Renton

The industrial city of Renton, at the southern end of Lake Washington, has an old, refurbished downtown and a public library dramatically built on a bridge across the Cedar River. However, according to Seattle writer Bill Speidel, the city has always received the short end of the stick when it comes to regional development: "You sort of hesitate to suggest that Renton is always the bridesmaid and never the bride, but the fact is that she's been used and re-used by some of the stars of the show for the last century or more." One of the incidents Speidel cites is that Seattleites got Renton to agree to the ship canal connecting Lake Washington and Puget Sound by telling residents they'd get a seaport in return. Instead, the canal caused the lake's level to drop by 9 feet and all Renton got was mudflats. Now those mudflats are home to the Renton Airport, the Will Rogers-Wiley Post Seaplane Base, and the huge Boeing aircraft manufacturing plant, which together provide Renton with far more income than a port would have. A pleasant beach park runs along the shore north of the Boeing plant.