Washington Park Arboretum
Two-hundred-thirty-acre botanic garden of oaks, maples and camellias along a former horse-racing speedway.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle starts underfoot, where a 1903 horse-racing speedway once ran along Lake Washington Boulevard before the University of Washington and the city turned the grounds into a botanical garden in 1934. You'll hear how Depression-era relief crews reshaped the old racetrack into Azalea Way, how Eleanor Roosevelt planted an elm here in 1938, and about a planned eight-lane freeway that architect Victor Steinbrueck called an act of naked brutality. Walk Azalea Way, the path's original spine, for the clearest sense of what this valley used to be.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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