Manhattan Park & Playfield
440 South 185th Street
4.1 Acres
The old Manhattan School was built in 1902, after the area had changed its name from Sunnydale to Manhattan. The new school was needed to keep children from walking from Manhattan and Des Moines to Sunnydale. A few Manhattan families decided that the four-mile walk through dense woods, where wild animals still roamed, was too dangerous for their children. So the parents and others formed a new school district at Manhattan, with 12 original homeowners and 14 children of school age.
Manhattan School District Number 135 was formed in 1902. Members of the School Board included Harry Burton, William H. Miller and Aaron Dunbar. Edward Gould served as clerk. Miller lived on the beach in the original William Brown homestead. Miller Creek was named for him and his wife Clarinda, and the beach (Normandy Park Cove) was called Miller's Beach. The Millers were widely known for their hospitality.
Aaron Dunbar and his 22-year-old wife Hattie (Ayers) came to Manhattan in 1889. Dunbar emigrated from Wisconsin the year before to work in the sawmills (William Van Gasken’s sawmill in Des Moines being one of them) and on the Mosquito fleet. Dunbar bought 160 acres between 180th S.W. and 192nd S.W., bordered on the west by 8th Ave. S.W. and on the east by First Ave. South. He cleared his land with oxen, using the timber to build his first house, a log cabin which was later replaced by a larger house.
A year after buying his land, Dunbar summoned his fiancee from Wisconsin. He met her at the train in Puyallup. The couple was married in “Grandma” Blasher’s home in Tacoma on August 5th, 1889. A robust man of 24, Dunbar rowed to Des Moines to get lumber for his house--then towed it back. He often rowed to Vashon Island, and even brought his new bride back from Des Moines in a rowboat.
The Dunbars had six children, five of whom--Margaret, Ella (Parks), Fern (Lingwood), Grant, and Roy--remained nearby. All six attended Manhattan School. The Dunbars grew corn, strawberries, tomatoes and other crops which they sold at the Western Avenue Commission in Seattle, delivered on Dunbar's horse-drawn wagon, capable of carrying 80 crates.
Ella Dunbar Parks recalled that, "If there had been a heavy snowfall, my father would hitch up the horse and sleigh and make a path for us up to the school house. . . . Each of us had a fruit tree of our own for which we were responsible. When the fruit was ripe, we picked it and sold it to buy clothing and other items."
Aaron Dunbar was a cornerstone of the Manhattan community. In addition to the schools, he supported many public enterprises, and sold part of his land to newcomers who brought needed skills and services to the area.
The Manhattan School started within 30 days after the Board was appointed. Clyde Sherman was the first teacher. Burton was appointed supervisor of the temporary one-room school building, located on the Dunbar property. The group then purchased a nearby acre on Kelly Road for their first school. Money for the Manhattan property and school had been collected from Sunnydale and Des Moines families. The school district accepted warrants until a 10-mill tax levy could be collected. Burton, Miller and Dunbar, meanwhile, paid all the expenses.
Everyone helped get the new school ready to open. Board members built a fence around the school grounds and dug a well; local people planted trees. Maude Brown Bissell, daughter of a Seattle pioneer, was the teacher. She married Walter Bissell, another early Highline settler, in 1909. The one-room building, heated by a large pot-bellied wood stove and accommodating all eight grades, was later expanded to two rooms and a basement, plus a temporary portable classroom.
This two-room school was located at First Ave. South and Normandy Road. Children from Manhattan went there until the Highline School District was organized in the early 1940s. Then they went back to the Sunnydale School, and the Manhattan School became a social hall. The school was razed in 1962. A dental clinic now occupies that location.
A second generation of Dunbars attended the Manhattan School. A 1924-'25 class photo includes Pearl and Emerson Dunbar, as well as other "pioneer" family members such as John Bissell and Lloyd Dodd.
In 1913 Grant Dunbar built his home at 191st and 1st Ave. S.W. Though remodeled, the house was still there as of 1991. Still vigorous in his eighties, Aaron Dunbar helped neighbors clear their land. He died in 1952. Aaron, Hattie and Roy Dunbar are buried in the Hillgrove Cemetery at 16th Ave. South and South 200th. The land for this one-acre, obscure cemetery was donated by Fred Kindling. It holds many of the area's pioneers.
Manhattan was annexed to Normandy Park in 1983, 94 years after Aaron Dunbar first carved his home from its wilderness. Fern Dunbar Lingwood died in 1974. Her property was located off First Ave. South near S.W. 176th. Margaret Dunbar, who lived her whole life within a block of the family home, died in 1990. She was a member of the first graduating class of Highline High School. Ella Dunbar Parks, who returned to Normandy Park in the early 1960s and built her home on the lot her father had given her (he gave one to each child), volunteered her time at Highline Community Hospital while in her eighties.
This project was
developed through a Heritage Special Projects Program grant funded by
4Culture and with the assistance
of the
Highline
Historical Society.
