Imagine that a hundred years ago, two wizard brothers took a map of an entire city and drew a green thread across it, connecting all its hills, ponds, and lawns into one great chain—as if they were beads on a string. Then, to make the wonder even more intriguing, they hid a real secret beneath one of the lawns—an enormous reservoir of drinking water for the whole city! This story about the Olmsted brothers and their parks in Seattle is not fiction, but an actual piece of history that still influences what the city looks like today.
Who Were the Gardening Brothers?
John Charles Olmsted and his family practiced an unusual profession: they designed parks the way artists paint pictures, using trees, paths, and hills instead of paints. His father, Frederick Law Olmsted, designed New York’s famous Central Park—the one known all over the world. In 1903, Seattle invited his son, John Charles, to create something similar, but in his own way.
John Charles developed a plan known as the “Emerald Necklace”—a chain of boulevards and parks connected so that people could travel across the city by bicycle or carriage while remaining among trees for most of the journey. He deliberately curved the roads so they followed the shape of the hills instead of cutting straight through them. The result resembled a thread passing through several beads—from Washington Park to Volunteer Park, and from Discovery Park to Seward Park.
The Secret Beneath the Lawn at Volunteer Park
Here is the most fascinating part. In Volunteer Park, on top of a hill, there is a broad green lawn where people play, have picnics, and fly kites. But few people know that a huge reservoir lies directly beneath the lawn—a gigantic underground bowl holding drinking water for thousands of city residents.
Olmsted deliberately planned the park so that this important piece of city infrastructure—the water-storage facility—would not spoil the beautiful view, but would instead remain hidden beneath the grass, like something tucked inside a box. An old water tower stands nearby. Visitors can still climb its spiral staircase and look out over the entire city from above, like looking from a watchtower in a fairy-tale castle.
Here is what it looks like when everything is put together:
| What it is | Where it is located | Interesting fact |
|---|---|---|
| Underground reservoir | Volunteer Park | Hidden beneath a picnic lawn |
| Water tower | Next to the reservoir | You can climb it and see the entire city |
| “Emerald Necklace” | Throughout Seattle | A chain of parks and boulevards conceived in 1903 |
Missing Pieces of the Mosaic
But not everything in the Olmsted brothers’ plan came true. Some boulevards were never built, some parks turned out smaller than intended, and parts of the green “threads” were eventually replaced by houses and roads. As a result, there are places in the city today where the green chain suddenly breaks—as if someone had lost several beads from a beautiful necklace.
That is why, more than a century later, residents and city officials still debate whether to restore the forgotten parts of the plan, renovate the aging water reservoirs—for the city is growing and needs more water—and plant new trees to replace the old ones. Decisions made long ago by two brothers with a map and a pencil still influence where people can go for a walk today—and where they cannot.
Why It Is Important to Remember
Stories like this are like messages in bottles sent to us by people from the past across many, many years. The Olmsted brothers could not have known what Seattle would become a century later, but their idea—hiding usefulness inside beauty and connecting the city with green threads—still works today. Every time you walk through a park with a winding path or sit on a lawn beneath which a secret may be hidden, you are holding a piece of that old green map in your hands. And perhaps that is the most fascinating thing about the history of cities: the past never really goes away. It simply hides beneath the grass and waits to be found.
