history

The Washington Park Arboretum represents the culmination of a long involvement of the Olmsted firm in Seattle that began with their design for the City’s system of parks and boulevards in 1903. For the next several decades, the Olmsted Brothers worked in the city with both private and public clients. Over the thirty three—year period of their involvement, the firm would be responsible for the designs of the campus of the University of Washington, the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (which would dictate the future of the UW campus), and the State Capitol plan.

The Washington Park Arboretum was established in 1934 through a partnership between the University of Washington and the City of Seattle. The terms of the parties’ agreement mandated the City contribute the 200-acres of parkland and the University design, construct, plant, and manage the new arboretum and botanical garden within the park. In 1936, the Seattle Garden Club donated the necessary funds to hire the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm. Under the direction of Senior Partner James F. Dawson (1874-1941), the firm developed the Arboretum’s first planting plan. Dawson would actively remain involved in this project until 1939. The majority of the accessions to the arboretum’s collections, however, occurred in the years after World War II. During that time, extensive improvements enhanced the Arboretum’s plants and gardens.