Essentially the most ornate ingesting fountain within the metropolis includes a bust of Chief Si’ahl (Chief Seattle) and hasn’t run with water in years. Initially unveiled in 1909, with a three-tiered system of sanitary water for people, horses, and canines, it now sits in Pioneer Sq., serving solely aesthetic functions.
In 1909, sculptor James Wehn designed three fountains with the bust of Chief Si’ahl (Chief Seattle), meant to supply water for folks, horses, and canines. One was positioned at Pioneer Sq., one other on Occidental Avenue, and a 3rd on the intersection of Fourth and Westlake Avenues (pictured, circa 1925).
The marginally much less inventive cast-iron ingesting fountain on the nook of Greenwood Avenue N and N eighty fifth Avenue runs equally dry. Together with the swoopy-edged silver bowl on the high sits solely a gap the place the spigot ought to be. The elegant design implies origins in an age when issues have been constructed each to final and with a little bit of aptitude, although it doesn’t fairly reside as much as The Seattle Each day Instances’ plea for brand new fountains in 1923: “Seattle with its incomparable crystal water might have fountains effervescent in its open locations, with putting heroes, or symbolic figures enthroned as masters of the scene.”
For greater than a century, residents have been badgering town about its water fountains with the identical messages on repeat: There should not sufficient, those we have now are too ugly, they don’t work, and they’re gross. Someplace within the late Thirties, no less than, folks stopped complaining in regards to the lack of horse ingesting fountains (canine ingesting fountains have been a major concern for the reason that starting).
The design of Seattle’s on-street public water fountains, just like the one in Greenwood, dates to no less than the Nineteen Twenties—although not the entire fountains themselves date again practically that far. In entrance of the QFC grocery retailer in Wallingford, for instance, a model of that fountain—with an added decrease bowl for canines, very similar to the Chief—was donated by the North Central Seattle Chamber of Congress in 1975.
Seattle Public Utilities operates these fountains. As of the company’s final public assertion, a picture file of a Google Map, there have been 27 of them. That was 2021, and, at that time, SPU stated all functioned.
However thirsty residents will discover a far bigger variety of fountains within the metropolis are run by Seattle Parks and Recreation. Whereas these lack the old-school magnificence of the road fountains, SPR retains a often up to date interactive information map of its 213 water fountains, together with which of them are presently out of order (none, as of this writing).
The excellent news is that each departments indicate that utilizing town’s Discover it, Repair it app will get infrastructure onto the record for restore. The dangerous information is that the thirsty people on the Burke-Gilman at thirtieth Avenue NE or at forty third and Madison, amongst different spots, simply should hope these fountains preserve working, as neither company claims them on their map.
