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Diablo Dam incline railway climbing Sourdough Mountain, 1930. Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, 2306.
Children waving to ferry, 1950. Courtesy Museum of History and Industry.
Loggers in the Northwest woods. Courtesy Washington State Digital Archives.
9/17/2020
Bold as Love
Fifty years ago this week, on September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix died in London, England, at the age of 27. Two weeks later he was buried in Renton. The following January, more than 30 bands held a three-day tribute jam/concert at the Eagles Hall in Seattle in memory of the rock superstar, whose roots in the Pacific Northwest ran deep.
Born and raised in Seattle, Hendrix taught himself to play guitar when he was around 15, and he soon began performing with teenage dance combos in local venues. After a brief stint in the army, he toured the southern states with various R&B combos and eventually made his way to New York in 1964, where his reputation began to grow. After being discovered by members of the British rock-music scene, Hendrix flew to London, became an overnight sensation, and skyrocketed to worldwide fame following his psychedelic performance at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival.
In 1968 Hendrix returned to Seattle as a superstar. The next two years were spent recording albums in London and New York and performing numerous concerts, including a legendary headliner gig at Woodstock. But the busy schedule -- often fueled by liquor and barbiturates -- had its toll, and by the end of 1970 he was dead.
Since his death, his grave site in Renton has become a mecca for rock 'n' roll fans the world around, and what was once a small marker has been replaced with an ornate monument. And in 2000, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's admiration for Hendrix led to the creation of the Experience Music Project (now the Museum of Pop Culture) at Seattle Center.
World at War
On September 21, 1942, Boeing's B-29 bomber -- a top-secret aircraft that the company had been working on prior to America's entry into World War II -- made its maiden flight. Although the project later suffered a setback, thousands of B-29s were eventually used in the Pacific theater, and the Superfortress became the first and so far only aircraft to drop atomic bombs during wartime.
The same day that Boeing engineers watched the prototype B-29 take to the air, military brass were gathered near Oak Harbor for the opening of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. During World War II, NAS Whidbey was used to train fighter and patrol bomber crews and remains the navy's principal air facility north of San Francisco and west of Chicago.
The day after the B-29 launch and the opening of NAS Whidbey, one more wartime event took place that few knew about at the time. President Franklin Roosevelt made a secret visit to Washington that the press was ordered not to report. He arrived by train on September 22, stopping first at Fort Lewis. From there he traveled north to tour the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard near Bremerton, and then viewed Boeing bombers being assembled in Seattle. After spending the night at his daughter's home on Mercer Island, he traveled with her the next day to Vancouver, Washington, where they toured the Alcoa plant before heading off to a ship launch at the Kaiser shipyard in Portland.
On September 20, 1853, the Upper Yakamas in the Wenas Valley hosted the Longmire-Byles wagon train, headed for Naches Pass. Chief Owhi himself supplied the pioneers with produce from his gardens. In 1871 David Longmire, who had been 9 years old in 1853, returned to the Wenas Valley and later purchased the site of Owhi's gardens, adding it to his farm.
On September 20, 1888, the Northwest's commercial-halibut fishery began when the schooner Oscar and Hattie arrived at Tacoma with 50,000 pounds of the tasty fish. Thirty-five years later, the drastic decline in the fish stocks led to the signing of the Pacific Halibut Convention, and today the fishery is one of the world's healthiest.
On September 21, 1918, the worldwide "Spanish Flu" pandemic officially arrived in Washington with the report of 11 cases at Camp Lewis. Within two weeks, 700 cases were reported in Seattle, including one death at the University of Washington's Naval Training Center. The flu remained prevalent until the spring of 1919, during which time nearly 5,000 people were killed by it in Washington.
On September 23, 1927, the New York City-based Columbia Phonograph Company began a two-day round of recording sessions with various local musicians in Spokane. And on September 21, 1957, Los Angeles R&B singer Richard Berry brought "Louie Louie" to Seattle, where it became the Northwest's signature rock song.
On September 20, 1971, John Singer and Paul Barwick requested a marriage license in Seattle, but were denied. They later filed one of the first same-sex-marriage lawsuits in the United States, but their claims of discrimination were rejected by the courts. It wasn't until 2012 that Washington became one of the first states to approve marriage equality by popular vote.
On September 19, 1995, Seattle voters rejected a levy for the Seattle Commons -- a plan to transform the South Lake Union neighborhood into a high-tech corridor -- and also nixed funding for a new stadium for the Seattle Mariners. Nevertheless, South Lake Union has evolved into something similar to the Commons plan, and baseball fans got their wish for a stadium in 1999.
Gonzaga College -- later Gonzaga University -- opened in Spokane on September 17, 1887.
"And so castles made of sand,
Fall in the sea,
eventually."--Jimi Hendrix
