Eastside (King County, Washington)

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The Eastside is to the right (east) of Seattle. Seattle-lakewashington-lakesammamish.PNGRentonBellevueKenmoreLake Forest ParkKirklandMercer IslandShorelineWoodinvilleRedmondRedmondIssaquahSammamishMedinaTukwila
The Eastside is to the right (east) of Seattle.

The Eastside of the King County, Washington area in the United States is a collective term for the suburbs of Seattle located on the east side of Lake Washington.

Contents

The most common definitions of the Eastside include the cities of Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Sammamish, Issaquah, Newcastle, and Mercer Island. [1] [2] [3]

The towns west of Bellevue, collectively known as the Gold Coast, are usually considered part of the Eastside. These include Beaux Arts Village, Clyde Hill, Hunts Point, Medina, and Yarrow Point.

The Northshore cities of Kenmore, Bothell, and Woodinville may be considered part of the Eastside, as each city contains portions that are east of the lake and south of its northernmost tip. Similarly, on the southeast tip of Lake Washington, Renton may also be included.

The most expansive definitions of the Eastside can include cities in the Snoqualmie Valley, including Duvall, Carnation, Fall City, Snoqualmie, and North Bend.

In politics, the area is sometimes referred to as the "suburban crescent". [4]

History

Peter Kirk Building, built 1889-1890 as the Kirkland Investment Company Building. Now Kirkland Arts Center. Kirk Bldg 1889.JPG
Peter Kirk Building, built 1889–1890 as the Kirkland Investment Company Building. Now Kirkland Arts Center.

Before settlers arrived, the eastern shore of Lake Washington was dense forest largely uninhabited even by Native Americans. The Duwamish had a small settlement along the Mercer Slough and built two longhouses near Yarrow Point, but most of the Duwamish lived near present day Renton and Seattle. [5]

The cities on the Eastside mostly began as centers of logging or mining in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Once logged, the land was eventually cleared (primarily by Japanese immigrant labor) to support farming. [6] In the years prior to World War II they became centers of dairy and berry farming.

During the post-war boom, they became bedroom communities for Seattle. This was made possible by the 1940 construction of the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge across Lake Washington, as well as the later construction of the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge in 1963; additional traffic later led to the construction of an additional bridge paralleling the Murrow bridge, Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge, as well as the replacement of the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. Currently, the area is growing several edge cities.

Economy

Microsoft Building 17 Microsoft building 17 front door.jpg
Microsoft Building 17
View from Bellevue Downtown Park Bellevue Downtown Park, Washington - April 2012.JPG
View from Bellevue Downtown Park

Bellevue is the largest city on the Eastside and fifth largest in the state. A major technology center, the Eastside is home to many large high-tech companies, mainly in the software and wireless industries, including Microsoft, T-Mobile US, Nintendo of America, AT&T Mobility (formerly Cingular), the former Western Wireless (now part of Verizon Wireless), Vulcan Ventures, 180 Solutions and InfoSpace. Companies like Paccar, Puget Sound Energy, Symetra Insurance, Boeing, Verizon Wireless, Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Walt Disney, and Fox Sports also have national, major divisional or regional offices in the Eastside. The Eastside is also a hub for biotech and medical companies including Amgen, Icos, and Merck. Many local magnates, including Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, John Stanton, and Craig McCaw, live in the Eastside's cities. The Eastside is also home to many video game and interactive media companies. These include Bungie, Valve, ArenaNet, Sucker Punch, Monolith Productions, Sony Online Entertainment, Warner Brothers Entertainment, Microsoft Game Studios, Epic Games, Unity Technologies and DigiPen Institute of Technology.

Kirkland hosts the annual Junior League Softball World Series. Kirkland Signature is also the own brand of Costco, which founded its first warehouse in Seattle (#1), and operates from its corporate headquarters in the Eastside city of Issaquah.

Transportation

Air

There are public and private airfields on the Eastside. Major facilities include:

There is also a landing zone for paragliding at the base of Tiger Mountain at 47°30′01.6″N122°01′19.1″W / 47.500444°N 122.021972°W / 47.500444; -122.021972 . [7]

Rail

The Woodinville Subdivision is a rail line built in the late 19th century. In 2008, the Wilburton Tunnel was eliminated, severing the line. The right-of-way was purchased the same year by the Port of Seattle. [8] Eastside cities and King County purchased portions of the Port property for conversion to a rail trail called the Eastside Rail Corridor. [9]

Road

The Eastside is connected to Seattle by the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge from Medina (State Route 520) and the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge and Third Lake Washington Bridge from Bellevue via Mercer Island (Interstate 90). It is also served by Interstate 405, a loop route of Interstate 5 that runs to the east of Lake Washington from Tukwila to Lynnwood.

Related Research Articles

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Bellevue, Washington City in Washington, United States

Bellevue is a city in the Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area and has variously been characterized as an edge city, a suburb, boomburb, or satellite city. Its population was 122,363 at the 2010 census and 151,854 in the 2020 census. The city's name is derived from the French term belle vue.

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Lake Washington Freshwater lake in the United States

Lake Washington is a large freshwater lake adjacent to the city of Seattle. It is the largest lake in King County and the second largest natural lake in the state of Washington, after Lake Chelan. It borders the cities of Seattle on the west, Bellevue and Kirkland on the east, Renton on the south and Kenmore on the north, and encloses Mercer Island. The lake is fed by the Sammamish River at its north end and the Cedar River at its south.

Seattle metropolitan area Metropolitan statistical area in Washington, United States

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Burke–Gilman Trail

The Burke–Gilman Trail is a rail trail in King County, Washington. The 27-mile (43 km) multi-use recreational trail is part of the King County Regional Trail System and occupies an abandoned Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway corridor.

Factoria, Bellevue

Factoria is a mixed-use suburban neighborhood in south Bellevue, Washington and is one of the city's significant commercial districts. Originally timberland from the 1890s to 1920s and later envisioned as an industrial center, Factoria has since the 1960s evolved into commercial and residential development. Factoria was annexed into Bellevue in 1993. The core neighborhood is bounded by Interstate 90 to the north, Interstate 405 to the west, Newport Way to the east, and Coal Creek Parkway to the south.

Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge Floating bridge carrying a freeway in Seattle, Washington, U.S.

The Third Lake Washington Bridge, officially the Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge, is a floating bridge in the Seattle metropolitan area of the U.S. state of Washington. It is one of the Interstate 90 floating bridges, carrying the westbound lanes of Interstate 90 across Lake Washington between Mercer Island and Seattle. The floating bridge is the fifth-longest of its kind in the world, at 5,811 feet.

Transportation in Seattle Overview of transportation modes and routes in Seattle, Washington, U.S.

Transportation in Seattle is largely focused on the automobile like many other cities in western North America; however, the city is just old enough for its layout to reflect the age when railways and trolleys predominated. These older modes of transportation were made for a relatively well-defined downtown area and strong neighborhoods at the end of several former streetcar lines, now mostly bus lines.

Interstate 405 (I-405) is a north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway serving the Seattle region of Washington, United States. It bypasses Seattle east of Lake Washington, traveling through the Eastside area of King and Snohomish counties, providing an alternate route to I-5. The 30-mile (48 km) freeway serves the cities of Renton, Bellevue, Kirkland, and Bothell. I-405 terminates at I-5 in Tukwila and Lynnwood, and also intersects several major highways, including SR 167, I-90, SR 520, and SR 522.

King County Library System

The King County Library System (KCLS) is a library system serving the residents of King County, Washington, United States. Headquartered in Issaquah, Washington, KCLS was the busiest library system in the United States as of 2010, circulating 22.4 million items. It consists of 50 libraries, a Traveling Library Center, a mobile TechLab, and the ABC Express children’s library van. KCLS offers a collection of more than 4.1 million items, including books, periodicals, newspapers, audio and videotapes, films, CDs, DVDs and extensive online resources. All KCLS libraries offer free Wi-Fi connections. People can check out 100 items and hold up to 50 items.

Wilburton Trestle Former rail trestle in Bellevue, Washington

The Wilburton Trestle is a historic wooden railway trestle in Bellevue, Washington. Measuring 102 feet (31 m) high and 975 feet (297 m) long, it is the longest wooden trestle in the Pacific Northwest.

Kelsey Creek (Washington) Creek in Bellevue, Washington, United States

Kelsey Creek is a creek in Bellevue, Washington on Seattle's Eastside. Originating in the wetlands in the Lake Hills greenbelt between Phantom Lake and Larsen Lake, it flows north and west through the Crossroads neighborhood and then south to Kelsey Creek Park where it turns west and becomes the Mercer Slough just west of Interstate 405. The centerpiece of the largest wetland adjacent to Lake Washington at 367 acres (149 ha), the slough empties into the East Channel of Lake Washington at Interstate 90.

The Sammamish people are a Coast Salish Native American tribe in the Sammamish River Valley in central King County, Washington. Their name is variously translated as ssts'p-abc, s-tah-PAHBSH or as Samena, which was corrupted into Sammamish. According to Hitchman, it does not mean "hunter people": the name is derived from samma, meaning "the sound of the blue crane" and mish, meaning "river." The name may have originated with the Snoqualmie—some tribal members once lived along the lake near the bottom of Inglewood Hill—but this has not been verified. They were also known to early European-American settlers as "Squak", "Simump", and "Squowh." Squak is a corruption of sqwa'ux, meaning Issaquah Creek, which was a village site on Sammamish Lake. They were closely related to the Duwamish, and have often been considered a Duwamish sub-group as part of the Xacuabš who lived near Lake Washington. Like the Duwamish, the Sammamish originally spoke a southern dialect of Lushootseed.

Area code 425 Area code in Washington state, United States

Area code 425 is a telephone dialing code in Washington for the suburbs north and east of Seattle, particularly the Eastside, extending east to North Bend, north to Everett, and south to Maple Valley. It includes the city of Bellevue, Seattle's largest suburb.

The Woodinville Subdivision is a railroad line that was formerly owned by BNSF Railway. It takes its name from one of its original end points in Woodinville, Washington, United States. The line extends approximately 42 miles (68 km) in east King County and Snohomish County. The line's ownership has been transferred in a deal involving King County and the Port of Seattle. The section from Snohomish to Woodinville was operated, on contract, by a company called Eastside Rail Freight, which is associated with the Ballard Terminal Railroad and Meeker Southern. However, train traffic on the subdivision is exceedingly rare, with the Seattle region's rail operations now conducted on other higher capacity routes.

Interstate 90 (I-90), designated as the American Veterans Memorial Highway, is a transcontinental Interstate Highway that runs from Seattle, Washington, to Boston, Massachusetts. It crosses Washington state from west to east, traveling 298 miles (480 km) from Seattle across the Cascade Mountains and into Eastern Washington, reaching the Idaho state line east of Spokane. I-90 intersects several of the state's other major highways, including I-5 in Seattle, I-82 and U.S. Route 97 (US 97) near Ellensburg, and US 395 and US 2 in Spokane.

Lake Washington steamboats and ferries

Lake Washington steamboats and ferries operated from about 1875 to 1951, transporting passengers, vehicles and freight across Lake Washington, a large lake to the east of Seattle, Washington. Before modern highways and bridges were built, the only means of crossing the lake, other than the traditional canoe or rowboat, was by steamboat, and, later, by ferry. While there was no easily navigable connection to Puget Sound, the Lake Washington Ship Canal now connects Lake Washington to Lake Union, and from there Puget Sound is reached by way of the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks.

Eastside Rail Corridor

The Eastside Rail Corridor, officially Eastrail, is a rail Right of way where a rail trail is under development in the Eastside suburbs of Seattle, Washington. The corridor follows the path of the former Woodinville Subdivision from Renton to the City of Snohomish at Snohomish Junction. The northern portion was still in operation in 2017 by Eastside Freight Railroad.

References

  1. ↑ "Eastside Business Journal (Masthead)". Eastside Business Journal. December 2007. Archived from the original on 2008-01-06. Retrieved 2008-01-11.
  2. ↑ "Eastside Transportation Partnership Subareas (Map)" (PDF). Metro King County. April 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-10-19. Retrieved 2008-01-11.
  3. ↑ "Subarea equity". Sound Transit. December 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-12-21. Retrieved 2008-01-11.
  4. ↑ KOMO Staff; News Services (Sep 17, 2002). "Primary Election Results". KOMO News. Archived from the original on April 2, 2012. Retrieved 22 December 2010.
  5. ↑ Neiwert, David (2005). Strawberry Days . Palgrave Macmillan. p.  28. ISBN   978-1403967923.
  6. ↑ Neiwert, David (2005). Strawberry Days . Palgrave Macmillan. pp.  11, 31. ISBN   978-1403967923.
  7. ↑ "Site guide: Tiger Mountain". Northwest Paragliding Club. Archived from the original on 2013-08-02. Retrieved 2012-12-14.
  8. ↑ Eastside Rail Corridor, Port of Seattle
  9. ↑ Cross Kirkland Corridor, City of Kirkland, 2012

Coordinates: 47°36′N122°10′W / 47.600°N 122.167°W / 47.600; -122.167

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