Since the city's earliest days, Seattleites proposed canals to cheaply and easily move logs, coal, and other resources between Elliott Bay and Lake Washington. Possible routes extended from the Black River at the south end of Lake Washington to canals through Lake Union and Shilshole Bay in the north. A 1891 report commissioned by the federal government explored five possible routes, two of which included Salmon Bay between Ballard and Seattle. The route chosen was proposed in 1907 and connected two canals, the Fremont Cut between Salmon Bay and Lake Union and the Montlake Cut between Lake Union and Lake Washington, with locks at Salmon Bay. The Lake Washington Ship Canal was completed in 1917.

This blueprint copy is an index to eleven individual survey maps, and outlines possible routes from Lake Washington through Lake Union and two connections to Puget Sound through Salmon Bay - through Smith Cove to the south and Shilshole Bay in the north. The map was compiled by Seattle City Engineer's office in 1905 from a federal survey done in 1895, and includes a sectional drawing with selected depths (soundings) of the waterway between Puget Sound and Lake Washington.

Text on map: Map of Waterway Connecting Puget Sound with Lakes Union and Washington, Showing Location of Right of Way for Ship Canal and Flooded Area, Surveyed under directions of Capt Thos. W. Symons, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A. by Eugene Ricksecker, C. E. 1895, City Engineer's Office, R. H. Thomson, City Engr., Feb. 1905, Copy of U. S. Engineers' Records, Traced by: E. E. Raret, Checked by ; 5978
Handwritten on bottom of map: Have reproducibles of these (the ORIGINALS - which are Not reproducible are at the Locks)

Caption information source: "Lake Washington Ship Canal (Seattle)," by David B. Williams, HistoryLink.org Essay 1444, https://www.historylink.org/File/1444.