by Dotty DeCoster
Special to CHS Capitol Hill Seattle

I wonder if the folks who began the church that is now Prospect Congregational United Church of Christ knew that the property they bought for the Prospect Chapel was part of the site of the proposed state capitol. The Chapel originally faced E. Prospect Street on a lot that is now on the south east corner of E. Prospect and 20th Avenue E. The current church building, built in 1924, faces 20th Avenue E., although the address remains 1919 E. Prospect.

The site of the proposed capitol was a single large block, bounded to the north by E. Prospect Street, to the south by E. Helen Street, to the east by 21st Avenue E. and to the west by 19th Avenue E. Twentieth Avenue did not exist. It seems an odd choice, but it is documented by a map reproduced in Jacqueline B. Williams’ The Hill with a Future, and the block is also shown on the 1905 Sanborn Insurance map of Seattle. The maps show E. Helen Street going through to 19th Avenue between Prospect and Aloha Streets and a jog in E. Prospect that is not there today. House lots are mapped for the entire first Capitol Hill Addition along east-west streets with alleys going that direction as well. That didn’t happen. When houses were actually built, they were oriented along the north-south streets, just as the other blocks were surrounding the Capitol Hill Addition.

Proposed Capitol site

It is hard to know if James A. Moore, the intrepid developer who bought the property that was to become what he named “Capitol Hill”, seriously thought he could entice the State Capitol to Seattle. According to Williams, “Moore persuaded state Representative William H. Lewis, from King County, to introduce a bill in Olympia ‘providing for the appointment of a committee to consider the offer of a site and capitol building in Seattle’ .” A newspaper article of March 4, 1901, also quoted in Ms. Williams’ book, notes that Mr. Moore was offering to donate not only the site in the Capitol Hill addition but also a $250,000 building.

This may not have been an entirely far-fetched idea at the time, since the building of the Capitol in Olympia ran into snags and the actual building didn’t open until 1905. On the other hand, even suggesting the possibility of having the Capitol on Seattle’s “Capitol Hill” might have been a kind of promotion Moore wanted for the new development.

Curious, though, that the site wasn’t actually a high point. The high ridge is roughly along 18th Avenue E. One goes down, eastward, to 19th Avenue and then it is rather flat until one reaches the church corner at 20th Avenue, and up again, but not so high, between 20th and 21st Avenues. Both St. Joseph Church and Holy Names Academy, just south of E. Aloha Street, take advantage of the heights at 18th and 21st respectively, and the tower at St. Joseph and the dome at Holy Names are landmarks to all of us in the area. Since the sites for both these landmark buildings were also in the first Capitol hill addition, it seems odd to me that the proposed capitol would have been on a lower site with a less commanding view.

A name, not a Capitol
The capitol in Capitol Hill never happened, but the name certainly stuck. Sometimes it is hard to remember how to spell Capitol Hill, and an easy way is to think of the State Capitol that never came to Seattle after all. If you happen to live in the northern half of the 900 blocks on the east side of 19th Avenue E., 20th Avenue E. , or the west side of 21st Avenue E., you are living on the site of the proposed capitol in Capitol Hill.
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Referring to a map today, the configuration of the streets and blocks allowing for the proposed Capitol site is long since gone, but looking at a 1905 Sandborn Fire Insurance map shows how the street grid was manipulated to include the site. (E. Helen Street went through, E. Prospect Street was disconnected and offset, and 20th Avenue did not go through. Proposed orientations for houses were shifted as well.) So if you happen to live in the area south of E. Highland Drive and north of E. Prospect between 19th and 21st Avenues E., you are pretty much on the proposed site of the Capitol on Capitol Hill.

If you do happen to live in the area bounded by E. Roy and E. Garfield between 11th and 23rd Avenues E. you are in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of 1907. In that year the great dome of Holy Names Academy at 728 Twenty-first Avenue East was built. And just south and west of the proposed Capitol site at 732 18th Avenue East, the spire of the first St. Joseph’s Church rose to the sky. (It wasn’t until the 1930s that the current St. Joseph’s Church, with it’s 200-foot Art Deco bell tower, was built.)