Queen Anne, Seattle

Queen Anne is a neighborhood in northwestern Seattle, Washington. Queen Anne covers an area of 7.3 square kilometers (2.8 sq mi), and has a population of about 28,000. It is bordered by Belltown to the south, Lake Union to the east, the Lake Washington Ship Canal to the north and Interbay to the west.

The neighborhood is built on a hill, now named Queen Anne Hill, which became a popular spot for the city's early economic and cultural elite to build their mansions. Its name is derived from the Queen Anne architectural style in which many of the early homes were built.

Queen Anne is bounded on the north by the Fremont Cut of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, beyond which is Fremont; on the west by 15th and Elliott Avenues West, beyond which is Interbay, Magnolia, and Elliott Bay; on the east by Lake Union and Aurora Avenue North, beyond which is Westlake. As a neighborhood toponym, Queen Anne may include Lower Queen Anne, also known as Uptown, the area at the southern base of the hill, just north and west of Seattle Center. Whether or not Lower Queen Anne is considered a separate neighborhood matters in setting Queen Anne's southern boundary, which is either West Mercer Street or Denny Way.

Queen Anne can be reached from Interstate 5 via the Mercer Street Exit (Exit 167). The neighborhood's main thoroughfares are Gilman Drive West, 3rd Avenue West, Queen Anne Avenue North, Boston Street, and a set of streets, collectively known as Queen Anne Boulevard, that loop around the crown of the hill and reflect a comprehensive boulevard design in the style of the Olmsted Brothers architectural firm. The design was never fully executed, but it remains part of the Seattle Parks System.

While Queen Anne stands out in Seattle geography due to its proximity to downtown and three television broadcast towers, the highest point in the city, 520 feet (160 m) above sea level, is in West Seattle. Queen Anne slopes are home to seven of the twenty steepest streets in the city and 120 pedestrian staircases.

Including the sub-neighborhoods of North Queen Anne, West Queen Anne, East Queen Anne and Lower Queen Anne (or Uptown), Queen Anne has approximately 19,000 households and a total population of about 36,000. Queen Anne is disproportionately populated by unmarried, white, young adults. The population is more racially homogeneous than Seattle as a whole.

The Vashon Glacier carved Queen Anne Hill's topography more than 13,000 years ago, and human habitation in the area began some 3000 years ago. When white settlers arrived in the mid-19th century, the Duwamish tribe maintained a seasonal presence in and around Queen Anne.

White settlement of Queen Anne stemmed from the arrival of the Denny Party at West Seattle's Alki Point in November 1851. In 1853, David Denny staked a claim to 320 acres (130 ha) of land the Duwamish called baba'kwoh, prairies, known today as Lower Queen Anne, and bounded by Elliott Bay to the west, Lake Union to the east, Mercer Street to the north, and Denny Way to the south. Denny called the area "Potlach Meadows". Development of the hill, called at various times North Seattle, Galer Hill, and Eden Hill, was slow. Then an 1875 windstorm flattened thousands of trees on Queen Anne, making the previously dense forest more appealing for settlement. The hill began to be called "Queen Anne" by 1885, after the Queen Anne style houses that dominated the area. The arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway (1883) and the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway (1887), the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, and the opening of three cable car lines to the top of the hill starting in 1890, including the Queen Anne Counterbalance, further encouraged residential and business development.^{[citation needed]}