David Denny

[7] Another donation to the city became the site of the Civic Auditorium (later remodeled as the Opera House and now McCaw Hall) and several other buildings that now form part of Seattle Center.

[2] His interests went well beyond his original land claim and Lake Union: he farmed in the Duwamish River valley and platted Seattle neighborhoods, including the Ravenna Park area.

In 1890, he moved his family from an already large home at Dexter and Republican Streets to a mansion at the foot of Queen Anne Hill, and the next year he founded the Rainier Power and Railway Company, providing the first streetcar service from Downtown to the University District.

[14] But his fall was as dramatic as his rise: in the years from 1888 to 1895, two of David and Louisa Denny's children died, and they suffered such a major financial reversal in the Panic of 1893 that they lost everything, including their nearly new mansion.

Adding insult to injury, among the creditors who forced him into bankruptcy was Dexter Horton and Company, the bank where his brother Arthur was senior vice president.

[2] In 1899, at the age of 67, Denny took a job overseeing improvements on the Snoqualmie Pass road (the route now taken by Interstate 90), during which he sustained an injury when an inattentive worker cut his head with a careless backswing of his ax.