Topic: Pioneers
The author of this People's History, Barbara Fleischman Cochran, was a regional historian in Spokane, author of Exploring Spokane's Past, and a member of the faculty at Washington State University. Sh...
James G. Swan lived one of the most varied and colorful lives in the early history of Washington Territory. He was variously an oysterman, customs inspector, secretary to congressional delegate Isaac ...
William Taylor was the founder of North Bend, located in eastern King County on the Snoqualmie River where it turns north. He was a prime mover in this Snoqualmie Valley community. Taylor came to...
Charles Carroll Terry and his older brother Leander (Lee) Terry left their homes in New York state in 1849, bound for California. By October 1851 they were in Oregon Territory, and both, at different ...
Resembling a long rope frayed at each end, the Oregon Trail stretched across much of nineteenth century North America, linking the populated East Coast with the remote western edge of the continent. A...
This is the story of a "working man," Joseph Pfister (1883-1947), born in Wisconsin to immigrants from Switzerland, and his wife, Mary (Gierhofer) Pfister (1888-1962), born in Austria and brought to A...
This story was published in the Tacoma Ledger on November 13, 1892. It was submitted by Liz Russell. Nancy Russell Thomas was born on September 15, 1832, in Ashland, Ohio. She came west with her paren...
Alfred Schillestad, son of Seattle pioneer Ole Schillestad, left a unique visual record of early life along the shores of Salmon Bay in the sketchbooks he created as young man. Two of Alfred Schillest...
This account of the strange journey of Willie Keil (1836-1855) over the Oregon Trail was written by Dorothea Nordstrand (1916-2011) and first appeared in Adventure West in November 1994.
The Ulin family arrived in Seattle in 1869, and Erick Ulin Sr. worked as a ship carpenter. The Spray family arrived in 1875. Carl Wade, third cousin to the Sprays, contributed this account of these tw...
Samuel Royal Thurston's (1816-1851) political ambitions were greater than his short life allowed. Oregon Territory's first delegate to the U.S. Congress, Thurston is credited with passage of the Donat...
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 15th essay in our Turning Points series for The Seattle Times explores Seattle's "other birthplace," the Collins settlement in present-day Georgetown. Luther Collins, Henry Van Asselt, Jacob and S...
The 16th essay in HistoryLink's Turning Point series for The Seattle Times focuses on the cultural interactions between Puget Sound's Native peoples and the first European explorers and early settlers...
The 17th and final essay in our Turning Points series for The Seattle Times, HistoryLink director Walt Crowley looks back on the city's birth and the uses -- and misuses -- of history. It was publishe...
As a young girl in Maine, Mary Richardson set her mind to become a missionary. Upon marrying Elkanah Walker in 1837, the couple set out for the Oregon Country. They settled among the Spokane Indians t...
The Cascade Mountains posed a formidable obstacle to wagon travel in the 1840s and 1850s. When waves of emigrants began arriving in the Northwest, they followed the Columbia River Gorge, the easiest (...
"A Pioneer of Three States -- Adventurer, Prospector, Miner, Trader, Explorer, Promoter, Soldier and Public Official," was how Edward Warbass was once described ("San Juan's Best Known Pioneer"). He c...
This is a talk given by Brewster Denny (1924-2013) to the Pioneer Association of the State of Washington on November 2, 1996. Brewster Denny was the great grandson of Seattle pioneer Arthur Denny...
Soon after the creation of Oregon Territory in 1848, settlers north of the Columbia River began demanding a territory of their own. Congress acquiesced on February 8, 1853, with the creation of Washin...
The Wenas Valley in northwestern Yakima County has long been a transportation corridor for people traveling through the Yakima River Valley and across the Cascades. Indian tribes traveled through the ...
Marcus Whitman, a man with unwavering cultural and religious convictions, was one of the first missionaries in the Northwest. He and his wife, Narcissa, established a mission on Cayuse land near Walla...
Narcissa Whitman might have lived out her life in historical obscurity but for two developments. The first was her decision, in 1836, to marry a missionary named Marcus Whitman (1802-1847) and travel ...
William Bell (1817-1887) was a member of the Denny party that went ashore at Alki Point on November 13, 1851. The following spring he settled with his wife Sarah Ann Bell (1815-1856) and their four ch...