Fauntleroy, Seattle, Washington
Encyclopedia
Fauntleroy is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
. Part of West Seattle and situated on Puget Sound
Puget Sound
Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...
's Fauntleroy Cove (into which Fauntleroy Creek
Fauntleroy Creek
Fauntleroy Creek is a stream in the Fauntleroy neighborhood of West Seattle, Washington, USA. It flows for about a mile from its headwaters in the 32-acre ravine of Fauntleroy Park to its outlet just south of the state ferry terminal on Puget Sound's Fauntleroy Cove, dropping 300 feet vertically...
flows from its source in Fauntleroy Park), it faces Vashon Island
Vashon Island
Vashon is a census-designated place in King County, Washington, United States. It covers an island alternately called Vashon Island or Vashon-Maury Island, the largest island in Puget Sound south of Admiralty Inlet. The population was 10,624 at the 2010 census. At , it is about 60 percent larger...
, Blake Island
Blake Island
Blake Island is an island in Washington state in the United States. It lies in the middle of Puget Sound, north of Vashon Island, south of Bainbridge Island and east of Manchester....
, and the Kitsap Peninsula
Kitsap Peninsula
The Kitsap Peninsula is an arm of land that is part of the larger Olympic Peninsula in Washington state that lies west of Seattle across Puget Sound. Hood Canal separates Kitsap Peninsula from the rest of the Olympic Peninsula...
to the west. On sunny days, many locations in the neighborhood offer views of the Olympic Mountains
Olympic Mountains
The Olympic Mountains is a mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula of western Washington in the United States. The mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are not especially high - Mount Olympus is the highest at - but the western slopes of the Olympics rise directly out of the Pacific...
, which are about 40 miles (64.4 kilometers) to the west. The neighborhood adjoins Lincoln Park
Lincoln Park (Seattle)
Lincoln Park is a 135 acre park in West Seattle between Fauntleroy Way S.W. and Puget Sound. One of Seattle's largest parks, attractions include the paved walkway along the beach, tennis courts, baseball fields, picnic shelters, and a heated salt-water swimming pool during the summer...
to the north, Fauntlee Hills to the east, and Arbor Heights to the south. Within Fauntleroy is an area known as Endolyne (the "end of the line" of the Fauntleroy Park streetcar route in the early 1900s). Fauntleroy is home to an eponymous Washington State Ferries
Washington State Ferries
Washington State Ferries is a passenger and automobile ferry service owned and operated by the Washington State Department of Transportation that serves communities on Puget Sound and in the San Juan Islands. It is the most used ferry system in the world and the largest passenger and automobile...
terminal, providing service to Vashon Island and Southworth
Southworth, Washington
Southworth is an unincorporated community on Puget Sound in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. It is best known for being the west end of the Fauntleroy-Vashon Island-Southworth Washington State Ferries run. Landmarks include Southworth Grocery, a US Post Office, ferry terminal, clay cliffs...
.
The neighborhood, creek, and park all take their name from the cove, itself named by one Lt. George Davidson of the U. S. Coast Survey in 1857 in honor of the family of his fiancée, Ellinor Fauntleroy of Indiana.
Fauntleroy's history was chronicled by Roy Morse and Richard Brown in Fauntleroy Legacy (1989) and by Clay Eals in West Side Story (West Seattle Herald
West Seattle Herald
The West Seattle Herald is a weekly newspaper and website www.westseattleherald.com serving the West Seattle neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1923. It is part of Robinson Newspapers, which includes the Ballard News-Tribune, White Center News, Highline Times, Des Moines News,...
, 1987).
Central to the Fauntleroy neighborhood are Fauntleroy Church (United Church of Christ
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination primarily in the Reformed tradition but also historically influenced by Lutheranism. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC...
), Fauntleroy YMCA
YMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...
, and the closed Fauntleroy School, which now houses Fauntleroy Children's Center (childcare
Childcare
Child care means caring for and supervising child/children usually from 0–13 years of age. In the United States child care is increasingly referred to as early childhood education due to the understanding of the impact of early experiences of the developing child...
); a caterer, rental auditorium and meeting rooms; and several other business tenants.
An all-volunteer
Volunteering
Volunteering is generally considered an altruistic activity, intended to promote good or improve human quality of life, but people also volunteer for their own skill development, to meet others, to make contacts for possible employment, to have fun, and a variety of other reasons that could be...
, community-based organization (Fauntleroy Community Association) founded in the early 1980s brings neighbors together to address local issues such as environmental quality, traffic
Traffic
Traffic on roads may consist of pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, streetcars and other conveyances, either singly or together, while using the public way for purposes of travel...
and parking
Parking
Parking is the act of stopping a vehicle and leaving it unoccupied for more than a brief time. Parking on one or both sides of a road is commonly permitted, though often with restrictions...
.
Fauntleroy Way runs into the West Seattle Bridge
West Seattle Bridge
The high-level West Seattle Bridge is a cantilevered segmental bridge that serves as the primary connection between West Seattle and the rest of the city. It was built between 1981 and 1984 after the previous bascule bridge was deemed inoperable as a result of being struck by the Chavez freighter...
, which runs across the Duwamish Waterway, or Duwamish River
Duwamish River
The Duwamish River is the name of the lower of Washington state's Green River. Its industrialized estuary is known as the Duwamish Waterway.- History :...
.
External links
- Fauntleroy Community Association
- Neighborhood Groups: Fauntleroy (West Seattle Herald)
- Fauntleroy in . Apparently no ISBN. Available online as a series of PDFs.