days of past

In the early days of Seattle, Denny Hill sat quiet and untouched to the north of the city. City engineer R. H. Thomson saw the hill’s steep grade as an “obstruction to the natural northerly expansion of the city.” He therefore began to draft plans to flatten or “regrade” the terrain and create the opportunity of development to the north.

It took more than 32 years, and strong blasts of water pumped from Lake Union, to wash away 16 million cubic yards of dirt from Denny Hill. In the end, the newly flattened terrain set the stage for the development that continues today in the Denny Triangle neighborhood.

Click Here to visit the
Denny Triangle Historical
Interactive Timeline