Gas Works Park
Travel to Seattle, Washington (WA) is always a memorable experience with a visit to the Gas Works Park in the City. A public park located in the City of Seattle, the Gas Works Park is a 19.1-acre (77000 square meters) property located at the former Seattle Gas Light Company gasification plant. The Gas Works Plant, at some of its parts, hosts the only remaining coal gasification plant in the United States.
Seattle travel and tourism guides have exhaustively depicted the many sites the park has to offer. Major landmarks of the Gas Works Park include ruins of the old coal gasification plant, where coal was turned into petroleum, as well as a spacious children’s “play barn”. It also hosts an artificial kite-flying hill, as well as an elaborate bronze sundial at its summit.
Official Website of the Gas Works Park in Seattle, Washington
The Gas Works Park by the City Government of Seattle, Washington
http://www.seattle.gov/parks/park_detail.asp?id=293
The Gas Works Park by the Department of Ecology, State of Washington
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/TCP/sites/gaswkspk/gaswks.htm
The original coal gasification plant in the Gas Works Park operated in the early twentieth century, producing energy for the city’s needs. It also produced many other by-products, such as charcoal briquettes, tar, resins, sulfur, xylene, and toluene, which was extensively used in World War II as component for explosives. Nonetheless, with the technology present during the time, coupled with weak environmental protection, the coal gasification plant contributed to the contamination of the surrounding soil and groundwater. Eventually, the plant’s function of coal gasification was abandoned in favor of cleaner fuels like natural gas.
In the 1970s, in an effort to preserve the plant’s industrial heritage, as well as clean up the area, the city of Seattle bought the property and the surrounding environs. Turning it into a park, the city used bio-phyto-remediation in order to clean it up. At the present, the park stands out as a reminder of the city’s heritage, as well as a testament to efforts at environmental protection.
The Gas Works Park by the VR Seattle Archive
http://www.vrseattle.com/pages/browse.php?cat_id=64
The Gas Works Park by Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasworks_Park
Enjoy your trip & have fun!
