(waves lapping)
♪♪
Alfred Pritchard
came home from the gold rush in the Yukon Territory
looking for a place to build a house and raise a family.
He scoured the shores of Lake Washington
and found a beautiful island
on the south end of the lake,
which was later called Pritchard Island.
When the lake was lowered for the new locks at Ballard,
it became not an island, but a peninsula.
And today, it's one of the most beautiful swimming beaches
in our state.
♪♪
I love it there because many of my cousins were raised close by
and we used to go down to Pritchard Island to swim.
♪♪
In the 1950s, my aunt took us to Pritchard
Island and we were going to swim.
It was a really hot day
and we found out that the lake was just too polluted.
We looked out over the lake
and you could virtually see the pollution in the lake.
And it was then when guys like Jim Ellis and others
stepped forward to develop something called
"Forward Thrust" and clean up Lake Washington.
To those individuals, we'll always be indebted.
♪♪
And Pritchard Island Beach
is now a great place to swim once again.
And it truly is one of my favorite places.
♪♪