MYRTLE EDWARDS PARK
History
Address: 3130 Alaskan Way W
General Parks Information:(206)684-4075
In 1955, Mrs. F. F. Powell retired from City Council after 20 years
of service. As her replacement, the Council chose Mrs. Myrtle Edward,
a graduate of the University of Illinois, a pianist and a vocal soloist
who gave up her career to marry Harlan Edwards, an engineer, in 1918.
In 1941 Mrs. Edwards succeeded Mrs. Powell as Chairwomen of the Harbor
and Public Grounds Committee of Council, later changed to Parks and
Public Grounds. She was unanimously elected President of City Council
in 1969.
She was always at the forefront of campaigns and programs to preserve
Seattle's natural beauty and to enhance it with new parks, planting
and sculpture. One of her projects was the acquisitions of the Gas
plant site on the north shore of Lake Union, which she began to
promote soon after joining City Council. In 1962, the City entered
a 10-year contract to purchase the plant site for park purposes.
But Myrtle Edwards did not see the park become a reality before
she died in 1969, the result of a tragic automobile accident in
Idaho.
The park on Lake Union was named in her honor in 1969. But as it
became evident that the park design would feature the preservation
of the industrial (plant) sculpture, the Edwards family requested
her name be withdrawn in 1972. This was park was named Gas Works
Park. In 1976, her family approved the renaming of Elliott Bay Park
as Myrtle Edwards Park. During her tenure on City Council she frequently
was the lone dissenting moderate voice, but many times her quiet
persuasion won over her eight male colleagues. Said one of them:
"She was always willing to hear new ideas and change her mind."
More Park history is now available from the files of Don Sherwood,
1916-1981, Park Historian
> View the Don Sherwood
History Files
> more about Myrtle
Edwards at Historylink.org
Updated
August 3, 2004
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