by Friends of 9^th Avenue NW Park History Committee

^{Misconceptions and rumors about the history of Ballard’s new park at 7028 9th Avenue NW have circulated for years, perhaps because the former owners mostly kept to themselves and practiced a faith that outsiders considered eccentric. Incorporated in 1922, the Seventh Elect Church in Israel had no connection to the Love Israel commune. It was a small sect, and by 1990 there were only a few elderly members who lived on the property. They quietly practiced their religion, effectively walled off from the neighbors by towering holly and laurel hedges. Since the city purchased the property in April 2008, the hedges have been drastically cut back and will eventually go, but the stories persist.}

^{We haven’t been able to conclusively prove or disprove the neighborhood lore.  But after poring through contemporary newspapers and various documents, we feel that it’s reasonable to conclude that the large building had in fact been a downtown hotel that was moved to the property—most likely in pieces—in the early 1920s. Had it been a brothel? Its guests were probably no different, one way or another, from those of other single-room-occupancy hotels, which catered to single workers in Seattle’s timber, fishing, and other industries. Was the deceased founder ever kept (preserved) in the basement in anticipation of the Second Coming? Not according to newspaper accounts of the day, although the actual story of Daniel Salwt’s passing in 1929 is curious enough.}

^{The Seventh Elect Church is not in itself historically significant. Nor are the church buildings, according to the architectural firm that researched the property for the city. But the church comes directly out of the nineteenth-century American millennial culture that also produced the Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Beyond that, it’s an interesting bit of Ballard history.}