Notes:
Notes:
"The earliest landowner was William N. Bell (1817-1887) who, in the name of his wife Sarah Ann (1815-1856), established ownership of the lower end of the creek. The property gained value in the mid 1880s when the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad was extended from Seattle up the western shore of Lake Washington. By 1887, ownership of the land changed hands several times until George and Oltilde Dorffel held title. That year they platted Ravenna Springs Park, linking the Italian seaport city with the sulfur spring along the creek. They set aside the steep ravine as a park because of its beauty and perhaps because the topography precluded use as building sites. The creek had been ignored by loggers and farmers and still possessed its old-growth timber. Ravenna became a stop on the new railroad. The following year, William W. Beck, a Presbyterian minister from Kentucky, and his wife Louise purchased 400 acres on Union Bay. They developed the property around Ravenna station into town lots. Ten acres were set aside for the Seattle Female College which, by 1890, boasted 40 students studying music and art, five years before the University of Washington moved in nearby. The college folded following the Panic of 1893. Beck also opened the Ravenna Flouring Co., which he claimed was the only grist mill in King County."