Trusted Seattle
Water Services

The Great Fire of 1889 proved that these early sources couldn’t provide enough water for homes, businesses, and firefighting. Residents voted overwhelmingly to build a system connected with the Cedar River. After more than a decade of legal wrangling, 2 new reservoirs were built to store water: The Volunteer and Lincoln (now Cal Anderson).

Seattle grew rapidly as tens of thousands of visitors and residents came to Seattle from the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909. In response, city engineers constructed a larger pipeline from the Cedar River to triple the system’s delivery capacity. In the 1010s, the Masonry Dam was built to store Seattle’s new water surplus.

Engineers continued to construct pipelines and storage reservoirs, including the Bow Lake Reservoir, South Fork Dam, and Lake Forest Park Reservoir, to store water from the Cascades. In the late 1970s, city planners began to cover the open reservoirs to enhance water quality, reduce water loss from evaporation, and improve security.