Gas Works Park

About

Gas Works Park is a park located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It has a 19.1-acre (77,000 m2) public park on the site of the former Seattle Gas Light Company gasification plant, located on the north shore of Lake Union at the south end of the Wallingford neighborhood. The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 2, 2013, over a decade after being nominated.

Gas Works Park contains remnants of the sole remaining coal gasification plant in the United States. The plant operated from 1906 to 1956 and was bought by the city of Seattle for use as a park in 1962. The park opened to the public in 1975. It was designed by Seattle landscape architect Richard Haag, who won the American Society of Landscape Architects Presidents Award of Design Excellence for the project. The plant's conversion into a park was completed by Daviscourt Construction Company of Seattle. It was originally named Myrtle Edwards Park, after the city councilwoman who had spearheaded the drive to acquire the site, who died in a car crash in 1969. In 1972, the Edwards family requested that her name be removed from that of the park because the design called for the retention of the plant. In 1976, Elliott Bay Park (just north of Seattle's Belltown neighborhood) was renamed Myrtle Edwards Park.