Share: Facebook  Windows Live™

Capitol Hill

From $6 million mansions to $90,000 co-ops, from Ferrari owners to Vespa riders, from open-air burger stands to big-bucks cuisine, Capitol Hill embraces the broadest demographic in Seattle. As well it should; it contains some of the most densely populated areas of the city, with some pocket neighborhoods nearing the equivalent of 30,000 people per square mile.

Oddly enough, this lively place was originally designated a graveyard back in the 1870s, when the city founders traced a wagon trail through primeval forest to what is now Lake View Cemetery. The forest was razed in the 1880s to feed saw mills on the tide flats, creating a virtual Stumpville. Toward the close of the 1800s, the more affluent residents of what is now Pioneer Square sought cleaner, quieter places to raise their families. Led by land developer James Moore, many of them settled what was then Broadway Hill. Today two of the more outstanding artifacts of that movement are forty-acre Volunteer Park, named for local patriots who fought in the Spanish American War, and Millionaires’ Row, named for obvious reasons.

There are two versions of how Capitol Hill received its current name, both linked to James Moore, an early real estate developer. One version says he named it in hopes of attracting the state capitol from Olympia; the other that he named it after the district in Denver where his wife grew up. Either way, it stuck. Moore purchased 160 acres on Capitol Hill in January 1900 from a fellow named Hugh Wallace for $225,000. Wallace had purchased the acreage earlier that day for $190,000 from the estate of a Mexican War veteran who had been granted the land for his service in the conflict. Apparently neither Wallace nor the war veteran had ever seen the property; it seems that some things never change.