Victory Heights Playground

Walk to Nearby Thornton Creek Green Spaces

Spend an afternoon linking the playground with the parks around it, many of them tied to Thornton Creek. These straight-line distances from the playground will help you map out your stroll:

• Thornton Creek Park #1: under 0.1 mi
• Kingfisher Natural Area on Thornton Creek: 0.2 mi
• Victory Creek Park: 0.4 mi
• LaVilla Meadows Natural Area on Thornton Creek: 0.5 mi
• Pinehurst Pocket Park: 0.6 mi
• Sacajawea Playground: 0.6 mi

Keep going about 0.6 mi and you will reach the Pinehurst community garden and the Chiarelli-Dore House, a city landmark. When you are ready for more green space, explore every park across Seattle.

How a Highway Named the Neighborhood

The name Victory Heights comes from the Victory Highway, a road that once traced the eastern edge of the area. It started out as the Gerhart Erickson Road, honoring the man who sponsored the Good Roads legislation in 1903.

Over the years the route was renamed Bothell Road, became Victory Highway in 1924, and then returned to Bothell Road. You know it today as Lake City Way NE.

The 1923 Covenants and Annexation

As you walk these streets, it is worth knowing that Victory Heights also carries a difficult history. In 1923, the first known racial restrictive covenants in the modern Seattle area were written here, used to keep neighborhoods limited to white residents.

The Goodwin Company placed these covenants on three of its tracts as it developed land in Victory Heights, and Goodwin Way NE still carries the company's name. The neighborhood became part of the city of Seattle in 1954, annexed along with other parts of Lake City.