Drive guide
SR-522 — Seattle to Monroe
55 things worth knowing along this corridor, in the order you meet them driving. Every one is sourced.
Sal reads these as you pass them, and answers when you ask.
Start a withby driveSal’s stories on SR-522
Along the way
quirkFremont Troll
In 1990 the Fremont Arts Council held an art competition for the area under the north end of the Aurora Bridge, hoping to replace the trash and squatters with 'a piece of art'. The winner was the Fremont Troll, built that same year by 4 artists: an 18-foot, 13,000-pound concrete troll clutching a real Volkswagen Beetle.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
historyLincoln High School
Lincoln High School was closed in 1981, but was re-established as a comprehensive high school in the fall of 2019, after a comprehensive renovation in 2017–2019.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
developmentWallingford Center
On the southeastern corner of this intersection is the Wallingford Center, a 53,000 square foot elementary school built in 1904 that has been renovated and converted into two floors of shopping and dining establishments with 24 studio apartments above.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
institutionGood Shepherd Center
Meridian Playground features a former Roman Catholic home for wayward girls called the Good Shepherd Center, now a shared community space run by Historic Seattle.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
historyWallingford-Meridian Streetcar Historic District
The Wallingford–Meridian Streetcar Historic District was designated by the National Register of Historic Places on December 9, 2022, to recognize the neighborhood's streetcar suburb origins, similar to a handful of other neighborhoods in Seattle.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
historyLake Union Dry Dock Company
Lake Union Dry Dock Company was founded by Otis Cutting and John McLean in 1919 to build and service watercraft vessels. During Prohibition, the US Coast Guard commissioned Lake Union Dry Dock Company to construct fifteen 75-foot patrol boats.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
historyBurke-Gilman Trail Wallingford Section
The trail can trace its origins to the founding of the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway on April 15, 1885, by ten men headed by judge Thomas Burke and Daniel Gilman. On August 19, 1978 the first 12.1 miles of the right-of-way from Seattle's Gas Works Park to Kenmore's Tracy Owen Station was opened as a public trail.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
historyNorthlake Shipyard
Marine Power & Equipment Company was established in 1946. Their repair yard was at 1441 North Northlake Way, on Lake Union - see it from the air on Google here : it is now occupied by Northlake Shipyard.
Source: shipbuildinghistory.com
institutionJohn Stanford International School
Formerly known as Latona School, the school is named for the late John Stanford, superintendent of the Seattle School District, who died on 28 November 1998. The historic school building (1906) is a designated City of Seattle Landmark.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
historyShip Canal Bridge Lower Deck
Construction was completed in 1961 and the bridge opened to traffic on December 18, 1962. The bridge is double-decked, with the upper deck carrying traffic in both directions and the lower deck carrying traffic southbound in the morning and northbound in the afternoon.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
developmentU District Station
U District station opened October 2, 2021 as part of the Northgate Link light rail extension, putting an underground station on Brooklyn Avenue NE next to the University of Washington campus.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
sightRainier Vista at UW
Rainier Vista, today the defining element of the University of Washington campus, was laid out by landscape architect John C. Olmsted of the Olmsted Brothers firm for the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition as one of the grounds' view axes, deliberately framed on Mount Rainier.
Source: historylink.org
seasonalUW Quad cherry blossoms
About thirty Yoshino cherry trees, bought by the UW in 1939 and moved from the Arboretum to the Quad in 1962 after SR 520 construction began, typically bloom between mid-March and early April.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
historyHusky Stadium
Husky Stadium opened on the shore of Union Bay in 1920, hosting its first game that November; it is still the University of Washington's football home.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
quirkUW Bothell crows
UW Bothell's North Creek Wetland hosted a nightly roost of more than 14,000 crows from 2016, peaking around 20,000 in 2022; by early 2025 the crows had moved to a new roost in the Sammamish Valley near Redmond.
Source: uwb.edu
sightNorth Creek wetland
UW Bothell's North Creek wetland, begun in 1997 on 58 acres of former pastureland, is one of the largest and most complex floodplain restorations in Washington State, and the most successful.
Source: uwb.edu
quirkWoodinville wine country
Woodinville has more than 130 wineries across four winemaking districts, yet no vineyards are located there; nearly all Washington wine grapes are grown east of the Cascade Mountains in Eastern Washington.
Source: portseattle.org
developmentWilmot Gateway Park
Wilmot Gateway Park, Woodinville's first public community park, covers 3.7 acres and is named for Jerry Wilmot, a founding father of the City of Woodinville. State grants and thousands of private donations, gathered in a drive sponsored by the Woodinville Rotary Club, helped pay for it, and donors are recognized in engravings on brick and tiles throughout the park.
Source: wta.org
institutionWoodinville High School
Woodinville High School opened in 1983 on a 50-acre site in the Northshore School District. A special education and administration addition followed in 1990, and from 2009 to 2012 the school was demolished and rebuilt as a new building with a theater.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
developmentMolbak's site
Molbak's Garden + Home closed in January 2024 after 67 years, and Woodinville has since approved a developer's application to build on the former site.
Source: komonews.com
developmentLittle Bear Creek Advance Mitigation Site
The Little Bear Creek Advance Mitigation Site is a 17-acre former homestead in the lower Little Bear Creek watershed near Woodinville. Snohomish County started the project in 2019, removed the site structures, restored wetlands and stream habitat, and planted more than 21,000 native trees and shrubs, and the site is to be left as a conservation area.
Source: snohomishcountywa.gov
historyGrace
Grace began as a railroad flag stop near the Snohomish-King County line, where locomotives began to strain to climb Maltby Hill. A shingle mill and a sawmill with a logging rail line operated there along Little Bear Creek until a 1907 downturn in the lumber industry put the Grace mills out of business.
Source: historylink.org
institutionWoodinville Heritage Museum
The Woodinville Heritage Museum occupies the DeYoung House, a Dutch Colonial home built in 1931 by John and Ellen DeYoung. The DeYoungs arrived in Woodinville in 1925, and the Woodinville Heritage Society runs the museum with volunteers.
Source: woodinvilleheritage.org
institutionChrysalis School
Karen L. Fogle founded the Chrysalis School in her home in 1983. The private school has been accredited since 1995 and serves grades K-12 at two campuses.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
developmentWood Trails
The Dave Henry Trail opened on June 13, 2023, as the first of a series of interconnected paths in the 53-acre Wood Trails park, after design funding was set aside in 2020. It is named for Dave Henry, a Woodinville resident who helped preserve and maintain the area before the city owned the land.
Source: woodinville.com
developmentBrightwater Treatment Plant
Brightwater is a regional sewage treatment plant on 114 acres at the intersection of State Route 9 and State Route 522 north of Woodinville. It opened in 2011 after a five-year megaproject costing $1.8 billion, which included a 13-mile tunnel to an outfall on Puget Sound.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
institutionFirst Congregational Church
Ole and Sena Lee donated a lot for Maltby's First Congregational Church, which Albert Gray designed and which was completed early in 1905. An eight-room parsonage was built next to it.
Source: historylink.org
institutionHidden River Middle School
Hidden River Middle School was built in 1999, with a gymnasium, music and choir room added in 2005, and a 23,653 square foot expansion was added in 2019.
Source: monroe.wednet.edu
historyMaltby Hill railroad grade
That changed in April 1887 when construction of a railroad began. To ascend the hill, trains had to be small and often needed a pusher engine to get them up to "The Summit."
Source: historylink.org
institutionMaltby Elementary School
Maltby Elementary School was built in 1968. A covered play shed was added in 1987, and in 2005 a classroom building was built, the main office was expanded and the facility was fully modernized.
Source: monroe.wednet.edu
institutionFire Station No. 33
Fire District 7's Fire Station No. 33 at 19424 Fales Road opened in 2019. The 11,000 square foot, $5.4 million station was built on a 4.9 acre site, and the crew from Station 74, the Maltby Station, was reassigned to it.
Source: snoho.com
historyCathcart Station
Midway down the steep grade from the summit was a stop named for logging camp owner Isaac Cathcart (1845-1909), an Irish immigrant. In 1894, Isaac Cathcart built a large hotel at Cathcart Station.
Source: historylink.org
historyEdgecomb logging railroad to the Snohomish River
John Edgecomb initiated construction of a logging railroad to move logs to the Snohomish River, where the site was called a log dump.
Source: historylink.org
historyFryelands Elementary School
The Monroe School Board named Fryelands Elementary School in 2004 for the former Frye lettuce farm, which Charles Frye owned and operated during the Great Depression. About 1,000 people worked on its 1,200 acres during peak harvest, but Frye lost the farm to foreclosure less than 10 years after buying most of it in 1929.
Source: heraldnet.com
quirkMonroe High School
In October 1924 Monroe High School changed its athletic teams' name from the Panthers to the Bearcats in honor of Dode Bercot, a Monroe high rigger turned lightweight fighter whom an Everett Daily Herald sportswriter had nicknamed Bearcat.
Source: monroehistoricalsociety.org
historyLake Tye
Lake Tye is named for Tye, a small railroad town that thrived in the 1890s, long before Monroe annexed the area. The lake is an engineered one, not a natural one.
Source: wta.org
historyFrye Lettuce Farm
Charles Frye purchased most of the lettuce farm located just west of downtown Monroe, in a foreclosure sale. In 1933, Minerva Lucken went to work on the farm. She said in an interview that there were about a thousand workers on the farm during its peak. It became the backbone of the local economy during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the late 1930s lettuce hit a bad year and the lettuce spoiled. Frye's Monroe operation was foreclosed.
Source: historylink.org
historyPark Place (Monroe)
Four years later, he moved inland a mile or so and founded the settlement of Park Place (now a Monroe suburb on the west).
Source: historylink.org
institutionPark Place School District Two
Henry McClurg became the first county superintendent of schools in 1869 with only two school districts, one that met in the Snohomish City Blue Eagle Saloon, and the other at Park Place, organized as District Two on November 23, 1869.
Source: historylink.org
historyEvergreen State Fair
The county fair moved permanently to Monroe in 1946, opening at the modern-day fairgrounds on September 5, and took the name Evergreen State Fair in 1949. The fairgrounds cover 193 acres.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
historyShannahan Cabin
John Shannahan built the cabin of hand-hewn logs in 1887 on the west side of the Snoqualmie River. It was moved to the Tualco Valley in 1936 and to the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in 1966.
Source: monroehistoricalsociety.org
historyEvergreen Speedway
A 0.625-mile horse track was built on land the county let the Evergreen State Fair use in 1950. In 1954 Jimmie Collier convinced county officials to let him convert it for racing his Ford Model T roadster, and racing returned after the track was paved in 1963.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
institutionWestern Heritage Center
Snohomish County announced this week that it will be taking over ownership and management of the center, including the collection of agricultural, mining, railroad and household heirlooms inside. The history museum is located at the southeast corner of the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe. Jerry Senner, the man who dreamed up the museum and brought it to life with his own extensive collection, died in November 2015. Volunteers first promoted the Western Heritage collection during the 2006 Evergreen State Fair, and the museum opened soon after. At first, it was almost all the Senners' collection of old tractors and tools. The center is set to officially change hands this fall.
Source: heraldnet.com
historyCavalcade of the Valleys
In 1941, the first Cavalcade of the Valleys was organized featuring a parade, carnival and agricultural fair at a larger site near Powell and Park Streets. In 1946, the Cavalcade of the Valleys ceased because the Snohomish County Fair resumed, this time using the old “County Poor Farm” property just northwest of Monroe.
Source: monroehistoricalsociety.org
historyStephens Hospital
The medical community grew in 1902 when Dr. L. L. Stephens announced plans to build a hospital in town with separate apartments for men and women. The three-story Stephens Hospital became a reality in 1903 and still stands at the corner of Blakely and West Main Street as an apartment house.
Source: historylink.org
historyVanasdlen's relocated store
The final plat of the Great Northern Railway put Park Place too far from trackside, so in 1892 Vanasdlen literally picked up his store along with the Monroe Post Office it contained and moved it to trackside at the corner in Monroe where a 7-11 convenience store now sits.
Source: historylink.org
historyMonroe's 1902 incorporation
Monroe's most important event in 1902 was the town's incorporation. The petition for incorporation went to the Snohomish County commissioners, who determined there were 300 inhabitants in the area. An election for incorporation and city officers was set for December 20, 1902. Monroe voted overwhelmingly for home government. Mayor N. P. Heintz won with a four to one majority.
Source: historylink.org
historyTye City and the Wales depot
The railroad built a small depot named "Wales" on the 40-acre (16 ha) homestead of Jack Stretch, who platted a settlement on the north side of the tracks that he named "Tye City" for Great Northern's locating engineer George Tye.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
historyGreat Northern Greenhouses
By 1949 there were six greenhouses on the site, and before they were closed and dismantled in 1962, after the merging of the Great Northern, Burlington, and Northern Pacific Railroads, there were ten greenhouses and six acres for growing shrubs. The greenhouses were built to provide flowers for all Great Northern passenger trains and shrubs for the landscaping of all Great Northern Depots.
Source: monroehistoricalsociety.org
institutionMonroe Monitor
Major Benjamin Franklin Smythe started Monroe's first newspaper, the Monroe Monitor, in January 1899 and it has been in continuous publication since that date.
Source: historylink.org
historyMonroe's first church
After two years of hard work, the Methodist Episcopal Church was completed in 1896 on the site of the current Monroe United Methodist Church on S Lewis Street.
Source: historylink.org
institutionMonroe Historical Society & Museum
Monroe's library moved to the second floor of the old City Hall in 1909 and operated there until 1966, after a start in a photography studio with 175 books in 1906. By 2022 the building was home to the Monroe Historical Society & Museum.
Source: heraldnet.com
sightCarnation Condensery smokestack
The condensery was built in 1908 out of locally milled lumber. It was not until about 1919 that the concrete smokestack that still stands was built to replace the two metal stacks. It is 150 feet tall and almost eleven feet in diameter at the base. The factory was finally closed in late 1929 and it remained idle throughout the Depression. The plant had only been in operation three weeks when 600 tons of flax stored in the building ignited by spontaneous combustion at 1 a.m., March 23, 1944. The Monroe Fire Department worked hard to keep the fire from spreading beyond the plant, but by dawn all that remained of the plant was the concrete smokestack.
Source: monroehistoricalsociety.org
sightAl Borlin Park
Al Borlin Park is the largest Monroe Park at 90 acres and among one of the oldest. Named after a former City Councilmember and Monroe school teacher who promoted parks and environmental education, Al Borlin Park provides the unusual opportunity to enjoy a secluded natural experience in an urban environment. A peninsula formed by the Skykomish River and Woods Creek, the park is thickly wooded and crisscrossed with a 1.2-mile network of soft-surface gravel trails.
Source: monroewa.gov
historyHolmquist shingle mill
Then he bought a site in Monroe, and in 1898 he built his shingle mill on the east side of Wood's Creek, just upstream from its confluence with the Skykomish River, near a loading spur from the Great Northern Railway main line. The mill filed incorporation papers in 1908 as the Wood's Creek Mill Company, with Holmquist as president and manager. However, all the local residents referred to it as Holmquist's mill. The mill operated into the 1930s, although the Holmquists' active participation ended in 1918.
Source: historylink.org
Landscape you can see from the road
| Feature | Type |
|---|---|
| Anderson Creek | Stream |
| Bald Hill | Summit |
| Bear Creek | Stream |
| Clearing Creek | Stream |
| Crescent Lake | Lake |
| Cutthroat Creek | Stream |
| Devils Lake | Lake |
| Duck Island | Island |
| Elliott Creek | Stream |
| Evans Creek | Stream |
| Green Lake | Lake |
| Lake Leota | Lake |
Stops along this corridor
| Kind | Count |
|---|---|
| restaurant | 888 |
| bar | 284 |
| coffee | 272 |
| park | 182 |
| fast food | 177 |
| grocery | 166 |
| memorial | 18 |
| museum | 11 |
| monument | 5 |
| viewpoint | 4 |
| attraction | 2 |
Where to eat along this corridor
Town by town, what is actually within a short detour of the highway.
- Bothell — 46 places to eat
- Lake Forest Park — 21 places to eat
- Seattle — 545 places to eat
- Shoreline — 8 places to eat
- Woodinville — 8 places to eat
Coverage
withby narrates 8 map cells on this corridor today.
Sal reads these as you pass them, and answers when you ask.
Start a withby drive