Georgetown Steam Plant

What an incredible preservation of history! This steam plant is fun to simply walk through, but don't miss the free tours either. Each of the volunteer docents has a different background perspective from which they share the plant's history. If you are a photographer, an artist, an engineer, airplane or power-generation enthusiast, student, or just love learning new things and seeing cool stuff, you will be able to appreciate all this site has to offer.

Excellent tour guides, completely free, and you're allowed to walk around and explore the areas that aren't blocked off! It's a photographer's playground and an engineer's brain tease. I highly recommend it for all sorts of folks interested in the seemingly mundane.

This place was amazing. I love steampunk, site specific, collectively cared for history/herstory/ ourstory. What an epic venue for my friends 50th bday. Mixed accessibility.

Recently went here for a friend’s 50th birthday party. It was amazing. Incredible venue space.

Very beautiful historical steam plant. They offer free tours, host art exhibits and other events. The staff and volunteers were very friendly and knowledgeable. Cool spot to take photos.

Free tour guided by volunteers. It’s currently open to visits one Saturday a month, so I recommend checking the website before planning your visit. Very interesting tour, with a mix of history, architecture and engineering.

Stopped by for one of the bi-monthly open houses and def would recommend for anyone who likes seattle history or just the opportunity to poke around in an old industrial space. You can either take a guided tour or else just wander around on your own - def learned some stuff from listening in on the tour but had a great time wandering the space imagining it at full capacity

Cool Art show at the Georgetown Steam Plant. Looking forward to seeing the other events they are going to have here this year. Also checked out the metal flying bird in the back and the herb garden. A lot going on here these days.

I don't know how my partner originally learned about this place but he told me he wanted to come for a free tour and we put it on our to do list. It's open to the public the 2nd Saturday of the month for limited hours and they offer two-one hour tours during this time. The entrance to the parking lot is a little hidden, but follow the signs and drive into the gate, there's quite a bit of space. There's porta potties on site near the parking lot. If you want to go to the 2nd floor you will have to climb some stairs, but those with mobility issues may still enjoy just taking a look from the bottom floor, there was a ramp to one of the entrances of the building. Other floors are closed to the public, but hopefully this will change one day. There is some stuff to look at if you come and just read the indoor signs, but I think the tour really pulls it all together. The person who lead our tour seemed like she put a lot of energy into her presentation and enjoyed volunteering there. I had no idea this place even existed and found the history really interesting and this is not a subject I am overly excited by. Its cool that this historic building has been saved, they are currently working on a plan to develop it further into a STEM center and they appreciate donations towards this cause. I believe it's also part of the Georgetown Haunted tour, which may be a reason to stop by on it's own. I hope to come back in a few years and see how they have developed it and check out the other floors. I'd love to see the historic bathroom.

Open on the second Saturday of the month, this is a fun, free place to check out and learn a little something about our history. There is very, very little parking here and I highly recommend getting there early to get a spot - it's a lot more popular than you'd think! When you're here you have the option to just wander around or you can go on the tour (which is also free). Great place to walk on a hot day - the building was quite cool. When I went there was a little group of hobbyists that had several generators up and running on a table. The volunteers are very friendly and a lot of them are really passionate about sharing their knowledge. The second floor is also open to the public as long as you're capable of climbing a fairly steep staircase.

I've been waiting to write this review for 8 years, ever since I met the volunteer librarian for this historic electric power plant that time forgot. I met Mr Maas at City Coffee when a friend I was visiting had an art studio above. Mr Maas was older and maybe intellectually disabled, living in a small apartment nearby at 2010 fixed-income-friendly rent. We chatted and he gave me his writing in the photo. The steam plant was built in 1906 and last ran in the early 1970's. It was closed and some of the land was sold, but the contents remained intact, frozen in time. It was originally a coal fueled plant. It also could run on oil. It has two 4 story tall Curtis generators built by General Electric over 100 years ago. GE was originally founded by Thomas Edison, and remains one of the top world suppliers of equipment for the electric grid. These generators are very small by today's standards, which is why smaller power plants all over the country close as they become harder to maintain; all the while we are adding new small renewable generators, like solar and wind. There are also some smaller generators which helped start and run the large ones. There is a large spooky brick boiler hall with rusty access and stoking portals, steam gauges and a maze of pipes. It's a steampunk paradise, a great film location and a unique spot for portraits and selfies. It's real steampunk, with the real smells of oil here and there! The tour is up and down steps and across catwalks. There are heights involved and it is not suitable for small children or pets. The main level is wheelchair accessible, but the parking lot is gravel and the tour goes outside on the grass in our dry season. The day we visited, a group of retired steam hobbyists were meeting there. They build and collect small operating replica tabletop steam generators which run on propane and the like. They have little boxes and suitcases to travel with their steam engines. They gather to exchange stories and brought homemade cookies for everyone. The plant is owned by Seattle City Light who maintains an informative website - http://www.georgetownsteamplant.org/. And Georgetown's Fantagraphics is making a graphic novel about the plant! (https://steamplantgraphicnovel.com/.) The building is in danger of being torn down because King County, who owns the airport, built in 1928, covets the land. The airport was replaced by Seatac, and is only used by private plane owners and corporate jets. The Steam Plant has a group of volunteers who are working on preserving it as a STEM learning center and they lead tours providing a history of the neighborhood and the plant. Today they are open every second Thursday from 10AM to 2PM with tours at 11 and 1. Free. Private tours can be arranged for school groups. The Seattle Atlas Obscura is arranging tours for a fee too. Time has not forgotten this piece of Georgetown and Seattle history! It's one of the area's most unique and unusual places to visit, for free!