Yesler Terrace

Yesler Terrace, a 22-acre (8.9 ha) public housing development in Seattle, Washington was, at the time of its completion in 1941, Washington State's first public housing development and the first racially integrated public housing development in the United States. It occupies much of the area formerly known as Yesler Hill, Yesler's Hill, or Profanity Hill. The development is administered by the Seattle Housing Authority, who have been redeveloping the neighborhood into a mixed-income area with multi-story buildings and community amenities since 2013.

The name derives ultimately from Henry Yesler, pioneer mill owner. Yesler Way was originally the skid road on which logs were skidded down to the mill. The southern part of the hill came to be known as Yesler's Hill, Yesler Hill, or Profanity Hill. These names referred roughly to the part of First Hill south of the original King County Courthouse at 8th Avenue and Terrace Street. Razed in 1931, the courthouse site was roughly the western portion of the present-day Harborview Medical Center. The name "Profanity Hill" could have its origins from the cursing of the attorneys and litigants at having to climb so steep a grade after missing the cable car, or because of the slum neighborhood known for its uncouth inhabitants to the south where Yesler Terrace is now situated.

Yesler Terrace is located on the southernmost part of First Hill, along Yesler Way immediately east of downtown Seattle. Uphill across Interstate 5 from Pioneer Square and the International District. Much of the site included Nihonmachi or Japantown until Executive Order 9066 ordered residents to be interned.

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