In this reminiscence, Dorothea (Pfister) Nordstrand (1916-2011) relates the story of how she learned to drive in Seattle. The year was 1936, just 36 years after the first auto arrived in Seattle in 19...
In the early morning of January 9, 2009, a raging fire burned down The Dutchman rehearsal and recording studio in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood. The rundown industrial warehouse had been a vibrant cente...
Eric Johnston (1895-1961) was a Spokane businessman, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, President of the Motion Picture Association of America, and an appointed official in the Truman and Eisenhowe...
This is a contemporary report on the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, Washington's first world's fair. The exposition took place between June 1 and October 16, 1909, drawing more than three million pe...
On June 6, 1889, at about 2:45 p.m., what became known as the Great Seattle Fire started when a pot of glue burst into flames in a small cabinet shop on Front Street (today's 1st Avenue). The blaze qu...
On June 7, 1889, the sun rose over a stunned and devastated Seattle. The day before, a massive fire had ravaged the city's commercial core and its waterfront. Seattle had been booming, and over the pr...
Thanks to Seattle's damp and soggy weather, coffee has always been a cherished commodity. The city's first commercial roasting operations began producing fresh-roasted coffee more than 100 years ago, ...
This history of Harborview Medical Center and its predecessor hospitals by Josephine Ensign, who teaches health policy and health humanities at the University of Washington, is part of her larger work...
The first protean ideas for a Seattle domed stadium arose 12 years before the Kingdome's long-anticipated groundbreaking in 1972. Although many local sports fans and business leaders enthusiastically ...
In 1954 three Klineburger brothers -- Gene (b.1920), Bert (b.1926), and Chris (b.1927) -- bought the Jonas Brothers taxidermy studio in Seattle and by the early 1960s turned it into one of the largest...
The Mountaineers is a Western Washington-based organization that has had a major impact on outdoor recreation and wilderness preservation in the state. Started in Seattle in 1906 primarily as a mounta...
In the spring of 1859, after five years of study and survey, the U.S. War Department appropriated funds for the construction of a military wagon road between Fort Walla Walla in Washington Territory a...