(Brandt Morgan, author of “Enjoying Seattle’s Park has written the followinghistory of Discovery Park. Morgan who now lives in Santa Fe, NM, is a former president of the Friends. For space considerations the copy has been edited)

By 1890, Puget Sound had been recognized for its strategic defense value, and the building of the Bremerton Naval Shipyards brought demands for an Army post to protect the area…The Seattle Chamber of Commerce raised $35,000, relocated settlers, and arranged for the citizens’ generous donation of over 600 acres of Magnolia Bluff to the U.S. Government...

...The fort...was a disappointment to Seattle. While the Chamber of Commerce had visions of a major fortress with coastal batteries and troops…to bolster the local economy, the base smoldered in mediocrity...

...Visions of a public park began to take shape first in a plan by the Olmsted Brothers in 1910; then on the editorial pages of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1917. Said the P-I: “No doubt Uncle Sam, if properly approached will prove as generous as the original donors and will readily assent to the conversion of the reservation as a park.”

...Little more was said about a park until the mid-Depression years, when newly elected U.S. Congressman Warren G. Magnuson was asked by the Army if Seattle would like to buy the Fort Lawton site -for a dollar. Incredibly, the city turned down the offer; fearing maintenance costs would be too heavy to bear.

During World War II...Ft. Lawton rumbled with Army trucks and uniformed troops going to and from the battlefields of the Pacific. The base processed over a million soldiers and some 6,000 prisoners of war before it sank back into somnolence.

In 1964, the Army announced plans to surplus eighty-five percent of Fort Lawton, and suddenly groups began a wild scramble for the land... Instead of a single dollar, Uncle Sam now wanted millions-fifty percent of the fair market value. And while Washington State’s representatives were paving the way for an act of congress.the Department of Defense began drooling over the idea of sinking shafts into the old fort for an antiballistic missile site.

By 1968, the battle of the ABMs had escalated into full-scale political war. The Citizens for Fort Lawton Park enlisted the state’s U.S. congressional delegation and fired off volley after volley of letters and petitions to the nation’s capital. Finally after a crucial summit conference with Senator Henry M. Jackson, the federal government gave up the missile site.

But the Fort Lawton war was not over. Next, the Navy and the Coast Guard announced plans to take over large chunks of the bluff. This brush fire was snuffed out, again by Senator Jackson. Then, in early1970, the United Indians of All Tribes stormed Fort Lawton’s main gate, demanding the surplused land be returned to Native Americans... After a month-long siege, the city agreed to set aside nineteen acres of the new park for an Indian cultural and educational center.

Finally, in 1970, ...Congress passed a bill allowing surplused federal property to be returned to the cities at no cost... But the base that had seen so little military action had now become the scene of domestic squabbles... How should the land be used? An aquarium! A zoo! A radar station! A hospital! A police academy! A national park! A federal housing project! A national cemetery! A golf course! All of these things were seriously suggested and pushed by various groups.

Each year now Discovery Park’s grasses grow longer, its forests thicker, its animals and birds more numerous. Each year more mosses, horsetails, and blackberry vines march across the surplused military roadways, providing new homes for woods creatures and reclaiming the wildness of the old Magnolia Bluff. Today, Discovery Park has the potential of becoming the greatest urban nature park in the nation. The only things missing are regular funding to insure continuance of its nationally recognized environmental educational program, and legislation to prevent the erosion of its identity as a quiet natural preserve.

As spring approaches and Mother Nature allows us a few sunny days. Discovery Park fills up with all those Seattlites escaping the four walls enclosing them during windy, rain drenching winter days.

Friends of Discovery Park's Board of Directors have been busy keeping abreast with the UIATF's development proposal, the Metropolitan Parks District bill before our state legislators, activities in the park, King County's Regional Waste Water Treatment Plans, the Army Reserves proposal to change the entrance to the park, and more.

Some of you may have read in the Magnolia/Queen Anne News about the complaint against Ken Bounds, Superintendent of the Parks and Recreation Department. Apparently someone picked up our request on our web site that asked that donations to the Save Discovery Park fund be sent to our mailbox at the Visitor's center. The complaint centered on city staff sorting our mail. As soon as we heard about it we rented a PO Box for contributions. The new address is Friends of Discovery Park, P.O. Box 99662, Seattle, WA 98199.

The Board meets at 7PM the first Wednesday of the month in the Discovery Park Visitor's Center. We welcome guests and appreciate their questions and comments. Come find out more about us. If you are interested in serving on the Board, please let me know by sending a letter to the Friends. In the meantime, get out there and enjoy that fresh air.

Valerie Cholvin

The City Department of Design, Construction and Land Use (DCLU) sent a notice to citizens on March 12^th that comments on the People’s Lodge proposal had been accidentally recycled.

The trashing of comments occurred in January when comment letters were left out for review and were picked up for recycling. Nearly all the comments had opposed the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation’s plan for a 148,000-sq. ft. People’s Lodge in Discovery Park.

A member of the Citizen Coalition Committee wrote that 1100 comments were lost representing six years of citizen input from January 4th, 1993. The citizen wrote that “the only reason is (the loss) was made public is because a citizens’ group made a request to see all written materials on the project under the Freedom of Information Act. This group received a letter saying the documents were ready and, ‘by the way, the set of comment letters from citizens were thrown out by the janitors. They do not exist.’ ” DCLU admitted it was the first time they have ever lost all citizen comments for a project.

The citizen’s letter says, “The only reason DCLU sent out the Lost Comments’ notice is because of the citizens’ discoveries.”

DCLU’s notice said “that because you may have made comments that are not related to topics made in the EIS, you may wish to provide us with comments to replace those lost. …You are welcome to submit them now…by sending letters to DCLU, 710 2nd Ave, Suite 200, Seattle WA 98102-1703, attention Carol Proud, project director, or by email to mupl@ci.seattle.wa.us”.

Carol Proud says that the draft EIS is likely to be issued in early April. Citizen are outraged at the carelessness and call for a delay in issuing the EIS so that earlier comments are available again for public review. DCLU gave no explanation for the delay of over a month in notifying citizens who had written in or signed petitions.

Listing the Chinook salmon as an endangered species adds new urgency to King County’s Regional Wastewater Service Plans.

Water quality and water reuses are important points in County Executive Ron Sim’s preferred alternative. It would construct a new plant in North King County or South Snohomish County. This is where heavy population growth is occurring. The West Point sewage treatment plant below Discovery Park would not be expanded.

Sim’s proposal is a feasible plan. It meets the terms of the city and state shoreline programs and the settlement agreement with the Friends and other litigants. It also carries out the federal mandate to increase water recycling, improve water quality and to take steps to that protect the endangered Chinook salmon and other fishlife.

Send letters of support to Executive Sims at the King County Courthouse 516 2^nd Ave., Rm. 1200, Seattle WA 98104 or email: ron.sims@metrokc.gov or FAX (206) 296-0194.

Susan Murphy, master birder, writes about Discovery Park in the Seattle Audubon newsletter, Earthcare Northwest (March 1999).

“Any Seattle day, when you’re looking for a quiet, tranquil place for good birding, come to Discovery Park. Thrusting westward into Puget Sound where Elliott and Shilshole Bays meet, this magnificent urban wilderness is a crucial migration rest stop and permanent home for over 230 species of birds. Half the birds recorded in the state have been recorded here at least once, and during migration you might find eighty species if you’re are thorough and lucky. A few hours of easy hiking reward you with sights of sea birds, raptors, sandpipers, gulls, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, owls, flycatchers, swallows, wrens, kinglets, warblers, sparrows, and flinches.”

Ms. Murphy goes on to list a few individual birds seen in Discovery Park. It is a wonderful article. You might call (206) 523-4483 to get the complete article. While you are at it ask about joining Audubon..

The many Friends members who worked so hard to save the wildlife corridor connection in the Kiwanis Ravine should be pleased to know the City Light sub-station on W. Oman street is gone. Parks now own the property.

A park sign reads “Kiwanis Ravine Greenspace-Heron Rookery” The Army Reserve has removed the fence down to W. Oman. The “critters” now have a direct route into Discovery Park.

Dee Perguson, a historic supporter of Discovery Park and a former board member of the Friends, is leading Spring wildflower bloom walks through Discovery Park on May 9^th and May 16^th from 1:30-3:30PM. We know no one who knows more about the flora of the park and the Wolf Tree Nature Trail than Dee.

Interested? Call the Visitor Center, (206) 386-4236, to sign up.

The King County Wildlife Program can help you connect with wildlife in numerous ways. Their newsletter is free and is full of information on how to reach, view and help sustain wildlife and wildlife habitat.

For information write: Kate Stenberg at the King County Wildlife program, 810 3rd Ave. Suite 350, Seattle WA 98104 or call (206) 296-7266. Email is: kate.stenberg@metrokc.gov .

Puget Sound Journey (March/April 1999) says the rain forests in the Quinault, Queets, and Hoh River valleys in Olympic National Park support the most concentrated biomass on earth, a staggering 500 tons of growing things per acre. Rainfall is 140 to 167 inches (with a record 191 in 1997) a year.

National Wildlife Magazine’s article (Feb./Mar. 1999) ”Why Birds Love the Big Apple” says New York City is now designated as one of the nation’s important bird areas.

Hard to believe? Well like Discovery Park, Central Park’s 841 acres serve as a stopping place for migrant birds and habitat for others. The article states, “For many species, Central Park is the only game in town. That’s why ornithologists call places like it a ‘migrant trap.’ Many of the birds flying this route simply would not survive their long perilous journey without such islands of green.”

The estimate is that Central Park maybe serves 15 percent of all birds migrating through the area.

The park attracts a large number of birds and species because it includes meadow-edge habitat, forest, swampy bowers and ponds. It sounds like our Discovery Park that offers quiet and solitude, food and rest for birds using the Pacific flyway.

Editor’s Note: Our elected officials must realize the importance the beauty, quiet and solitude of Discovery Park is in preserving sanity and to give renewal to citizens of a metropolis city like Seattle.

Citizens, not our politicians, by their efforts, created this great park. Before we allow an over-sized Peoples’ Lodge to be built or a sewage treatment plant to expand again, it is imperative for our leaders to appreciate the precious open space and natural values of this park. Too many parks were ruined because elected caretakers chose not to defend the people’s property they held in trust.

Here are comments on this park by visitors from all over the world and our own citizens. Everyone can understand and treasure the beauty of Nature and natural parks.

“Oh la la. Lovely. Wonderful hiking trail“

-Yellow Springs, OH

“A great exhibit. Cougar “sited” in 1981 on display chronology should be “Sighted.”

-Kamiah, ID

(Ed. Note: Olmstead on the display should read Olmsted too.)

“Good day for hawk watching.”

-Shoreline WA

“Beautiful! God’s Country!”

-Boulder CO.

“Very beautiful park. Nice Trails.”

-San Francisco CA

“We need alcoves and sanctuaries free of commercial activity where man can escape the city crowds and find solitude in the woods.”

William O. Douglas
(1898-1980)

The Discovery Park naturalists want you to join the dedicated volunteers making up the Adopt-An-Area program. You can join as an organized group, a family unit or just as an individual. The program is self-run so you set your own schedule.

Help keep plant diversity high by eradicating aggressive, non-native plants. It’s fun, it’s healthy and it is a real contribution to the beauty of Discovery Park. For information or to join call Julie Tubbs Luthy at (206)386-4236.