Our Pick
Posted on @rawstates
Mercer Island's largest park was a reform school for children
1904
Mercer Island, Washington
Joe Mabel · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
In 1904 Major Cicero Newell moved thirty boys and ten girls out of a Seattle school for delinquent children into a tent camp on this shore while permanent buildings went up. Seattle Public Schools ran it for decades as a parental school, then handed it to the state in 1957 after the board complained that taking students from outside the district was an unfair charge on Seattle taxpayers. It closed in 1966, King County made the grounds a park, and Mercer Island took ownership in 2002.
That was 1 of the hidden places.
Location: historic site
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