Is It Green Lake Or Greenlake?
Businesses, city documents, blogs… they all write it differently. So which is it? I contacted the Seattle Parks and Recreation to settle this debate once and for all.
Laurie Dunlap, with the Superintendent’s Office, returned my email, saying, “It’s two words: Green Lake (the body of water), Green Lake Park, Green Lake Community Center, etc.”
She pointed me to an article on HistoryLink.org that says way back in September 1855, when surveyor David Phillips and his team wrote “Green Lake” (two words) in their field log.
“Their late summer visit coincided with the appearance of seasonal algae blooms and may explain the name they entered on the survey map,” the article says.
Editor’s note: You will have probably noticed that we refer to Green Lake as two words except for our namesake – Seattle Greenlaker. What gives? Frankly, Green Lakers sounded like we were Lakers fans not from Green Lake. So we created a new word – Greenlaker to describe anyone who lives or visits Green Lake.
