Lake Burien School Memorial Park
14640 18th Ave. S.W.
4.6 Acres
The land on which Lake Burien School was built was homesteaded by the Bloomfield family. "W.M." or William Murphy owned 160 acres due east, while "Chas Barton" claimed the 160-acre parcel to the south--which includes the western half of Lake Burien. To the north of the Bloomfield property lay the Pope and Talbot claim, which eventually became Seahurst Park.
Homesteading was not as successful here as in other parts of Burien. Claims were given up because it was hard to make a living (hence the early name: “Hardscrabble”). The area’s gullies and rocky soil were better suited to chickens and hogs than farming. Thus the land north of 152nd and throughout Seahurst was primarily logging land. Around 1910 it was subdivided and sold. In 1915 the Seahurst Land Company owned 200 acres from 16th Ave. S.W. to Puget Sound, north of 152nd (which would include the current Lake Burien School Park), from which it supplied residents with spring water.
Later, Fred and Bill Dashley, recently returned from the Alaska Gold Rush, bought the property where the park now sits. The Dashley brothers owned property from 8th S.W. to 22nd on the north side of 152nd, and possibly as far north as 144th. The Dashleys were promoters of Ambaum Boulevard.
The first school in Seahurst began in 1913 in a real estate office at S.W. 152nd and 22nd Ave. S.W. (the trolley terminus). Later that year it was moved into a tent. In order to get a teacher, the school had to have ten pupils. Since there were only nine school-aged children in the area, five-year-old Etta Marasch was drafted to go to school. (Other accounts say this "draftee" was Angelo Balzarini).
During rainy weather, children worked under umbrellas in their "tent schoolroom." In its second year, the Lake Burien School moved three-quarters of a mile east to a real estate office at 10th S.W. and S.W. 152nd.
A year later a new Lake Burien School, "the last of the old schools," was completed at the current park location, and opened its doors to 13 students in eight grades. Miss Snow taught the lower grades and Mis Emory the upper. Some of the students included Cecil Paul, Bessie Bennett, Harry Bowen and Eleanor Vandeveer (whose father was the Seattle prosecuting attorney).
The Craftsman-style structure was the only elementary school in the new district. There were two classrooms, a lunch room and playroom downstairs, with two rooms and a principal's office upstairs. The building was also used as a community meeting place and boy scout headquarters.
In 1914 Jack Stokes came to Seahurst from Seattle. His father owned Stokes Ice-Cream Company in Seattle as well as one of the city’s first large restaurants. Jack was two years old when they built their brick home. His father, a former bricklayer in Pennsylvania, built the first brick house in Seahurst. It still stands at 14620 25th S.W.
Jack roamed the woods, combed the beaches and swam in the Sound and Lake Burien with other early "old-timers." The two-story Lake Burien School had a large rock, he remembers: about 15 feet high and 18 feet across, on the southwest corner of the school grounds. It was removed when the school was torn down and the new school built. Stokes and his friend Jack Williams rode horses to school and pastured them nearby.
Very few families lived in Burien at the time. Woods and wild huckleberries surrounded the school. But as the area attracted new residents, it quickly outgrew the first schoolhouse. In 1926 a new Lake Burien Elementary, facing 18th Avenue S.W., replaced the smaller building. The two-story school began with six classrooms. Within two years, four more rooms were added to the north side.
Terra cotta sculptures over the school’s entrances were installed in 1926. (Between 1890 and 1940 terra cotta, now considered a historic art form, was widely used.) The Lake Burien sculptures consisted of a 551-pound, 3’-by-5’ owl with outstretched wings, reading a book; two “fish gargoyles;” a globe with two candles and the word LIGHT above it; and a plaque with the words LAKE BURIEN SCHOOL 1926.
Children walked to Lake Burien Elementary from Burien, Three Tree Point, Seahurst and Hazel Valley, sometimes sighting cougars and other wild animals in the nearby woods. In 1929 students from Three Tree Point were the first to be "bussed" to the school in a Model-T truck equipped with side and rear curtains, although the ride apparently included the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.
In 1930 the school added a gym with a fine hardwood floor. The gym also served as lunchroom, music room, classroom and PTA meeting hall. During the Depression the school cook served three kinds of soup daily, knowing that, for some of the children, this would be their only meal.
Continuing efforts were made to keep up with the flood of new pupils. Three more classrooms were added in 1937, and a lunchroom in 1938. Five portables were added in the 1940s. On September 19, 1949, LIFE Magazine featured the entire student body on its centerfold: the 380 students the school was designed to hold peering from the windows, with the remaining 457 standing on the lawn.
Freeman J. Mercer was principal of the school from 1924 until 1952. He first came to Seahurst by streetcar and his initial salary was $166 a month. He was also a teacher for 17 of his 28 years at the school.
In the 1970s, needing to update the school's aging heating system, the District consolidated three elementary schools into the empty Seahurst Junior High. Lake Burien School was closed in 1976. Later, through the efforts of Burien residents, it became the property of King County Parks. (In 1978 Seattle Regular Baptist bought the property from the District for $181,000, operating its own school program there into the 1980s.)
By 1992 King County had purchased the property as a potential park site and was preparing to demolish the school building. There was some controversy, however, about what to do with the property: some wanted a retirement home; others, low-income housing. Recognizing the artistic and historic value of the school entrance's cast ornaments, community activist Vivian Matthews convinced the County to spare the sculptures, and obtained funding to safely remove them.
Protected by many coats of paint over the years, the ornaments were carefully removed from the building, loaded onto a flatbed truck, stored at Kirk’s Feed and the Highline School District’s Maintenance Facility, and eventually mounted on the arch which stands today in the park. The only damage sustained was a broken ear.
The Burien Parks-Arts-Recreation Council was formed in 1993 and assumed responsibility for the sculptures. The Council proposed placing them in the Lake Burien School Park—the first park for the new city. Roger Patton, Jr., who attended Lake Burien School, designed a structure to hold the sculptures--an arch replicating the school’s front entrance--where they could sit high off the ground, as they had over the front doors of the school.
Many community members, organizations and suppliers helped create "The Arch" at the Lake Burien School Park. Friends of Burien Parks member Pam Harper took the lead on the project and enlisted the help of a local architect, builder, and a variety of suppliers. The Friends sold personalized bricks--some engraved with apples to identify teachers and principals--that are part of the plaza today.
The Arch took a year to design and build. An art conservator rebuilt the pieces, a dedication ceremony was held and trees planted. Two large Hawthorne trees on the Park's west side have survived from when the school was still standing.
The Burien City Council negotiated the assumption of responsibility for Lake Burien Park with King County during 1994. The City took the lead in construction of Lake Burien Park which was completed that year.
This project was
developed through a Heritage Special Projects Program grant funded by
4Culture and with the assistance
of the
Highline
Historical Society.
