Lake Union (Lake)

A glacier dug the basin that holds Lake Union some twelve thousand years ago, the same ice that left Lake Washington and Green, Bitter and Haller Lakes [1]. The lake sits entirely inside Seattle, the smaller of the city's two major lakes, receiving water from Lake Washington at the Montlake Cut and passing it out by the Fremont Cut on its way toward Puget Sound [1]. Before any canal was cut, it emptied into Salmon Bay by way of a creek that ran close to the line the Fremont Cut follows [1]. Thomas Mercer gave the lake its name in 1854, guessing that canals would one day make a union of waters [1]. The Lushootseed name means small lake, a diminutive of the name for Lake Washington, and the Chinook Jargon called it small water [1]. Boeing built its first product, the B & W Seaplane, in a hangar here beginning in 1916 [1]. Floating homes line the east and west shores [1].