Denny Log Cabin – Queen Anne Ave & Republican St
Denny Log Cabin, 1889
In 1889, the log cabin was built by carpenter Ed L. Lindsley for use by David L. Denny as his real estate office. For the construction of the log cabin, trees from the top of Queen Anne were cut, peeled and hauled down to the site. It was located on the southwest corner of Queen Anne Avenue and Republican Street.
Denny Log Cabin Construction, 1889
David L. Denny and his wife Louisa Boren Denny were among the group of Seattle pioneers who landed at Alki Point in 1851. By the 1890’s, they owned a huge portion of the land on the south slope of Queen Anne which they divided into 11 plats, the last one of which they chose for the site of Decatur Terrace, their home.
By 1901, the log cabin was used as a personal residence, a church, a school, then in 1927 became “Green’s Tavern.”
The Queen Anne Historical Society made a valiant effort to save the cabin as former Society president Gary Gaffner noted in an email on January 14, 2006:"
As correctly noted, when I failed to get title to the log cabin on the site that had been purchased for an IHOP pancake house … at the foot of the hill … we decided to not start collecting artifacts and instead to focus on archival materials … which at first we stored over on our Society’s President’s home on Prospect Street, on the West side of the 2nd Avenue North stairs (down to Ward Street).
I had two sites to which I attempted to re-locate the Denny log cabin. The first was the triangular lot under which George Kinnear had his water supply stored, more recently called Franklin Place, which was across West Prospect Street to the South of Kerry Park, which Kinnear had donated to the City and was unused. It was above the upper floors of the Kinnear Mansion so water would flow by gravity to fixtures throughout the Kinnear home.
The second was the City Park abutting to the North of the Joshua Green home … now the Stimson-Green Mansion … which at the time was undergoing re-design by the Park Department. Both efforts failed, which as your reference indicates was probably fortuitous in the long-run … keeping our Society’s costs much lower going into the future without the drag of storing and displaying artifacts.
Denny Log Cabin, 1966
In 1966, it was dismantled and moved to Federal Way as part of a new shopping center. The cabin still exists today as part of Hylebos State Park in Federal Way. Read more about the history of the Denny Cabin in an article for the Historical Society of Federal Way.