Topic: Maritime
In March 1775, the second Spanish expedition, commanded by Bruno de Hezeta (sometimes spelled Heceta), sailed north from Mexico to Nueva Galicia (the Pacific Northwest). This expedition set forth shor...
Juan Perez (Juan Josef Perez Hernandez), sailing on the frigate Santiago with a crew made up mostly of Mexicans, was the first non-native to sight, examine, name, and record the islands near British C...
On April 23, 1899, two ships collide in the early morning darkness on Commencement Bay. The Glenogle is a 400-foot ocean liner bound for Asia. The City of Kingston is a 246-foot da...
The Dalles Lock and Dam (The Dalles Dam) is one of the 10 largest producers of hydroelectric power in the United States. Since its first generator went online in 1957, the dam has produced more than 9...
The Treaty of Neah Bay was signed on on January 31, 1855 by Isaac Stevens (1818-1862), Governor of Washington Territory, and by leaders and delegates of the Makah tribe. Following is the complete text...
In 1933 Seattle played a part in a blockbuster movie. Tugboat Annie, the story of a long-suffering female tug skipper in the mythical community of Secoma on Puget Sound, was the hit of the day, in man...
This the first in a series of special essays commissioned by The Seattle Times to examine crucial turning points in the history of Seattle and King County. "An Accidental Metropolis" considers the gam...
The 14th essay in our Turning Points series for The Seattle Times, written by Walt Crowley, details the creation of the Port of Seattle on September 5, 1911. The election of the first three Port Commi...
The ninth essay in HistoryLink's Turning Points series for The Seattle Times traces the history of ferry transportation on Puget Sound beginning with Native American canoe transportation, continuing t...
The USS Missouri (BB-63), moored at Bremerton's Puget Sound Naval Shipyard from 1954 to 1984, was the last battleship commissioned by the United States Navy and the second battleship to bear the name ...
On Monday, January 22, 1906, the coastal passenger liner SS Valencia, en route from San Francisco to Seattle with 108 passengers and 65 crew aboard, passed the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca i...
George Vancouver was an important explorer of Puget Sound. He served for 25 years in the British Navy, and commanded the 1791-1792 British expedition to the North Pacific. In April 1792, George Vancou...
Before Washington's state highway system was established, water transport was essential to commerce and public transportation on Puget Sound. The hundreds of small, independent, privately owned vessel...
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...
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...
Along with every other major West Coast port, Seattle's harbor was paralyzed from May 9 to July 31, 1934, by one of the most important and bitter labor strikes of the twentieth century. The struggle p...
The West Point Lighthouse, built in 1881 by the U. S. Lighthouse Service, marks the hazardous shoal and northern entrance into Elliott Bay. The beacon, located in Seattle's Discovery Park at the base ...
This file contains recollections of the West Seattle Ferry by West Seattle residents Carroll Mage and George Shephard. They recall the days before the West Seattle Bridge existed -- when the quickest ...
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...
This People's History consists of a letter written in June 1958, describing life in Westport during the years following 1912. Westport is located in Grays Harbor County on a peninsula on the Pacific c...
Over the course of his lifetime, much of it spent on the water, Joe D. Williamson (1909-1994) documented a wide swath of Northwest history with his camera, yet he did not consider photography his prim...
A Willits canoe, considered one of the finest canoes ever made, was the life's work of the Willits brothers: Earl Carmi (1889-1967) and Floyd Calvin (1892-1962). Born in the Midwest, they arrived in t...