The park occupies all of Bailey Peninsula, a forested peninsula and former island that juts into Lake Washington. It contains one of the last surviving tracts of old-growth forest within the city of Seattle. The park is named for former U.S. Secretary of State William Seward.
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The 300 acres (121 ha) of Seward Park have about a 120 acre (48.6 ha) surviving remnant of old growth forest, providing a glimpse of what some of the lake shore looked like before the city of Seattle. With trees older than 250 years and many less than 200, the Seward Park forest is relatively young (the forests of Seattle before the city was fully mature, were up through 1,000–2,000 years old).
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The area has been inhabited since the end of the last glacial period (c. 8000 BCE—10,000 years ago). The People of the Large Lake (Xacuabš or hah-chu-AHBSH, today the Duwamish tribe) had resource sites; villages were nearby. The Duwamish called Bailey Peninsula "Noses" (Lushootseed: squbáqst). Before the completion of the Lake Washington Ship Canal in 1916 lowered the level of Lake Washington, the peninsula was an island with points, or "noses", at the north and south ends.[2]
The purchase of the park was suggested as early as 1892, but was sidelined due to its distance from what was then the city. However, the Olmsted Brothers assimilated it into its plan for Seattle parks, and the city of Seattle bought Bailey Peninsula in 1911 for $322,000, and named the park after William H. Seward, former United States Secretary of State, of Alaska Purchase fame.
At the entrance to the park, in a wooded island filled with flowers between the circular entrance and exit road, there is a little-known monument: a taiko-gata stone lantern, a gift of friendship from the City of Yokohama, Japan, to the City of Seattle, given in 1930 in gratitude to Seattle's assistance to Yokohama after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923.
Since at least early July, 2004, the park has become a home to wild rabbits and a growing colony of feral Peruvian conures (parrots, either the Chapman's mitred or the scarlet-fronted), who were released into the wild by their owners (or some escaped). They fly between Seward Park and Maple Leaf in northeast Seattle.[3] The park is also home to two nesting pairs of bald eagles, who can frequently be seen flying over Lake Washington and diving to the water's surface to catch fish and ducks.
Renovation on the Tudor-style house at the entrance to Seward Park—originally the Seward Park Inn, a Seattle city landmark—was completed early in 2008 and is now the Seward Park Environmental & Audubon Center. Programming at the Center and in the park includes school, youth, community, arts in the environment, and special events. The Center also includes exhibits, an extensive library, a laboratory, and a small gift shop.