HistoryLink Tours

Long a center for the maritime industry, Lake Union is still home to many historic vessels. The Center for Wooden Boats owns the 1906 steam launch Puffin and the 1926 racing sloop Pirate (listed on the National Register of Historic Places), as well as many boats inside its Wagner Education Center. Nearby is Northwest Seaport’s historic fleet, which includes the 1889 tugboat Arthur Foss (star of the 1933 movie Tugboat Annie, a designated National Historic Landmark, and one of the oldest tugboats in existence); the 1904 lightship Swiftsure (formerly known as Relief), also a National Historic Landmark; and the 1911 halibut schooner Tordenskjold.

Other historic vessels that one can see nearby on Lake Union: the 1909 fireboat Duwamish, listed on the National Register of Historic places and owned by the Puget Sound Fireboat Foundation; the 1922 steamer Virginia V, a National Historic Landmark, the last remaining wood-hulled, steam-powered passenger vessel on the West Coast, and one of two remaining vessels of the Mosquito Fleet, the armada of steamers that flitted across Puget Sound waters from the 1880s to the 1930s; and the 1924 schooner Zodiac, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and owned by the Schooner Zodiac Corporation.