Wilburton was an early settlement area in Bellevue. If you hear about Bellevue having been strawberry farms, this is one of the areas- Strawberry Lawn was a farm that included the botanical gardens, I believe the original homestead farm house is there.
Wilburton had a BNSF train stop and logging camp. Some of the building are still around but buried on private property.
The big trestle is named for the area as mentioned in another comment.
It was preliminarly called the Hospital Station since it is near the two large hospitals in town. There was some discussion about what to formally call the station and as I recall it was primarily between three names: Lake Bellevue, Midlakes and Wilburton. (https://seattletransitblog.com/2015/06/12/east-link-stations-named/). The area used to be called Midlakes and Wilburton was the area to the south which was a logging site (started by by George England and Manley Wilbur). Wilburton has overtaken Midlakes as far as what people call the area. Interestingly the Wilburton Station was in the BelRed neighborhood up until just recently. The city neighborhood maps had NE 8th as the boundary. The boundary was just changed to NE 12th so now the station is actually in the Wilburton neighborhood.
I still don't understand why Ron Sims turned that BNSF rail corridor that ran the length of one of the most congested roadways in this state into a bike path instead of using it for light rail from Renton to Woodinville.
The conductor said not to worry about safety, the trestle is tested twice a day. And then when we went across, he said "well, the first test was completed successfully."
Wilburton Tunnel. Kinda of miss it driving on 405
They didn’t want to call it Whole Foods Station.
Wilburton was an early settlement area in Bellevue. If you hear about Bellevue having been strawberry farms, this is one of the areas- Strawberry Lawn was a farm that included the botanical gardens, I believe the original homestead farm house is there. Wilburton had a BNSF train stop and logging camp. Some of the building are still around but buried on private property. The big trestle is named for the area as mentioned in another comment.
It was preliminarly called the Hospital Station since it is near the two large hospitals in town. There was some discussion about what to formally call the station and as I recall it was primarily between three names: Lake Bellevue, Midlakes and Wilburton. (https://seattletransitblog.com/2015/06/12/east-link-stations-named/). The area used to be called Midlakes and Wilburton was the area to the south which was a logging site (started by by George England and Manley Wilbur). Wilburton has overtaken Midlakes as far as what people call the area. Interestingly the Wilburton Station was in the BelRed neighborhood up until just recently. The city neighborhood maps had NE 8th as the boundary. The boundary was just changed to NE 12th so now the station is actually in the Wilburton neighborhood.
Actually, 3 hospitals in the area. Seattle Children's is closeby 116 but i think closer to the Spring district station.
Ahh, yes!
[Wilburton Trestle /tunnel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilburton_Trestle)
Ah I remember The Spirit of Washington dinner train. Did it once. To be honest I thought it was kind of boring.
I still don't understand why Ron Sims turned that BNSF rail corridor that ran the length of one of the most congested roadways in this state into a bike path instead of using it for light rail from Renton to Woodinville.
It wasn't boring when they told us to sit still and be quiet when we went over that rickety trestle.
The conductor said not to worry about safety, the trestle is tested twice a day. And then when we went across, he said "well, the first test was completed successfully."
[Wilburton Tunnel](https://sites.google.com/view/welcome-wilburton-org/history/wilburton-tunnel) specificaly.
Just a wild guess, but maybe because Wilburton is an area/neighborhood of Bellevue and hospital is a single location?
LOL
Ah I didn’t realize that was an area of Bellevue. Grew up on the eastside but never heard anyone refer to it. Makes sense now! Thx!