Olympic Sculpture Park

About this audio guide

This guide to Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle traces a red steel eagle sculpture back to a bank tower in downtown Fort Worth, Texas, where it stood as a corporate trophy for nearly three decades before the museum here paid ten million dollars for it in 2000. It follows how the Seattle Art Museum, backed by former Microsoft president Jon Shirley and his wife Mary, built this stretch of park on a former Union Oil fuel yard so poisoned that crews spent years hauling away contaminated soil before anything could grow. You'll hear how thousands of smaller donors, giving as little as fifty dollars, joined the Shirleys' thirty million dollar gift to finish the job. Stand beneath the eagle's thirty-two foot wingspan with the skyline behind you and the water ahead.