East Queen Anne Playground

About

This nice neighborhood park offers a playground with slides, climbing features, a whirl, regular and baby swings, and a wading pool. Conveniently there are also bathroom facilities, a soccer field, and a sandbox. There are also lots of comfortable benches for parents to keep an eye on the kids from. 

In 1910 this small block of property was purchased from John and Ida Watrons: its size and location gave rise to the neighborhood name "Little Howe"...especially since the Parks Department did not identify the playground by name on the site.

"Little Howe" was improved immediately: because of topography it was graded into two levels with two tennis courts (with typical clay surface) and basketball and playcourt on the upper level, and a frame comfort station, round wading pool flanked with sets of swings, rings and slides on the lower level: with landscaping on the perimeter and center slope.

By 1928 the pressure for "playground" (ball) was such that the unsatisfactory clay surface for tennis courts was not replaced with asphalt or the newer concrete: instead a "scrub" ballfield was graded at the southwest corner for the little children - the big kids now had the new "Howe Field" (W. Queen Anne Playfield).

By 1951 the old comfort station was considered "a hazard to public health and safety" and approved for construction of a new shelter house on the upper level was secured from the post-war National Production (Control) Authority. And the old wading pool - and equipment - was patched and repaired one more time. Hence it became a project for the Forward Thrust program in 1970, when the shelter house was remodeled and the playground redeveloped with pool and play equipment on the upper level. (Edited from the files of Don Sherwood, 1916-1981, Park Historian.)