriately placed at the west entrance of Interlaken Park Boulevard, to be known as the Bagley Memorial Fountain (aka Bagley Light”). About 1952 the crumbling Fountain was removed but the plaque from it was not returned until 1970 when the viewpoint was redeveloped following the construction of the access freeway to the Evergreen Point floating bridge in 1963. The freeway very effectively cut the viewpoint off from Interlaken Park; if the freeway had not been realigned it would have completely eliminated the viewpoint.

(Edited from the files of Don Sherwood, 1916-1981, Park Historian.)