Elliott Bay - History

History

The bay was named during the Wilkes expedition in 1841, however it is not known for whom the bay is named. Candidates include members of the expedition: Jared Elliott, ship's chaplain; George Elliott, ship's boy; and Midshipman Samuel Elliott. The last has been deemed the most likely namesake. Commodore Jesse Elliott has also been proposed as a possible source of the name. The bay has been referred to as Duwamish Bay and Seattle Harbor, especially before the US Board on Geographic Names officially settled on the name "Elliott Bay" in 1895.

The Duwamish people lived in the vicinity of Elliott Bay and the Duwamish River for thousands of years and had established at least 17 settlements by the time white settlers came in the 1850s. Among the earliest white settlements was by the Denny Party at New York Alki, which is in the present-day neighborhood of Alki in West Seattle, however after a hard winter they shifted across Elliott Bay near the present-day Pioneer Square, which became Seattle. Over the years the city expanded to cover all of the waterfront on Elliott Bay and codified it as one of its fairways (a navigable waterway).

A local legend says that the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet, which peaked in the early 20th century, was so-named by a Seattleite who looked out over Elliott Bay and remarked that the activity resembled that of mosquitoes. Two notable sinkings related to the Mosquito Fleet occurred in the bay: the Dix in 1906, taking with it dozens of lives, and the Multnomah in 1911. Eventually these commercial passenger services faded as automobiles and ferries rose in popularity.

The last remaining model of the Boeing 307 ditched into Elliott Bay in 2002 during a final test flight from Boeing Field to Everett. The craft, named the Flying Cloud, had been the subject of an eight-year restoration project meant to ready it for display at the National Air and Space Museum. Despite the incident, the aircraft was again restored, flew to the Smithsonian, and was put on display.