The Frink Park Waterfall

    (text excerpted from Leschi Life
    Copyright Leschi Community Council, 1995, and edited by Wade Vaughn)

    In the early 1900s Leschi resident Bill Schafer used to show his skill as a swimmer and diver at a bare beach and an outlet of a small creek in Frink Park. This little creek had its headwaters about a half block east of 32nd Avenue and Washington Street it drained all the hills around - six or eight blocks. When it was rainy, its banks overflowed in a flat just west of 35th Avenue S. about a half block north of Lane Street.

    About the only thing that grew there was a few tufts of grass on the higher knolls and skunk cabbages, of that there were plenty. "The black loam soil here was very, very deep having been washed there for probably who knows how long. The ambitious people of the neighborhood wheeled it away in their wheelbarrows for their gardens," remembered Bill. "Water from this lowland ran under 35th Avenue South, through a culvert, and onto the beach."

    The "creek" of yesterday can still be seen today. Stand on the bridge (on Lake Washington Boulevard within the Park boundary) and look to the west. The waterfall measures about 6 feet tall.
    Frink Waterfall, 1930.<br>Photo by Peter Metzger, courtesy of Wade Vaughn
    This creek no longer flows freely to the lakeshore. The possibility of restoring this drainage system has been discussed at various times by members of the Leschi Community Council.