By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The park originally was owned by William Beck, a real estate speculator who marketed Ravenna as Seattle's most desirable suburb in the 1890s. Beck was so taken by the magnificent old-growth forest that he named some trees after Theodore Roosevelt, Robert E. Lee and other famous men. He even charged people to visit his natural shrine.

In about 1911, Beck sold the park to the city. No one is quite sure what happened, but the old-growth was logged, probably for lumber or firewood.

The park is making a remarkable comeback, aided by the work of people such as Janine Van Sanden, a Parks Department employee who has helped organize numerous park volunteer groups and work parties throughout North Seattle. In Ravenna, the work is often hot and sweaty. Acres of blackberry vines have been cleared and new trails built by Volunteers of Outdoor Washington.

When the Society of Creative Anachronism began trashing the steep hillsides and trampling vegetations during their Sunday fantasy frolics, Van Sanden approached them and helped turn their thinking around about how they use the park. "They are now guardians of the park," she says with a smile.

The ROTC program at the University of Washington has stopped using Ravenna Creek as an obstacle course for training, and for two years has helped with streamside plantings, Van Sanden says.

"What's magical about the park is all around is this bustling city and it's so cool and cloistered here, especially in the summer," Van Sanden says.