BY margaret Laliberte, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER
Drivers negotiating the SR520/I-405 interchange can be forgiven for not realizing that they are passing right over the site of the little district of Northup, which developed in 1890s. Virtually all of it has been erased from today’s landscape.
In 1884 or ’85 James Northup recorded his land claim at the head of what is now called Yarrow Bay. He and his wife Almira built a cabin on property. They were joined by their son Benson, who in 1889 built a larger house very close to where today’s Burgermaster Drive-In restaurant stands. At some point the Northup Dairy and Cherry Farm existed on the property.
Florella and Benson Northup, 1912. (L85.2)
When the Northups arrived, King County’s population was exploding: it grew from 6,910 in 1880 to 63,989 in 1890, an increase of 826%!. Just to the north, beginning in 1888, Peter Kirk and Leigh S.J. Hunt planned to industrialize the area with a huge iron and steel mill , a project that soon collapsed. But Northup’s neighborhood was still deep woods and scattered families. There was never a town, really, more a collection of essential community services that sprang up over the early years. The dock on the bay became known as Northup Landing. A Methodist Episcopal church was founded in 1888. A post office opened in July 1892 and lasted until 1897. Local resident Mrs. Ann Dunn was postmaster. Apparently at some point there was also a store.
Perhaps as early as 1879 a group of local settlers had filed a petition with the King County Commissioners of Washington Territory for a public road to run east and intersect with the only north-south road then existing that connected the area with the mines at Newcastle (now 140th Ave. N.E.). At first the road apparently ran due east from the bay. In 1886 its route was altered to run southeast so as to avoid the steep section over “Fagerburg Hill.” Originally called Road 85, it became known as Northup Way.
Northup got its school around 1890, located on what is today’s 116th Ave. N.E. north of Northup Way. In the 1960s an early resident, Hattie Goff Norman, recalled that “it was a very fine building with a belfry and large bell, cloak room, and ink wells in the desks.” The first teacher, Margaret Yarno, commuted across the lake to Northup Landing from Seattle. In 1893 the school reportedly had 24 boys and 26 girls, although only about 16 children usually attended. In the early years teachers and their pupils put on evening programs—short plays, tableaux, recitations—for parents and the community.
Pupils of the Northup School with their teacher, Margaret Yarno, probably ca. 1893. (L82.050.025)
At one point the hills above Northup were being logged. A wooden chute, greased with axel grease, was built to shoot the logs downhill to the lake, and a gap was left at the point where the wagon road crossed it. A guard was stationed at the gap to insure that passersby wouldn’t be hit by a log hurtling down the chute, jumping the road, and diving into the water.
In 1905 the railroad finally came through Northup when the Northern Pacific finally completed its line between the Black River (southwest of Renton) and Woodinville. One of two “stations” in the Bellevue area—the other was Wilburton—Northup had a depot in an old boxcar and a siding that could accommodate 50 railcars. The line was primarily for freight and had originally been envisioned as a bypass around the congested railyards in Seattle.
Perhaps the railroad’s printed schedule of September 1905 was partly responsible for the confusion that developed over the area’s name—was it Northrup or Northup? The schedule listed the station as Northrup. In the 1930s road engineers furthered the error by installing road signs on “Northrup Road.” Only in 1970 was the great-great-granddaughter of James Northup able to convince the Bellevue City Council of the correct family name, and the signs were finally rectified.
Heart of Northup in 1913, looking north up116th Avenue NE. Northup School with its belfry is visible on the upper right of the photo. Note the Northern Pacific’s boxcar “station” just beyond the railroad tracks. Courtesy Matt McCauley.
Today Northup is very much a lost landscape. Benson Northup’s home still stood in 2007 when a cultural resources assessment was compiled in connection with the expansion of the South Kirkland Park & Ride. But today commercial and residential buildings occupy the site. Further to the east, the Northup School building became a private home in 1940, was eventually purchased by The Little School, and was demolished in 2019. But the rail corridor—without its tracks—survives as a section of Eastrail, which will eventually link Snohomish with Renton in a continuous biking and walking trail. And Northup Way survives as well, continuing to wind around the hill to link the Houghton and Overlake districts.
Resources:
Seattle Daily Times, Sept. 23, 1905, p. 6
Kirklandhistory.org/1905-lwbl-ckc/1905-lwbl-history
Felix Bunel, MyNorthwest.com/157612, Nov. 1, 2019
Lucile McDonald, Bellevue: Its First 100 Years and an undated Journal American article
Vertical File, several photocopies of petitions pertaining to Road 85 (Northup Way)
John Caldbbrick, HistoryLink Essay 9621 re 1890 federal census
AMEC Earth and Environment Inc. “Cultural Resources Assessment of the South Kirkland Park & Ride Transit Oriented Development” Sept. 4, 2007
