University District

A City of Seattle historic-resources survey says James A. Moore platted the Brooklyn Addition in 1890, today’s University District core. In 1891, a Department of Planning and Development existing- conditions report says, settlers voted to bring Brooklyn into Seattle. David Denny’s Rainier Power and Railway Company built the Latona Bridge that year and, in 1892, extended a trolley north along Columbus Avenue, now University Way.

In the fall of 1895 the University of Washington moved to its present campus with 310 students. The University Store opened at 42nd and Columbus the same year, and the streetcar stop at 42nd and Brooklyn soon became University Station. By 1900 enrollment was 614 and the census counted more than 400 people in the Brooklyn Addition. By 1910 enrollment reached 2,200, and the city survey says the district contained the greatest concentration of commercial buildings outside downtown.

The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition and the 1917 ship canal pulled more growth north of Lake Union. The University Bridge opened in 1919 and made 10th Avenue NE, now Roosevelt Way, the main north-south arterial. The 2015 city survey called the district home to more than 50,000 students, faculty, and staff and about 35,000 permanent residents. The sources below are City of Seattle historic-preservation and planning reports.