One year later, #200: Stan Sayres Memorial Park

Location: South Seattle
Address: 3808 Lake Washington Boulevard S.
Acreage: ~3.0

Well, I’m officially a full year through this project. I naively thought that I would have visited all the parks in Seattle by now. Ha! Seattle Parks Department, you make it difficult with this huge list of 400-something parks scattered across the city, especially when you keep adding new parks every month.

Anyway, I’m sticking with it loyal readers. (I think there are one or two of you out there who are not related to me.) I’ll be continuing with this fool-hearted project until I’ve visited every park in Seattle (at least all the ones that are free and visitor-friendly, no greenspaces or paid entries, thank you.)

And, I bring you number 200 on my parks project: the central hub for Seafair’s hydroplane races that take place the first weekend in August every year. Stan Sayres Memorial Park is located on Lake Washington in south-east Seattle. If you’ve walked by on a normal day, you wouldn’t recognize this park’s transformation for the huge Seafair festivities. It’s fun to check it out on both occasions and see what this quiet park looks like for most of the year.

So, who’s Stan? He was a hydroplane driver, of course! According to the city’s site, he brought hydroplane racing to Seattle after winning national races in the 1950’s. He even set a speed record of 178.48 m.p.h.! Pretty impressive.

Besides the Seafair races, this is a popular area for all different types of boating, and the park has a good boat launch.

#200 (Visited 6/17/10)