South Park
The neighborhood of South Park, on the west bank of the Duwamish River, was once a small town of Italian and Japanese farmers who supplied fresh produce to Seattle's Pike Place Market. After World War II, the tiny community struggled to keep from being overwhelmed by industrial development.The first residents of South Park were Native Americans of the Duwamish tribe. For thousands of years, they took fish from the river, grew pototoes, gathered bulbs and berries, and hunted game. Extended families lived in large cedar longhouses. In 1853, S. S. Crow described the area as "bottom land, covered with white maples, cottonwood, alder and crabapple, and is easily cleared."