Kinnear Park

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HOURS

6 a.m. - sunset

ABOUT THE PARK

A roughly pie-shaped, two-tiered park, Kinnear is bigger, grassier, and woodsier than the parks on the upper part of the hill, and offers closer views of the city and the sound. It is dominated here by the grain elevators of Pier 86, where ships dock to be fed their cargoes through snaking tubes. You can also spot joggers moving antlike along the narrow green of Myrtle Edwards and Elliott Bay parks on the shoreline.

For a different, quieter mood, descend into Lower Kinnear on a narrow pathway, which leads to a tennis court, and walk among glacial boulders and maple trees.

(Excerpt from Enjoying Seattle Parks by Brandt Morgan.)

HISTORY

The park is named for the original owner, George Kinnear, who moved to Seattle in 1874. Kinnear promoted the first wagon road through Snoqualmie pass, and organized the Immigration Board. In 1889, his neighbors asked him to sell some of his wooded land to the City, and he did so - for one dollar.