The greenbelt behind my house has a seasonal ghost lake, which makes me suspect it used to be a deeper lake, but gradually filled in. It is dry in the summer but gets two feet of water this time of year.
A few years, ago, the mud of this ghost lake trapped a Bobcat. Not the animal, but a mini bulldozer that had been hired to illegally clear off all the trees of this several acre wetland.
I saw a tree in the forest flailing like crazy, which prompted me to investigate, and discovered a Bobcat bulldozer stuck upto its treads in mud. The equipment operator was not told there was a wetland there. His company had to bring in a second dozer to extract the first one, and the second one almost got stuck, too, then they had to shovel off the thick coating of mud. They had a very bad day.
I reported the situation to the city of Burien. They took a day to respond, but issued an immediate cease & desist order and started an investigation.
I was later told the property owner (an LLC based in Oregon) told the city they were only clearing some blackberries. However, that was contradicted by the location of where the bulldozer got stuck and what the bulldozer operator told me he was hired to do.
Long story short, I still live next to a greenbelt. Hooray for ghost lakes!
Good story. It was interesting to notice the Malmo Bog. On your map, it appears to be located at or near University Village, which was once a swampy area, filled in before the shopping center was built in the mid-1950s. One of the shops there was the Malmo garden store, under the same ownership as Ernst Hardware and Pay 'n' Save Drugs. I always assumed it was named for one of Seattle's ancestral lands, in Sweden. (Or Norway, where there's a town with a similar name.)
Now that I look into it, I see that the store was established by the Norwegian immigrant Charles Malmo, who started his business downtown in 1893. (I'm relying on HistoryLink here - hope it's accurate.)
In 1937, Malmo's son Clark bought 30 acres at the present site of University Village. In 1962 he sold his business to Ernst. The Malmo store there, adjacent to Ernst and Pay 'n; Save, was mostly or entirely indoors. Presumably the rest of his acreage became shops and a parking lot.
This doesn't answer the question of how the bog got named, but circumstantial evidence points to the person with that name.
Roger, thanks for your observations. I remember going to Ernst/Malmo in the Village when I was a kid. My guess is that the name was applied informally and originated with what you noted, that the land was owned by Charles Malmo. David
I'm glad you're writing about these! We live close enough to Dahl that our neighbors occasionally get a small ghost lake in their backyard when it rains particularly hard. I was surprised to find out the history of the park and wish I would have known when we bought the house, but the most interesting tidbit I've discovered (through Wedgwood in Seattle History's blog iirc) is that one of the first known interracial couples in Seattle lived at Dahl! Iirc, he was Japanese and she was Scandinavian, and if they had gotten married later, their union wouldn't have been legal, but the laws against interracial marriage were not yet in place. I think about the two of them living in a cabin near this bog often when I'm looking out my window.
This is a wonderful topic . In countries with ancient history, springs are revered and become famous places in history such as the Castalian spring in Delphi , Greece. In Greece, there are also rivers named for long ago nyads such as the Erkyna river in downtown Levadia. Other important water sources such as the one near Ancient Dodona in the Ioannina area has been sold to a European country, bottling water at the underground aquifer source drying up water for much of the surrounding villages . We are so fortunate for the rain here!
Thanks, David. That's a good one. They're all good one, but this one was particularly evocative.
Do you know Square Lake? In what is now the south parking lot of Northgate. Or, I guess, now it's actually a very nicely designed apartment complex that incorporates a daylighting of Thornton Creek. It's not well documented, but I've seen it on maps, and heard first hand accounts claiming, "I've fished in Square Lake," though they're more usually along the lines of "my uncle told me he used to fish in Square Lake."
I found the image of a lake right in that particular location evocative enough that I named a literary journal after it. http://www.squarelake.com/About%20Square%20Lake.htm The literary journal, like most of them, didn't last long, but perhaps it will help perpetuate the memory.
Thanks for your note and reminder. Not sure how I overlooked Square Lake as I have written about it in my book, The Seattle Street Smart Naturalist. "When developers began to prepare the ground for Northgate in 1949, the land was mostly forested with a few remnant wetlands and a pond south of the mall property. Mall owners paved over that last large pond, Square Lake, in 1971, saying "What we are doing is nothing but a complete improvement for the area."" (Seattle Times, Sept 12, 1971).
David, thank you so much for your ghost creeks and ghost lakes posts! As one who has always loved seeing what congregates around small bodies of water (both floral and fauna) and also one who has been saddened by how humans treat them so badly, I am heartened to think of their ghostly existence! Oh yes, they exist south of Seattle, too! Being raised near Burien, I know of one good sized creek and it's slow spots that once were healthy bogs. One area that has now been paved over for SeaTac overflow parking. (sigh) Still it is true that it's ghost appear with almost any heavy rain no matter how much money is thrown into 'drainage systems'. Another water ghost you might like to explore are our underground springs! Along the Highline ridge to the east of Burien we had a few of these springs that would spirt up in the woods and downhills. Thank you for giving us your knowledge of our area! Looking forward to your 2025 posts as welcome focus while we get through the enforced ignorance of the coming years.
Fascinating! And of course bogs, swamps and ponds don't just "go away" because we fill or pave them. Knowing and respecting the landscape would make building and developing much more sustainable, wouldn't it? Perhaps we'll get there someday....
Wonderful read, including, in particular the mention of the Richmond Beach gravel deposit. As a resident of RB, I had always reckoned that to be the remains of quarry operation, rather than a deltaic deposit. Good to finally know its true origin!
> that oaks were never common in Seattle, perhaps growing only at Oak Lake and south of Seward Park
That's partly true, but Garry Oaks (Oregon White Oaks) can be found in Seward Park; at Oak Manor, on Capitol Hill; and about 15 other locations in Seattle, including Martha Washington Park, which would be the place south of Seward Park mentioned in the article.
At one time the oaks grew from Seward Park to Pritchard Island. They historically grew on prairies in these parts – lands cleared for cultivation by Native Americans with the use of fire to provide the conditions for harvestable plants and game.
Elsewhere, Oak Harbor, on Whidbey Island, was named for this type of tree. (You can hear the Sound of Freedom there, while you're visiting.) The oaks, which don’t do well when shaded by the taller evergreens so common here, were valued by the Indians for their acorns, which are edible by humans and also attract wildlife.
That's from my May 2022 article in the Leschi News.
Roger, thanks for your note and additional information. You are absolutely correct that there were actually several spots with Garry oak in Seattle and that I was remiss in noting them. Can you send me a list of the 15 locations? I only know of the ones at Oak Manor, Martha Washington, and Seward Park. And, you make a key point, that the distribution of oaks is probably due to Native land management.
The greenbelt behind my house has a seasonal ghost lake, which makes me suspect it used to be a deeper lake, but gradually filled in. It is dry in the summer but gets two feet of water this time of year.
A few years, ago, the mud of this ghost lake trapped a Bobcat. Not the animal, but a mini bulldozer that had been hired to illegally clear off all the trees of this several acre wetland.
I saw a tree in the forest flailing like crazy, which prompted me to investigate, and discovered a Bobcat bulldozer stuck upto its treads in mud. The equipment operator was not told there was a wetland there. His company had to bring in a second dozer to extract the first one, and the second one almost got stuck, too, then they had to shovel off the thick coating of mud. They had a very bad day.
I reported the situation to the city of Burien. They took a day to respond, but issued an immediate cease & desist order and started an investigation.
I was later told the property owner (an LLC based in Oregon) told the city they were only clearing some blackberries. However, that was contradicted by the location of where the bulldozer got stuck and what the bulldozer operator told me he was hired to do.
Long story short, I still live next to a greenbelt. Hooray for ghost lakes!
Thanks for sharing. Always good to hear when scofflaws, particularly ones destroying the environment, are apprehended.
Good story. It was interesting to notice the Malmo Bog. On your map, it appears to be located at or near University Village, which was once a swampy area, filled in before the shopping center was built in the mid-1950s. One of the shops there was the Malmo garden store, under the same ownership as Ernst Hardware and Pay 'n' Save Drugs. I always assumed it was named for one of Seattle's ancestral lands, in Sweden. (Or Norway, where there's a town with a similar name.)
Now that I look into it, I see that the store was established by the Norwegian immigrant Charles Malmo, who started his business downtown in 1893. (I'm relying on HistoryLink here - hope it's accurate.)
In 1937, Malmo's son Clark bought 30 acres at the present site of University Village. In 1962 he sold his business to Ernst. The Malmo store there, adjacent to Ernst and Pay 'n; Save, was mostly or entirely indoors. Presumably the rest of his acreage became shops and a parking lot.
This doesn't answer the question of how the bog got named, but circumstantial evidence points to the person with that name.
Roger, thanks for your observations. I remember going to Ernst/Malmo in the Village when I was a kid. My guess is that the name was applied informally and originated with what you noted, that the land was owned by Charles Malmo. David
I'm glad you're writing about these! We live close enough to Dahl that our neighbors occasionally get a small ghost lake in their backyard when it rains particularly hard. I was surprised to find out the history of the park and wish I would have known when we bought the house, but the most interesting tidbit I've discovered (through Wedgwood in Seattle History's blog iirc) is that one of the first known interracial couples in Seattle lived at Dahl! Iirc, he was Japanese and she was Scandinavian, and if they had gotten married later, their union wouldn't have been legal, but the laws against interracial marriage were not yet in place. I think about the two of them living in a cabin near this bog often when I'm looking out my window.
Thanks for sharing that story. Valarie has done an amazing of digging up stories like this.
This is a wonderful topic . In countries with ancient history, springs are revered and become famous places in history such as the Castalian spring in Delphi , Greece. In Greece, there are also rivers named for long ago nyads such as the Erkyna river in downtown Levadia. Other important water sources such as the one near Ancient Dodona in the Ioannina area has been sold to a European country, bottling water at the underground aquifer source drying up water for much of the surrounding villages . We are so fortunate for the rain here!
Thanks for sharing. Yes, sad to learn of vital and sometimes sacred water sources being hijacked for cash. But what else is new?
Thanks, David. That's a good one. They're all good one, but this one was particularly evocative.
Do you know Square Lake? In what is now the south parking lot of Northgate. Or, I guess, now it's actually a very nicely designed apartment complex that incorporates a daylighting of Thornton Creek. It's not well documented, but I've seen it on maps, and heard first hand accounts claiming, "I've fished in Square Lake," though they're more usually along the lines of "my uncle told me he used to fish in Square Lake."
I found the image of a lake right in that particular location evocative enough that I named a literary journal after it. http://www.squarelake.com/About%20Square%20Lake.htm The literary journal, like most of them, didn't last long, but perhaps it will help perpetuate the memory.
Thanks for your note and reminder. Not sure how I overlooked Square Lake as I have written about it in my book, The Seattle Street Smart Naturalist. "When developers began to prepare the ground for Northgate in 1949, the land was mostly forested with a few remnant wetlands and a pond south of the mall property. Mall owners paved over that last large pond, Square Lake, in 1971, saying "What we are doing is nothing but a complete improvement for the area."" (Seattle Times, Sept 12, 1971).
It's a good example of a bog lake.
David, thank you so much for your ghost creeks and ghost lakes posts! As one who has always loved seeing what congregates around small bodies of water (both floral and fauna) and also one who has been saddened by how humans treat them so badly, I am heartened to think of their ghostly existence! Oh yes, they exist south of Seattle, too! Being raised near Burien, I know of one good sized creek and it's slow spots that once were healthy bogs. One area that has now been paved over for SeaTac overflow parking. (sigh) Still it is true that it's ghost appear with almost any heavy rain no matter how much money is thrown into 'drainage systems'. Another water ghost you might like to explore are our underground springs! Along the Highline ridge to the east of Burien we had a few of these springs that would spirt up in the woods and downhills. Thank you for giving us your knowledge of our area! Looking forward to your 2025 posts as welcome focus while we get through the enforced ignorance of the coming years.
Sandy, Thanks for your note. Yes, the ghost springs are by far our most common watery ghost! They are everywhere!
David
Fascinating! And of course bogs, swamps and ponds don't just "go away" because we fill or pave them. Knowing and respecting the landscape would make building and developing much more sustainable, wouldn't it? Perhaps we'll get there someday....
We can only hope and keep on alerting people to the importance of respect and knowledge.
Which is what you are doing. And I appreciate it.
Wonderful read, including, in particular the mention of the Richmond Beach gravel deposit. As a resident of RB, I had always reckoned that to be the remains of quarry operation, rather than a deltaic deposit. Good to finally know its true origin!
David, you wrote:
> that oaks were never common in Seattle, perhaps growing only at Oak Lake and south of Seward Park
That's partly true, but Garry Oaks (Oregon White Oaks) can be found in Seward Park; at Oak Manor, on Capitol Hill; and about 15 other locations in Seattle, including Martha Washington Park, which would be the place south of Seward Park mentioned in the article.
At one time the oaks grew from Seward Park to Pritchard Island. They historically grew on prairies in these parts – lands cleared for cultivation by Native Americans with the use of fire to provide the conditions for harvestable plants and game.
Elsewhere, Oak Harbor, on Whidbey Island, was named for this type of tree. (You can hear the Sound of Freedom there, while you're visiting.) The oaks, which don’t do well when shaded by the taller evergreens so common here, were valued by the Indians for their acorns, which are edible by humans and also attract wildlife.
That's from my May 2022 article in the Leschi News.
Roger, thanks for your note and additional information. You are absolutely correct that there were actually several spots with Garry oak in Seattle and that I was remiss in noting them. Can you send me a list of the 15 locations? I only know of the ones at Oak Manor, Martha Washington, and Seward Park. And, you make a key point, that the distribution of oaks is probably due to Native land management.