We’ve been hitting a few parks lately and earlier this week, with warmer weather, we hit Magnuson, on the western shore of Lake Washington. Again, it was Ryan, the kids, Smartz and me.

The park is seeing quite a lot of construction and, as it turns out, they’re building a sports complex. Normally, I’d say, “sure, why not? better than skyscrapers.” And while that’s true, they’re also burying wetlands to do it. That’s pretty lame, Seattle.

But before all of that, we hit the playground. Playgrounds are always fun with Viri and he was in a fun mood the whole time. When that kid is on, he’s really on.

Where we parked wasn’t all that close to the water, so we got to take a nice walk through a wooded area along an old concrete road. The road passed by what looked like several old bunkers. The first one looked newer and may just be bathrooms (or something converted into bathrooms), but the others were built into hills like munitions bunkers would be. They were, of course, locked and there was a horrible lack of signage explaining just what the hell these things were.

As I later learned, Magnuson Park was a Naval facility. Hidden away on the official website, I found a PDF map from 1944. These bunkers (#54 and #55 on the map) were built between August 1940-September 1941. They were “Hi-Explosive Magazines.” We did see another “arch-type” magazine closer to the water (that’s #21 on the map). That was built between 1936 and 1939.

So, that’s great that it’s on a website, but what about some on-the-field interpretation? Are the fine folks of Seattle above admitting that history took place?

At Magnuson, even though it’s a city park, I expected something. Anything. Just a little sign that says, “Oh, by the way, we know that only like one or two of you will care about this, but these bunkers were used for….” Is that really too much to ask?

One of the really fun things in this park is the Fin Project. It’s a walk-through sculpture that was created using the actual diving-plane fins from decommissioned United States Navy attack submarines. The fins are arranged to simulate the dorsal fins of a “school” of Orca whales. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

What I found really nice about this project was that on each of the fins was the class and individual name of the submarine. So yes, while this is most definitely a monument about peace (the idea was taken from “turn your swords into plowshares”), the respect to history is there. Thank you very much on both counts!

There is also a similar sculpture by the same artist in Miami. Neat, huh?

And, well, that was what we did. I can’t wait to go back! History in Seattle!

Check out the pics!

Related posts:

1. A spin through Carkeek Park
2. A chilly time at Richmond Beach Park
3. Back to Snoqualmie Falls and a new park
4. Passing the time at Carkeek Park
5. Gas Works Park