Magnuson Park

Magnuson Park is a park in the Sand Point neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. At 350 acres (140 ha) it is the second-largest park in Seattle, after Discovery Park in Magnolia (which covers 534 acres (2.16 km²)). Magnuson Park is located at the site of the former Naval Station Puget Sound, on the Sand Point peninsula with Pontiac and Wolf bays that juts into Lake Washington in northeast Seattle.

The area has been inhabited since the end of the last glacial period (c. 8,000 BCE—10,000 years ago). Prairie or tall grassland areas (anthropogenic grasslands) were maintained along what is now Sand Point Way NE (map [1]), among numerous locations in what is now Seattle. The Xacuabš (Xachua'bsh or hah-choo-AHBSH, "the People of the Large Lake", now of the Duwamish tribe) had the village of TLEHLS ("minnows" or "shiners") on the shores of what is now called Wolf Bay in Windermere, on Lake Washington south of SqWsEb, now called Sand Point-Magnuson Park. BEbqwa'bEks ("small prairie"—anthropogenic grassland) was near what is now Windermere. One or three sizable longhouses have been documented. Villages were diffuse. These people may have been associated with the hloo-weelh-AHBSH of Union Bay. Just on the other side of Sand Point, the village of too-HOO-beed was of the too-oh-beh-DAHBSH extended family, near what is now called Thornton Creek at what is now Matthews Beach, so Sand Point was their shared "side yard".

The first park at Sand Point was established in 1900 as Carkeek Park, a gift from developers Mr. and Mrs. Morgan J. Carkeek. After World War I, a movement was begun to build Naval Air Station (NAS) Seattle at Sand Point, and King County began acquiring surrounding parcels. In 1922 the U.S. Navy began construction on the site, which it was leasing from the county, and in 1926 the Navy was deeded the 413-acre (1.67 km²) field outright. The name Carkeek Park was subsequently given to a new park on the west side of the city, north of Ballard on Puget Sound. This deed amounted to a public gift of $500,000 from the county to the Navy, in 1926 dollars; this would be $5,283,000 in 2005 dollars, not including significant real estate appreciation. The facility then became known as Naval Air Station Sand Point.

During construction of the naval air station, the Sand Point Airfield was the origin of the first successful aerial circumnavigation of the world, which was completed in 1924.

Naval Air Station Seattle was deactivated in 1970 and the airfield was shut down; the reduced base was renamed "Naval Support Activity Seattle." Negotiations began as to who would receive the surplus property.

In 1975 a large portion of the Navy's land was given to the City of Seattle and to the NOAA. The city's land was largely developed as a park and named Sand Point Park. In 1977, it was renamed Magnuson Park in honor of longtime U.S. Senator Warren Magnuson, a former naval officer from Seattle. Both names for the park are commonly used. The airfield runways were demolished in the late 1970s and new construction on the north end for the NOAA was completed in 1982.

The Sand Point peninsula on which Magnuson Park is located juts into Lake Washington between Wolf Bay and Pontiac Bay. As well as the park, the peninsula is occupied by parts of View Ridge and Windermere, and gives its name to the Sand Point neighborhood to the west. The easternmost point was formerly Naval Air Station-Sand Point; the old military base is now mostly public parkland. Other portions are occupied by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) western regional center and by city housing.

Magnuson Park today features several sports fields, a picnic area, a swimming beach, public sailboating, many paths for walking and bicycling, a dog park or off-leash dog area and "Kite Hill", a large grassy man-made hill constructed in the 1980s from earth and pavement pieces of the old airfield tarmac. Vehicle access includes boat launch ramps and large parking lots for cars, trucks, and boat trailers.