Eugene Loring McAllaster was born April 20, 1866, in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

. A distinguished

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

naval architect This is the top category for all articles related to architecture and its practitioners. {{Commons category, Architecture by occupation Design occupations Occupations Occupation commonly refers to: *Occupation (human activity), or job, one's rol ...

and

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

, he is most famous for designing the historic Seattle fireboat

Duwamish Duwamish may refer to: People * Duwamish people, a Lushootseed-speaking Indigenous people in Washington state * Duwamish Tribe, an unrecognized tribe of Duwamish descendants Places * Duwamish Head, a promontory jutting into Elliott Bay * Duw ...

. He was also a consulting engineer on Seattle's Denny Hill and Jackson Street regrades. McAllaster graduated from the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

in 1889 and in 1890 he married Katherine F. Nichols. ''Kittie'', as she was known by friends and family, was born in

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

, on June 16, 1867, and spent her girlhood in

Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in Washtenaw County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851, making it the List of municipalities in Michigan, fifth-most populous cit ...

. The newlyweds lived in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

until their move to Seattle in 1894. McAllaster quickly established himself in the Seattle business community as a skilled naval architect and engineer. He became deeply involved with the Denny Hill Regrade and Jackson Street Regrade, and was an integral part of the successes of these massive undertakings. With his business prospering he purchased a fine

Capitol Hill Capitol Hill is a neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., neighborhood in Washington, D.C., located in both the Northeast, Washington, D.C., Northeast and Southeast, Washington, D.C., Southeast quadrants. It is bounded by 14th Street SE & NE, F S ...

home on March 2, 1902, at 509 Belmont, overlooking downtown Seattle,

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ; ) is a complex estuary, estuarine system of interconnected Marine habitat, marine waterways and basins located on the northwest coast of the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As a part of the Salish Sea, the sound ...

and the

Olympic Mountains The Olympic Mountains are a mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are not especially high – Mount Olympus (Washington), Mount Olympus is the high ...

. Seattle in the early 1900s, with its long waterfront of wooden docks, warehouses and merchant vessels, was an enormous responsibility for Seattle's fire department. It was rightfully feared that another devastating fire like the

Great Seattle Fire The Great Seattle Fire was a fire that destroyed the entire central business district of Seattle, Washington, on June 6, 1889. The conflagration lasted for less than a day, burning through the afternoon and into the night, during the same summer ...

of 1889 would overwhelm the capability of the city's single

fireboat A fireboat or Fire-float Pyronaut, fire-float is a specialized watercraft with pumps and nozzles designed for fighting shoreline and shipboard fires. The first fireboats, dating to the late 18th century, were tugboats, retrofitted with ...

, the ''Snoqualmie''. In response to this concern, a new and more powerful fireboat was ordered in 1909. The city entrusted the important fireboat design responsibility to Mr. McAllaster. It wasn't in McAllaster's character to design just some old tub with water cannons. He had arrived in Seattle only five years after the Great Seattle Fire and he knew what kind of catastrophe another big city fire would cause. He set out to design a state of the art fireboat like no other. What he designed was the most powerful fireboat in the world at the time, the fireboat ''Duwamish''. McAllaster died on January 30, 1961, and is buried next to his wife in Seattle's

Lake View Cemetery Lake View Cemetery is a Private property, privately owned, Nonprofit organization, nonprofit Rural cemetery, garden cemetery located in the cities of Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Cleveland Heights, and East Cleveland, Ohio, East Cleveland ...

, along with other Seattle notables.

References

''The Charles A. Rough Archive'', 2006

External links

Biography of Eugene L. McAllaster
* {{DEFAULTSORT:McAllaster, Eugene 1866 births 1946 deaths American naval architects Engineers from Washington (state) Engineers from Seattle University of Michigan alumni Burials at Lake View Cemetery (Seattle)