Saint Edward State Park History

Saint Edward State Park hugs the shore of Lake Washington, the second largest natural lake in Washington, surpassed in area only by Lake Chelan. Tongues of the great Pleistocene glaciers that excavated the passageways of Puget Sound also dug the nearly 20 mile long basin of Lake Washington. For thousands of years, the lake received fresh water from the Sammamish River at its north end and drained through the Black River into Puget Sound at its south end.

Indigenous Lands

Saint Edward State Park’s location on the shore of Lake Washington lies within the traditional territories of Coast Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. For thousands of years the waters of the lake and its tributary salmon streams have provided habitat for a diverse community of life that forms the basis of their cultures.

Local tribes ceded ownership of the area to the US federal government under duress in the Treaty of Point Elliot in 1855, keeping rights to harvest natural resources in their usual and accustomed places, including the lands and waters around Lake Washington. After government land surveys were completed in 1859, European-American land speculators purchased the land for investment opportunities.

Land Speculators

The land making up today’s park passed into private ownership with Cash Entry patents to Marshall Blinn, Francis Tarbell and Charles H. Larrabee (a cousin of Charles X. Larrabee, who donated land to establish Washington’s first state park in 1915) all on August 10, 1872. Their investment anticipated transportation improvements that would allow the timber cut on the property to be easily moved to sawmills.

The land was subsequently owned by Miller Freeman, a Seattle publisher and businessman who promoted development of the east side of Lake Washington. He was also the leader of the Anti-Japanese League in the 1920s. In that role, he fought against Japanese immigration, land ownership and the right to work. During World War II, he supported the incarceration of Japanese Americans and opposed their resettlement afterwards, especially to the farms they had created east of Lake Washington.

A Lake Redesigned

In 1883, a group of Seattle entrepreneurs including Thomas Burke (later Chief Justice of the Washington Supreme Court) and David Denny contracted with the Wa Chong Company for a crew of Chinese laborers to dig a 16-foot ditch through an area known as “The Portage” with a lock to float logs cut from the shores of Lake Washington to Denny’s sawmill on Lake Union. The Wa Chong Company’s founder, Chun Ching Hock (sometimes Chin Chun Hock), is often credited with being the first Chinese immigrant in Seattle, arriving in 1860. Judge Thomas Burke would later be credited with a significant role in calming anti-Chinese riots in Seattle in February 1886.

In 1891, the US Army Corps of Engineers began planning a large-scale project to enlarge the canal into a   navigable canal for the transportation of timber and wood products, and to provide protected harbors for the fishing fleet and a possible naval shipyard. Work did not begin in earnest until Major Hiram M. Chittenden was assigned to the project in 1907.

In August 1916, the level of Lake Washington was lowered by nearly nine feet when a barrier at the east end of the canal was removed, allowing the difference in elevation between Lake Union and Lake Washington to equalize. The canal was dedicated on July 4, 1917.

The lowering of the lake level caused significant environmental changes. The lake’s outlet shifted from the Black River at its southern end to the new Ship Canal. Salmon runs that had used the Black River were eliminated. Wetland areas along the original lakeshore dried up. Indigenous people whose rights to harvest and celebrate the salmon runs had been guaranteed in the Point Elliot Treaty of 1855 lost that foundational part of their lives.

Saint Edward Seminary

Edward O’Dea became the first Bishop of the Diocese of Seattle when it was established in 1907, overseeing the Catholic Church in Washinton State. He purchased the land in today’s park with funds from his own inheritance in the late 1920s. He donated it to the Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle for the purpose of establishing a Catholic seminary to serve as the “prime educational training ground for …Catholic priests throughout the Pacific Northwest.” The four story seminary building was designed by architect John Graham and completed in 1931. Designed in the Late Romanesque Revival style, it was constructed of cast in place concrete faced with tapestry brick in tones of buff and brown, totaling about 80,900 square feet.

At the dedication, a time capsule was placed in the cornerstone of the building. It became the first fully accredited seminary in the United States when it became affiliated with the Catholic University of America and accredited by the Board of Education of the State of Washington. Over the 45 years of its operation, staff and students developed niche spaces on the property for worship, contemplation, and ritual, linked by miles of forested trails. One of the niches, The Grotto, was built around 1945, with poured concrete faced with river cobblestones, and has become a favored place for weddings. The Seminary Trail leads from the seminary building to the shore of Lake Washington. The path follows the route of a logging road built to transport cut timber to the lake’s edge where it was subsequently rafted and floated through the Lake Washington Ship Canal to local sawmills.

Making a Park

Enrollment at the seminary declined, and it was closed in 1976. Archbishop Hunthausen, fondly remembering the peaceful forests and ravines of the property from his days as a student at the seminary, wished to see the land preserved and available to the public for recreation. In 1977, the property was sold to the State of Washington for $7 million, with funding authorized by Referendum 28, the Washington Bonds for Public Recreation Facilities bill, approved by Washington State voters in 1972. Additional funds came from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund. Governor Dixy Lee Ray dedicated the park on April 16, 1978.

The Lodge at Saint Edward

In September 2014, the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission (WSPRC) considered a range of management options for the aging seminary building, ranging from rehabilitation to demolition. They chose to seek a partnership that could preserve the seminary building in a way that harmonized its use with the experiences of park visitors. On March 31, 2016, Governor Jay Inslee approved Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 2667, authorizing the WSPRC to enter into a lease for up to 62 years for the private redevelopment of the Saint Edward seminary buildings.

The WSPRC leased the buildings to Daniels Real Estate for redevelopment as The Lodge at Saint Edward State Park. Shortly before the lodge opened on May 7, 2021, the time capsule in its cornerstone was opened, and refilled with items related to its new purpose.