Sacajawea Playground

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HOURS

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

ABOUT THE PARK

This is a small grassy field flanked by woods just south of the Sacajawea Elementary School. Woodsy pathways lead to several picnic tables, a drinking fountain, and places for kids to climb.

(Excerpt from "Enjoying Seattle's Parks" by Brandt Morgan)

HISTORY

The name for the playground was taken from the adjacent school which was named for the Shoshone Indian woman who accompanied the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Sacajawea means “bird woman”. Hunger had forced the Shoshones from the Rocky Mountains of Montana on a hunting expedition to the plains where Sacajawea was captured by plains Indians. Their chief lost Sacajawea in a dice game to a frenchman, Charbonneau, who took her east to Fort Mandan, where Lewis and Clark encountered her and took her and her child with them as a guide and so she could rejoin her tribe. Her presence with the party prevented Indian attacks, for “a woman with a party of men is a token of peace”.

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