Burien Washington: A quick history

About

Burien is found in the heart of King County and according to the Website of King County, it is located in Puget Sound in Washington State and it covers 2,134 miles. It’s established at the south of Seattle. It is a big county where it is considered to be twice as large as the county in United States. King County was believed to be one of the most populous districts in the United States. It is also known being one of the highest-income among the regions in the United States. In King County, 39 cities were founded and one of them is Burien. Burien has a population of 33,313 as of 2010 census in the United States and was concluded to have an increase in the present time. As you can on the map, Burien is located near the salt water. Burien is located at the south of Seattle, which is the largest city in Northwest United States. Burien’s nearby cities were Tacoma, Seattle and Kent. Burien is considered to be the community of water because of the six-mile Puget Sound seashore and open mountain outlook in 100 years of time.

Discovery

The Europeans were the one’s regarded to be the first colonizers in the city of Burien. Before, it was unnamed and when Mike Kelly, one of the early settlers in this place, roams around the hills of Seattle and thought of it as a very sunny place because of the trees dancing together with the wind and the beautiful rays of sun. Mike Kelly christened it to be the place “Sunnydale.”

Early settlement

After ten years, a German immigrant landed to Sunnydale and his name was Gottlieb Von Boorian. Due to its pale and simple place, he noticed that Sunnydale was only composed of small houses and hamlet trails. There was no presence of commercial buildings and appropriate roads. From that time, Boorian established a community and named the city after him.

Development

During the early 1900s, there came visitors due to the growing attraction of Burien. They come to visit the Three Tree Point Light and the Mosquito fleet. Their main purpose of visiting is to take a sunbath and swim throughout the waters of Burien. Burien railroad was finished in 1915. Today, it was known as the Ambaum Boulevard and travels from Burien to White Centre to Seattle.

Integration

The region stayed as an unincorporated portion of King County but the people kept on proposing on how to make it integrated as possible but the action of proposals kept on failing. The people felt that they much more voice to be heard by the government and requires a more responsive government to adhere their problems because they will be affected of the threatening expansion of the Port of Seattle’s airport which they also call as the Third Runway. But then, the council of Burien heard their voice of help and made the City of Burien incorporated because of voter’s agreement, February 28, 1993.

Capture

During the late 2004, Burien decided to expand their territory by annexing the North Highline. The North Highline comprises of the White Center and the Boulevard Park. North Highline is considered to be the “one of the largest urban unincorporated areas of King County.” Burien wanted to expand their territory by doubling its size. Many people protests against taking over the North Highline to be one of their areas but some of them welcomed the extension of their jurisdiction and thought that this development should be done way after the Burien incorporation was discovered by the early settlers. In May 2008, the Burien people decided to take over the southern part of North Highline which is consist of almost 14,000 people or maybe more. After several months, the heads of the City of Burien submitted the proposal of annexation to the King County’s Boundary Review Board. The people in the City of Seattle was not pleased of what the people in Burien wanted to happen so they protested against their will of annexing the southern part of North Highline and the people of Burien decided to pull out what they have proposed and resubmit it after another countywide planning policies. After few months of waiting, October 2008, people of Burien decided to resubmit the proposal that the people in Seattle protested to. The City of Burien gave their annexation plan to the King County’s Boundary Review Board so that they could examine whether the annexation and expansion would be effective at all. After six months, the City of Burien got the approval of the King County’s Boundary Review Board for the expansion of their jurisdiction. The southern part of North Highline is now a part of the ownership of Burien incorporation. Early on May 2009, after a month of the approval of the annexation, in cooperation with King County and the City of Burien accepted a decree to set an annexation vote on the 18th of August principal ballot. The area that they want to take over is about 1,600 acres (6.5 km²) and approximately 14,000 citizens. They waited for almost a year and everything was worth it. The proposal was approved and on April 2010, the whole region of North Highline is now together with the City of Burien. It is said that the population increased as fast as a snap and now Burien City has a population of almost 47,000. Burien is now considered to be the 21^st largest city in the state of Washington.

Burien at this time

Residents whole-heartedly preserved what they have in their country. They take care of their resources and their roads and public places are very well protected. Before, Burien was just a plain land area were no roads were built and small houses were barely present. But now, they have their own roads, commercial spaces, high-end houses, condominiums and apartments. People visiting Burien would always be attracted to the wide mountain views that they could see from a far. We could really notice that there is the good effect of annexation and development through the centuries.

Photo courtesy of Danita Jolly liscenced under "Flickr Creative Commons 2.0"

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