Columbia City, Seattle, Washington
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Seattle_Map_-_Columbia_City.png
Columbia City is a neighborhood in the Rainier Valley area of south Seattle, Washington. It was dense forest, uninhabited by the local Native Americans, until the arrival of the Rainier Valley Electric Railway from Downtown in 1891. A lumber mill was built soon after, and settlement of "Columbia," named after Christopher Columbus, began in earnest in 1891. Three streets in the neighborhood bear names of other famous explorers, a Columbia Street already existing in Downtown: Ferdinand Street after Magellan, Hudson Street after Henry Hudson, and Americus Street after Amerigo Vespucci.
Columbia incorporated as "Columbia City" in January 1893, and was annexed to Seattle on May 3, 1907.
In 1912, the streetcar line, which had been renamed the Seattle, Renton and Southern Railway in 1905 when it was extended south to Renton, went bankrupt, and was reorganized as the Seattle and Rainier Valley Railway. Its last run was just after midnight on January 1, 1937. Meanwhile, Columbia City's ambitions to become a seaport were thwarted with the completion of the Lake Washington Ship Canal in 1917, lowering Lake Washington by nine feet and causing Wetmore Slough to dry up. (The former slough, which was used as a dump from 1941 to 1963, is now Genesee Park.)
Part of Columbia City was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 as the Columbia City Historic District, bounded on the north by S. Alaska Street, on the south by S. Hudson Street, on the east by Rainier Avenue S., and on the west by 35th Avenue S.
Its main thoroughfares are Rainier Avenue S. and Martin Luther King Jr. Way S. (north- and soutbound) and S. Alaska Street (east- and westbound).
As of 2004, Columbia City is one of Seattle's most diverse areas in terms of income and ethnicity. By the 1970s, the neighborhood had fallen into poverty, housing stock had deteriorated, and many storefronts along Rainier Avenue S. were vacant. However, since approximately the mid-1980s Columbia City has undergone mild gentrification, resulting in restoration of many of the older homes. Today, the commercial strip along Rainier Avenue S. includes several excellent restaurants, a newly opened movie theater, and the national headquarters of the Freedom Socialist Party.
External links
- Columbia City Beatwalk (http://columbiacitybeatwalk.org/), a monthly community celebration
- Columbia City : Rainier Valley (http://www.rainiervalley.org/) A Neighborhood of Nations
- Rainier Valley Historical Society (http://www.rainiervalleyhistory.org/)