Haller Lake, Seattle
lake and neighborhood in Seattle
Haller Lake (Lushootseed: sisaɬtəb) is a small lake and neighborhood in north central Seattle, Washington, named for Theodore N. Haller, who platted the neighborhood in 1905. His father, Granville O. Haller, was one of Seattle's early settlers, an army officer who amassed a large estate in the region.
The lake was formed as a result of a block of ice left behind by a retreating glacier. When the ice melted, a depression was left in the ground that was then filled with water.
The Lushootseed-language name for the lake is sisaɬtəb, which means "calmed down a little." The lake was a hunting ground and a refuge for the Shilshole people during slave raids from the northern peoples like the Tlingit and Haida. Early Europeans called it Welch Lake after it was claimed in the 1880s by a British immigrant named John Welch.
The lake is located between N. 128th Street to the north, N. 122nd Street to the south, Densmore Avenue N. to the west, and Corliss Avenue N. to the east. It covers 15 acres (6.1 ha); its volume is 247 acre⋅ft (305,000 cubic metres) and its maximum depth is 36 feet (11 m). Its shoreline is private except for two public access points, the Meridian Avenue N. right-of-way on the north shore and the N. 125th Street right-of-way on the west, which features a small park. Haller Lake has a drainage area of about 280 acres (110 ha); it discharges water through an outlet control structure on the west side of the lake that drains to Lake Union.
“Haller Lake, Seattle” enters the record as lake and neighborhood in Seattle. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Haller, Lake and Seattle can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Haller Lake, Seattle” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Haller, Lake and Seattle provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5642894. VIAF identifies the subject as 149259069. Authority coordinates are 47.720, -122.335. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1905.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Haller Lake, Seattle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.