Denny Regrade (Belltown)

Denny Hill stood between downtown Seattle and Queen Anne Hill, topping out near 220 feet, about half the height of Queen Anne, Capitol or Magnolia [1]. The city had platted the land with little thought for whether streets could ever be used, the main idea being to sell the lots [1]. Reginald Heber Thomson, city surveyor from 1884 and official city engineer from 1892, wondered how people at one end of the city would do business with those at the other [1]. Between 1897 and 1930, five separate projects cut the hill down [1]. Crews turned hydraulic cannons, or giants, on it, each giant fired by a man at a long handle, with a crew directing the muddy slurry into pipes [1]. The hill was not bedrock but a pile of dirt left by the glacier, so water did most of the work [1]. Its high point came down by more than 100 feet, leaving the mostly flat Denny Regrade [1].