Walking the Denny Regrade with David B. Williams

Within 50-years of the Denny party’s arrival in Seattle, the city undertook several massive projects which permanently changed the topography of the city.  Between 1898 and 1930, Seattle completed perhaps the most audacious engineering change by eliminating Denny Hill at the north end of downtown.  By the end of the project, Seattleites had washed and scraped more than 11 cubic million yards of Denny Hill, reducing the previously 240-foot-high mound to a flat landscape.

During our two-mile walk, Guild Board Member David B. Williams will discuss the full scope of this massive regrade project, point out often overlooked but still existing evidence of the topographic changes, and explain how this reshaping of the Seattle landscape continues to shape Seattle and those who call it home.

David B. Williams is a geologist, author, and educator whose award-winning book Too High and Too Steep: reshaping Seattle’s Topography explores the unprecedented engineering projects that shaped Seattle during the early part of the 20th century.  His other books include Seattle Walks: Discovering History and Nature in the City and Waterway: The Story of Seattle’s Locks and Ship Canal (to be published July 2017).

Because this walk is in the regrade district, there is minimal elevation change.  This walk has a limit of 15 people. 

To sign up please contact David:  wingate@seanet.com.  David will provide additional details to those who sign up, such as starting point, closer to the date of the walk.  Cost is $10 for members and $25 for non-members.