In Days Gone By: The naming of Hadley Acres and Esperance

After the publication of the wonderful article by Brad Holden on the pending demolition of the notorious Rosewood Manor, which you can read here, I received several inquiries asking me if I knew when and/or how Hadley Acres and Esperance got their names.

I decided to do a little research into the subject. To get at the answer, you have to learn the name Charles Tallmadge Conover, who was the lead partner in Crawford and Conover, the most successful real estate development firm in the Seattle area in the late 1800s.

T. Conover was a newspaper man by training and experience when he arrived in Seattle in 1884. As he recounted in an Aug. 4, 1957, Seattle Daily Times article “Seattle was a dump…nothing inviting at all.” By 1887-88, he had become city editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. But after six months on the job, he quit and took a reporter by the name of Sam Crawford with him, forming Crawford & Conover Real Estate.

C.T. Conover driving and S.L Crawford circa 1890 on 5th and Cherry in Seattle. (Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons and University of Washington Digital Collections)

In a Sept. 2, 1948 article in the Seattle Daily Times, C. T. recalled that he and his partner realized that the Green Lake District was beginning to develop, so they made the bold move to purchase as many large tracts of land as they could near Bitter Lake, adjacent to what is now the Seattle Golf Course and The Highlands.

“Bitter Lake was way, way out, and it took us most of the day to show the properties. But because we were working that far from the city we were able to purchase land at less than $20 per acre,” he said.

Once they proved that they could easily profit by selling five-acre tracts for chicken ranches and garden homes in the Bitter Lake area, they moved further north. They developed four or five subdivisions by Echo Lake, three at Lago Vista and numerous large tracts in the Richmond Beach area.

Crawford & Conover office staff circa 1890.  L-R, back row: Capt. P.D. Hughes, C.T. Conover, E.C. Baird. Seated: S.L. Crawford, Walter Hamley (messenger), Maj. L.S. Wi. (Photo courtesy University of Washington Libraries, Special Collection Division)

Continuing to have large successes, the firm kept moving further north, finally finishing with their large Sea View Tract development just northeast of Edmonds city limits in 1907-1909.

Beyond the firm’s official business, C.T. also purchased land as an investment for family members. As he explained in a Feb. 2, 1956 article, “My sister had a little money for investment and I bought 80 acres for her barely over the in line in Snohomish County, and platted it into five-acre tracts, which I named Hadley Acres. The Everett Interurban ran through the property and I named the station where the train would stop to pick up and unload passengers, ‘Esperance’ for my birthplace in New York, an idyllic village with many precious memories for me.  It is located about 20 miles from Albany. The word ‘esperance’ is of Latin and French origin (now archaic) and means ‘hope.'”

One of the early ads for Hadley Acres that appeared in the Seattle Daily Times. Samuel C. Freels, Inc. acted as the sales agent for Crawford & Conover.

Later, the property was purchased by developers and the original five-acre tracts in some instances were subdivided, as there was a growing need for single-family residences.

Today Esperance refers to a community spread over approximately 240 acres that is in unincorporated Snohomish County bordering Edmonds.


Map of Esperance – Courtesy Washington State Digital Archives.

Later on, Crawford and Conover developed properties on the eastern shore of Lake Washington and managed various properties in the area.

Author’s final notes: C.T. Conover had an amazing career as both a real estate developer and as a writer. He is credited with the moniker “The Evergreen State” — he and his firm created a pamphlet titled “Washington the Evergreen State and Seattle Metropolis” in 1890, a few months after Washington became a state. The pamphlet was circulated throughout the East Coast and was instrumental in attracting people to the state.

In 1917 and 1924, he went before the U.S. Geographical Board and the U.S. Congress persuading them to retain the name “Mount Rainier” when there was a movement to change the name to Mount Tacoma.

After his forced retirement from real estate in 1939 due to health reasons, C.T became a longtime columnist for the Seattle Daily Times, writing the column “Just Cogitating,” which looked back at the people and events that shaped Seattle’s development.

C.T. Conover died on Aug. 5, 1961, one day short of his 99th birthday.

This article was researched and written by Byron Wilkes. Thanks go to the Edmonds Historical Museum, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the University of Washington for their assistance in this endeavor.

    1. Thanks Brad. Conover was quite a bit before his time in regards to real estate development and definitely used his writing skills to promote the State of Washington through his pamphlets and advertisements which they distributed widely up and down the eastern seaboard.

  1. I grew up in the Esperence community. We lived on 232nd & 88th when there was nothing but wonderful woods surrounding our little neighborhood. My mom would pack us a lunch & off into the woods we could go with my German shepherd, Sarge, and my mom knew he wouldn’t let anyone hurt us. We had a favorite ancient cedar tree that had huge limbs curving outward near its base. We would climb up the tree and slide down those limbs…we were in heaven! We were so happy, carefree, and lucky!
    Us kids living in that area were continually going to a new school that was just built …. until high school where we got to spend 10th thru 12th …. Graduated in 1966. I remember that the residents voted not be be a part of Edmonds for many years.
    My mom worked at Edmonds Bakery and Rich Whitman private school in Woodway/ Richmond area. I worked at the Colonial Pantry restaurant during high school. My best friend Pidgie worked at a Taco Time at Westgate. Just hoping mentioning my memories will bring back some memories for you too
    And yes, we had lots of stories of the scary old house

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