One-half of Seattle’s population attended the official grand opening of the Ballard locks on July 4, 1917 to celebrate the long-awaited fresh-to-saltwater connection between Lake Washington and the Puget Sound. During the 70-year political journey to that day, significant time and money had been spent on at least 5 separate canal proposals through various Seattle topographies from Beacon Hill to Interbay. Fremont/Ballard/Shilshole won out. However, this effort alone represented an 8-year drama of channels, cofferdams, breaches, bursts, mud slides, injunctions and lawsuits. The Canal required two separate and significant cuts through the landscape: from Lake Washington to Lake Union, and from Lake Union to Salmon Bay. This new connection to Shilshole Bay rerouted Lake Washington’s out-flow, rendered extinct Renton’s Black River, and removed a 770 square mile watershed from the Duwamish River.