Monday, March 09, 2015

Spite mounds and Seattle's Denny Regrade, predecessor to the Edith Masefield Story.

By Jack Brummet, Seattle History Ed.

You've probably read about,or seen, Edith Masefield's house in Ballard.  She was a holdout. and a full block commercial development had to build around her house (for which they offered her $1 million):


During the Denny Regrade ( when Seattle sluiced the entire steep Denny Hill down into Elliott Bay), some property owners refused to sell their land.  The engineers carved around their lots, usually leaving houses stranded a hundred feet in the air atop "spite mounds."   The owners all caved in eventually (it took years) and the regrade was completed.



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