Beacon Hill was originally inhabited by the Duwamish people, who had a village called Tal-tal-kus at the western foot of the hill. Settlers began moving onto Beacon Hill in the 1850s and growth accelerated around the turn of the 20th century. Starting in the 1920s, Chinese, Italian, and Japanese immigrants settled in Beacon Hill. After World War II, the trend of moving from Chinatown continued for Chinese families, joined by other nonwhite communities including Filipino, Black, Latinx, and Southeast Asians, because Beacon Hill did not have racially restrictive housing covenants. In 1972, Chicano activists occupied the closed Beacon Hill School and established El Centro de la Raza to support the Latinx community in Seattle. Beacon Hill remains one of Seattle’s most diverse neighborhoods.

This image shows the intersection of Beacon Avenue S and 15th Avenue S near the north end of the hill. Called “the Junction,” this area began developing around 1900, following an early streetcar line down Beacon Avenue. Today, it is one of Beacon Hill’s largest commercial areas.

Caption information source: “Seattle Neighborhoods: Beacon Hill — Thumbnail History,” by David Wilma, HistoryLink essay #3004, retrieved from https://www.historylink.org/file/3004.
Caption information source: “Beacon Hill Historic Context Statement,” by Caroline Tobin, City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, retrieved from https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/Neighborhoods/HistoricPreservation/HistoricResourcesSurvey/context-beacon-hill.pdf.