The Ship Canal

Today marks 100 years since the beginning of construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal.  The canal itself has become a part of Seattle.  Nobody here probably remembers what Fremont looked like before the canal was built.  It seems almost foreign to have the U-District connected to Capital Hill or Queen Anne Hill to Fremont and Ballard.  The man made canal seems so nature, as if it were always there.  Of course it wasn't always there and the canal was, by modern terms an ecological disaster.  After all the Black River ceased to exist because of the canal.  This couldn't happen today, we simply would not have allowed the Army Corp of Engineers to come into town and dry up a river.  Lucky for Seattle back in 1911, progress was not to be stopped by the Black River.