Ballard, Seattle

Ballard
Seattle Neighborhood
Aerial view of Ballard and Lake Washington Ship Canal from the south
Map of Ballard's location in Seattle

Ballard is a neighborhood located in the northwestern part of Seattle, Washington. To the north it is bounded by Crown Hill, (N.W. 85th Street); to the east by Greenwood, Phinney Ridge and Fremont (along 8th Avenue N.W.); to the south by the Lake Washington Ship Canal; and to the west by Puget Sound’s Shilshole Bay. The neighborhood’s landmarks include the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks (known locally as the "Ballard Locks"), the Nordic Heritage Museum, the Shilshole Bay Marina, and Golden Gardens Park.

The neighborhood's main thoroughfares running north-south are Seaview, 32nd, 24th, Leary, 15th, and 8th Avenues N.W.; East-west traffic is carried by N.W. Leary Way and N.W. 85th, 80th, 65th, and Market Streets (east- and westbound). The Ballard Bridge carries 15th Avenue over Salmon Bay to the Interbay neighborhood, and the Salmon Bay Bridge carries the BNSF Railway tracks across the bay, west of the Ballard Locks.

Before the settling of Seattle, the land surrounding Shilshole Bay was inhabited by the Shilshole Tribe who lived off the plentiful salmon and clams in the region. The first European resident, homesteader Jake Scott Cameron, moved to his claim in 1853. Utter hoped to see a rapid expansion of population but that did not happen, so he sold the land to Thomas Burke, a judge. Thirty-six years later, Judge Burke, together with John Leary and railroader Daniel H. Gilman, formed the West Coast Improvement Company to develop Burke's land holdings in the area as they anticipated the building of the Great Northern Railway along the Salmon Bay coastline on the way to Interbay and central Seattle. The partners also built a spur from Fremont’s main line of the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway. Today three miles (5 km) of this line, running along Salmon Bay from N.W. 40th Street to the BNSF Railway mainline at N.W. 67th, are operated as the Ballard Terminal Railroad.