44 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
LAKE AND BOULEVARD MAKING IN SEATTLE 
By Roland Cotterill, Secretary. 
Seattle Park Commission. 
As set forth in the 1912 annual report of 
the Board of Park Commissioners of 
Seattle, Washington, this young city of 
the Pacific Northwest had a record break- 
ing year, practically one million dollars 
being expended on improvement work done 
by the park department of that city during 
the last calendar year. 
The largest single project was the im- 
provement of Green Lake, a body of water 
nearly four hundred acres in area with 
about three miles of shore line, situated in 
a populous residence district of the city. 
The entire shore frontage of the lake was 
acquired several years ago by the city for 
park purposes, but this only afforded a 
very narrow rim of land between the 
shore line and a traffic street with car line 
upon it, which belted the lake, practically 
paralleling the shore line. 
In order to provide park area, the lake 
was lowered about seven feet by a pipe 
line to a trunk 1 sewer, thus uncovering val- 
uable areas on the shallow sections of the 
lake. On the deeper sections a dike was 
constructed along the new shore line fixed 
by the plan, by means of steam shovel, 
earth fill being secured from adjacent up- 
land and transported by cars over a pile 
trestle constructed on the dike line and. the 
fill made in this way. By this method 
nearly two miles of dike was constructed, 
requiring 260,000 cubic yards of earth. 
The dike being completed, a suction 
dredger was installed and is now engaged 
in pumping mud from the bed of the 
lake and back filling over the dike. This 
is a very economical method of filling, 
costing about five cents per cubic yard, 
whereas the fill secured from the upland 
for the dike cost 38 cents per cubic yard. 
According to estimates about 900,000 
yards will be required to make the re- 
quired fill between the dike and the shore 
line, and as the dredger is handling about 
1,000 yards per day, this work will he in 
progress for nearly three years more. 
In the end, however, approximately one 
hundred acres of park land will be created 
at a cost of about $1,500.00 per acre. The 
lake will be a lake within a park and a 
boulevard will skirt the outer margin of 
