Seattle, Part II: Discovery Park

From Dave Brigham:

This is the second post in a five-part series about Seattle, a beautiful and fun city I visited with my wife and kids back in April. This series is by no means meant to be an exhaustive survey of the Emerald City. It just features a lot of the stuff I saw while annoying my family by taking so many pictures. For a link to the previous installment, see the bottom of this post.

I had no idea what to expect when my family and I visited Discovery Park, a 534-acre sprawl, most of which was home to the Fort Lawton Army base from the 1890s to the 1970s. I figured we'd hike around a bit while taking in some nice views of Puget Sound from this western-most point of the Emerald City, and maybe see an odd remnant or two of military housing or gear.

I certainly wasn't expecting to see a church.

Or a radar installation.

The radar system was formerly part of a Nike missile installation, according to this SeattlePI blog post. During the Cold War, Nike missile sites covered the entire country, in an effort to protect the nation from potential Russian aircraft attacks. Per the SeattlePI blog post, the Nike air defense system was separate from the Fort Lawton base. I guess that's true, even though it's so close to the church, as well as a row of former officer housing, and the building in the photos at the bottom of this post.

For more about Nike missile sites, see January 6, 2018, "Look, Up in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a Goddess of Victory! It's a Nike Missile!".

The City of Seattle acquired the acreage in 1972; in 1977 the United Indians of All Tribes opened the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center on part of the site. For a timeline of the fort and the park, check out this City of Seattle web page.

My family and I explored only a small portion of Discovery Park, which was named "in honor of the British sloop HMS Discovery, commanded by Captain George Vancouver during the first European exploration of Puget Sound in 1792," per the City of Seattle web site. We got our first view of Mount Rainier from the park, as we walked along Puget Sound, as the iconic mountain was socked in by clouds during most of our visit. We also watched from afar as a wedding was under way.

Below are a few photos of the former Army base gymnasium.

In June of this year, the Seattle City Council approved a plan to build affordable housing on part of the site. That plan had been in the works for more than a decade, but city efforts were hampered by lawsuits.

The third installment in my Seattle series will focus on the very cool underground tour we took in Pioneer Square. If you missed it, be sure to check out the first post, from September 1, "Seattle, Part I: Pike Place Market."