Topic: Industry
Captain Harry Ramwell (1862-1935) built construction and towboat businesses in Everett that created jobs and provided essential services for the lumber, fishing, and fruit-packing industries. Ramwell ...
Captain William Renton was a lumber and shipping merchant, at first based in San Francisco, who established a sawmill on Puget Sound in 1852. In 1863, he relocated to Blakely Harbor, Bainbridge Island...
This People's History is based on Heather MacIntosh's interview of Homer Venishnick in January 2000, in Renton, Washington. In 1890, Captain Edwin R. Burrows took one look at the idyllic landscape at ...
Limestone quarrying and lime processing began at Roche Harbor, located on the north end of San Juan Island in San Juan County, in the early 1880s. Under the leadership of John S. McMillin (1855-1936),...
On December 17, 1975, at 2:30 p.m., Palmer Coking Coal Company dynamited the portal to the Rogers No. 3 mine and the subsequent explosion closed the state's last underground coal mine, ending a signif...
Roslyn, a town in Kittitas County on the east slope of the Cascades, was founded as a coal-mining town in 1886 when prospectors from the Northern Pacific Railway found rich veins of coal. Within weeks...
This People's History presents the full official investigative report prepared by the state Inspector of Coal Mines after an explosion at the Roslyn Mine on October 3, 1909, claimed the lives of 10 mi...
The history of Tacoma cannot be told without the story of William Rust. Born into a Quaker family in Philadelphia, he ventured West with dreams of finding fortune in the gold rush. Using the skills an...
The Salmon Bank is a submerged shelf located off the southern shore of San Juan Island along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Created by the advance and retreat of the continental ice sheet, the shelf's sh...
Tyree Scott was a Seattle civil rights and labor leader who broke down barriers to women and minority workers in the construction industry and also worked to improve working conditions for low-income ...
The Seattle Steam Heat & Power Company was formed the year after the Great Fire of 1889 destroyed most of the city's commercial core and waterfront. The firm's founder and largest shareholder was Jame...
The Skansie Shipbuilding Company, formerly located at 3207 Harborview Drive, Gig Harbor, in western Pierce County, was a South Sound shipbuilding powerhouse in the 1910s and 1920s. Established in 1912...
The long career of John Spellman (1926-2018) in local and state politics began in 1967 when he was elected a King County Commissioner. His term overlapped the controversial Forward Thrust capital impr...
Washington state's second-largest logging and lumber operation during its heyday, the St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company controlled 90 square miles of standing timber in Pierce County and milled bil...
Imagine life without telephones or email; without automobiles, motorboats or airplanes; without floating bridges or paved roads over the Cascades. So it was in 1900. Seattle boasted some of the nation...
The Washington Forest Protection Association (WFPA) was established on April 6, 1908, and celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2008. For its first 50 years the Association was known as the Washington F...
In 1911, the Washington Legislature, reacting against private railroad companies' domination of docks and harbors that were critical to the trade-dependent state's economy, authorized local voters to ...
Washington's publicly owned and managed port districts operate huge container shipping terminals, small-boat marinas, and rural boat launches. They run major international airports, small general avia...
This is a list of Washington Public Ports, presented in the order they were established. Washington has 75 public port districts, more than any other state. Each is an independent government body, run...
One of the oldest trade associations of its kind in North America, the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) traces its beginnings back to the dawn of this state's nascent software industr...
The Washington Water Power Company, now Avista, has been the main power utility for Spokane and much of eastern Washington since its incorporation in 1889. Washington Water Power (WWP) was founded by ...
Washington's forests changed during the nineteenth century. When the century began, forests dominated most of the region. They were homelands for diverse and sovereign Indigenous nations whose recipro...
The schooner Wawona, launched at Fairhaven, California, in 1897, was the largest three-masted sailing schooner ever built in North America. For 17 years, the Wawona hauled lumber up and down the Pacif...
For six decades in Washington, including 25 years on the Everett waterfront, the Western Gear Corporation designed and built cutting-edge industrial products for customers around the world. Its projec...