Gas Works Park

This guide to Gas Works Park in Seattle traces the site's decades as a coal gasification plant run by the Seattle Gas Light Company, which once lit the city's streets and kitchens before shutting down in 1956 and leaving twenty acres of poisoned ground. It follows landscape architect Richard Haag's unconventional decision to keep the old machinery standing rather than haul it away, an approach he called thinning the forest. You'll hear how crews packed sewage sludge and sawdust over the worst of the tar to coax the soil's own bacteria into the cleanup. Look for the rusted towers still rising over the mound as you walk the grounds today.