This is the main article of a series that covers the history of
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
,
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
, a
city
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
in the
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...
region of the
United States of America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
.
Seattle is a major port city that has a history of
boom and bust. Seattle has on several occasions been sent into severe decline, but has typically used those periods to successfully rebuild infrastructure. There have been at least five such cycles:
* The
lumber
Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...
-industry boom, followed by the construction of an
Olmsted Olmsted may refer to:
People
* Olmsted (name)
Places
* Olmsted Air Force Base, inactive since 1969
* Olmsted, Illinois
* Olmsted County, Minnesota
* Olmsted Falls, Ohio
* Olmsted Point, a viewing area in Yosemite National Park
* Olmsted Town ...
-designed park system.
* The
Klondike gold rush started in 1896, but reached Seattle in July 1897. This constituted the largest boom for Seattle proportional to the city's size at the time, and ended the economic woes Seattle (and the nation) had been suffering since the
Panic of 1893.
* The
shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to befo ...
boom, which peaked during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and crashed immediately thereafter, followed by the unused city development plan of
Virgil Bogue
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
.
* The
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
boom, followed by general infrastructure building.
* Most recently, the boom based on
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
and other
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
...
,
web, and
telecommunications
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
companies, such as
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential econo ...
,
AT&T Wireless
AT&T Mobility LLC, also known as AT&T Wireless and Trade name, marketed as simply AT&T, is an American telecommunications company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T, AT&T Inc. and provides wireless services in the United States. AT&T Mobi ...
, and
RealNetworks.
Early history of Seattle
![Second Ave](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Second_Ave._and_Marion_St.%2C_Seattle%2C_Wash.%2C_July_1889.jpg)
What is now Seattle has been inhabited since the end of the last
glacial period
A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betwe ...
(c. 8,000 B.C.—10,000 years ago), for at least 4,000 years. In the mid-1850s the
Coast Salish peoples of what is now called the
Duwamish Tribe
The Duwamish ( lut, Dxʷdəwʔabš, ) are a Lushootseed-speaking Native American tribe in western Washington, and the indigenous people of metropolitan Seattle, where they have been living since the end of the last glacial period (c. 8000 BCE ...
and
Suquamish
The Suquamish () are a Lushootseed language, Lushootseed-speaking Native Americans in the United States, Native American people, located in present-day Washington (state), Washington in the United States. They are a southern Coast Salish peopl ...
, as well as other associated groups and tribes, were living in some 13 villages within the present-day city limits of Seattle. Evidence of continuous human habitation of a village site within the current city limits of the city of Seattle dating back to the 6th century C.E. exists on the Port of Seattle Terminal 107 site, located on the Western bank of the Duwamish River.
The site was abandoned in approximately 1800, for unknown reasons. Other notable village sites include the birthplace of
Chief Seattle
Chief Seattle ( – June 7, 1866) was a Suquamish and Duwamish chief. A leading figure among his people, he pursued a path of accommodation to white settlers, forming a personal relationship with "Doc" Maynard. The city of Seattle, in th ...
, which was located near the current footprint of the King Street Station.
George Vancouver was the first
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
an to visit the Seattle area in May 1792 during his
1791-95 expedition to chart the
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...
.
The founding of Seattle is usually dated from the arrival of the
Denny Party
The Denny Party is a group of American pioneers credited with founding Seattle, Washington. They settled at Alki Point on November 13, 1851.
History
A wagon party headed by Arthur A. Denny left Cherry Grove, Illinois on April 10, 1851. The part ...
scouts on September 25, 1851. However, Luther Collins, Henry Van Asselt, and the Maple family founded a farming settlement on what is currently the Seattle neighborhood of Georgetown on September 27, 1851. The Denny party's original site was an unfinished cabin, without roof, and a camp site, located at Alki Point, in West Seattle. The Collins party settlement was improved with permanent structures, and was soon producing produce and meat for sale and barter. In April, 1852,
Arthur A. Denny
Arthur Armstrong Denny (June 20, 1822 – January 9, 1899) was one of the founders of Seattle, Washington,, Special Collections, Washington State Historical Society (WSHS). Accessed online 8 March 2008. the acknowledged leader of the pioneer Den ...
abandoned the original site at
Alki in favor of a better protected site on
Elliott Bay
Elliott Bay is a part of the Central Basin region of Puget Sound. It is in the U.S. state of Washington, extending southeastward between West Point in the north and Alki Point in the south. Seattle was founded on this body of water in the 1850s ...
that is now part of
downtown Seattle.
Arthur A. Denny
Arthur Armstrong Denny (June 20, 1822 – January 9, 1899) was one of the founders of Seattle, Washington,, Special Collections, Washington State Historical Society (WSHS). Accessed online 8 March 2008. the acknowledged leader of the pioneer Den ...
and
Luther Collins were the first commissioners of King County after its creation in 1852. Around the same time,
David Swinson "Doc" Maynard began settling the land immediately south of Denny's.
Seattle in its early decades relied on the timber industry, shipping logs (and later, milled timber) to
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
. A climax forest of trees up to 1,000–2,000 years old and towering as high as nearly 400 ft (122 m) covered much of what is now Seattle. Today, none of that size remain anywhere in the world.
When
Henry Yesler
Henry Leiter Yesler (December 2, 1810 – December 16, 1892) was an entrepreneur and a politician, regarded as a founder of the city of Seattle. Yesler served two non-consecutive terms as Mayor of Seattle, and was the city's wealthiest resident ...
brought the first steam sawmill to the region, he chose a location on the waterfront where Maynard and Denny's plats met. Thereafter Seattle would dominate the lumber industry.
Charlie Terry sold out Alki (which, after his departure barely held on as a settlement), moved to Seattle and began acquiring land. He either owned or partially owned Seattle's first timber ships. He eventually gave a land grant to the University of the Territory of Washington (later
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...
), and was instrumental in the politics to establish an urban infrastructure.
The logging town developed rapidly over decades into a small city. Despite being officially founded by the
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...
s of the Denny Party, Seattle quickly developed a reputation as a wide-open town, a haven for
prostitution,
liquor, and
gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...
. Some attribute this, at least in part, to Maynard who realized that something was needed to bring the loggers and sailors, who formed the majority of the surrounding population, to town.
Real estate
Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...
records show that nearly all of the city's first 60 businesses were on, or immediately adjacent to, Maynard's plat.
All of this occurred against a background of sometimes rocky relations with the local
Native American population, including a nominally pitched battle, the
Battle of Seattle, January 25, 1856.
Seattle was incorporated as a town January 14, 1865. That charter was voided January 18, 1867, in response to questionable activities of the town's elected leaders. Seattle was re-incorporated December 2, 1869. At the times of incorporations, the population was approximately 350 and 1,000, respectively.
In 1867, a young
French Canadian Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
priest named
Francis X. Prefontaine arrived in Seattle and decided to establish a
parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...
there. At that time, Seattle had no Catholic church and few parishioners. Fr. Prefontaine counted only ten Catholics in the town and only three attended the first mass that he conducted. His bishop,
Augustin-Magloire Blanchet
Augustin Magloire Alexandre Blanchet (22 August 1797 – 25 February 1887) was a French Canadian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the first bishop of the now-defunct Diocese of Walla Walla and of the Diocese of Nesqually in pr ...
, whose
cathedra was in
Vancouver, Washington
Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, located in Clark County. Incorporated in 1857, Vancouver has a population of 190,915 as of the 2020 census, making it the fourth-largest city in Was ...
, gave Fr. Prefontaine permission to build a church there, as long as the priest could raise the funds himself and it would cost the
diocese
In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
History
In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associa ...
nothing. Prefontaine raised the money by holding fairs around the Puget Sound area. During 1868–69 he built the church, doing much of the work himself, and in 1869 he opened Seattle's first Catholic church at Third Avenue and Washington Street, on the site where the present-day Prefontaine Building stands.
Railroad rivalry and encroaching civilization
On July 14, 1873 the
Northern Pacific Railway announced that they had chosen the then-village of
Tacoma over Seattle as the Western terminus of their transcontinental
railroad
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
. The railroad barons appear to have been gambling on the advantage they could gain from being able to buy up the land around their terminus cheaply instead of bringing the railroad into a more established Pacific port town.
Seattle made several attempts to build a railroad of its own or to leverage one to come. The
Great Northern Railway finally came to Seattle in 1884, winning Seattle a place in competition for freight, though it would be 1906 before Seattle finally acquired a major rail passenger terminal.
Seattle in this era was a freebooting and often relatively lawless town. Although it boasted
newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...
s and
telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
s,
lynch law often prevailed (there were at least four deaths by
lynching in 1882),
school
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes comp ...
s barely operated, and indoor
plumbing
Plumbing is any system that conveys fluids for a wide range of applications. Plumbing uses pipes, valves, plumbing fixtures, tanks, and other apparatuses to convey fluids. Heating and cooling (HVAC), waste removal, and potable water deliv ...
was a rare novelty. In the low
mudflats where much of the city was built,
sewage was almost as likely to come in on the
tide
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another.
Tide tables ...
as to flow away. The streets were potholed, to the point where there was at least one fatal
drowning
Drowning is a type of suffocation induced by the submersion of the mouth and nose in a liquid. Most instances of fatal drowning occur alone or in situations where others present are either unaware of the victim's situation or unable to offer as ...
.
Union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
organizing first arrived in the form of a skilled craft union. In 1882, Seattle printers formed the Seattle Typographical Union Local 202. Dockworkers followed in 1886,
cigarmakers in 1887, tailors in 1889, and both brewers and musicians in 1890. Even the newsboys unionized in 1892, followed by more organizing, mostly of craft unions.
The history of labor in the American West in this period is inseparable from the issue of anti-Chinese vigilantism. In 1883
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
laborers played a key role in the first effort at digging the
Montlake Cut
The Montlake Cut is the easternmost section of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which passes through the city of Seattle, linking Lake Washington to Puget Sound. It was completed in 1916 and is approximately long and wide. The center channel ...
to connect
Lake Union's
Portage Bay
Portage Bay is a body of water, often thought of as the eastern arm of Lake Union, that forms a part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal in Seattle, Washington.
To the east, Portage Bay is connected with Union Bay—a part of Lake Washington— ...
to
Lake Washington's
Union Bay. In 1885–1886, whites—sometimes in combination with Indians—complaining of overly cheap labor competition, drove the Chinese settlers from Seattle, Tacoma, and other Northwest cities.
In an era during which the Washington Territory was one of the first parts of the U.S. to (briefly) allow
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
, women played a significant part in "civilizing" Seattle.
The first bathtub with plumbing was in 1870. In the 1880s, Seattle got its first
streetcar
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport a ...
and
cable car,
ferry service, a
YMCA
YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams (philanthropist), Georg ...
gymnasium, and the exclusive
Rainier Club
The Rainier Club is a private club in Seattle, Washington; it has been referred to as "Seattle's preeminent private club."Priscilla LongGentlemen organize Seattle's Rainier Club on February 23, 1888 HistoryLink.org, January 27, 2001. Accessed onli ...
, and passed an ordinance requiring attached
sewer lines for all new residences. It also began to develop a road system.
The relative fortunes of Seattle and Tacoma clearly show the nature of Seattle's growth. Though both Seattle and Tacoma grew at a rapid rate from 1880 to 1890, based on the strength of their timber industries, Seattle's growth as an exporter of services and manufactured goods continued for another two decades, while Tacoma's growth dropped almost to zero. The reason for this lies in Tacoma's nature as a
company town and Seattle's successful avoidance of that condition.
The Great Fire
The early Seattle era came to a stunning halt with the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889. Started by a glue pot, the fire burned 29 city blocks (almost entirely wooden buildings; about 10
brick buildings also burned). It destroyed nearly the entire business district, all of the railroad terminals, and all but four of the
wharves
A wharf, quay (, also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more berths (mooring location ...
. Major fires like this were common in Washington that summer: the center of
Ellensburg
Ellensburg is a city in and the county seat of Kittitas County, Washington, United States. It is located just east of the Cascade Range near the junction of Interstate 90 and Interstate 82. The population was 18,666 at the 2020 census. and was ...
was destroyed by fire on July 4 and downtown
Spokane
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Ca ...
burned on August 4.
Thanks in part to credit arranged by
Jacob Furth, Seattle rebuilt from the ashes with astounding rapidity. A new
zoning
Zoning is a method of urban planning in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into areas called zones, each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a si ...
code resulted in a downtown of brick and
stone
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...
buildings, rather than
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...
. In the single year after the fire, the city grew from 25,000 to 40,000 inhabitants, largely because of the enormous number of
construction
Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form Physical object, objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Pr ...
jobs suddenly created.
Still, south of Yesler Way, the open city atmosphere remained.
The Klondike Gold Rush
![Early annexations to Seattle (2405863305)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Early_annexations_to_Seattle_%282405863305%29.jpg)
The greatest boom period for Seattle occurred during the
Klondike gold rush. Seattle, as well as the rest of the nation, was suffering from the economic
panic of 1893, and to a lesser extent, the
panic of 1896
The Panic of 1896 was an acute economic depression in the United States that was less serious than other panics of the era, precipitated by a drop in silver reserves, and market concerns on the effects it would have on the gold standard. Deflatio ...
. Gold was discovered in August 1896 in the Klondike region of Canada. Almost one year later, on July 17, 1897, the steamer ''Portland'' arrived at
Schwabacher's Wharf in Seattle. A publicity campaign engineered largely by
Erastus Brainerd told the world of the ''Portland's'' "ton of gold," started the Klondike gold rush, and established Seattle as its supply center and the jumping-off point for transportation to and from Alaska and the gold fields of the Yukon. The rush ended the depression overnight for Seattle.
Beginning of the 20th century
Leader of the Northwest: 1900–1915
The gold rush led to massive immigration. Many of Seattle's neighborhoods got their start around this time. Downtown Seattle was bustling with activity; as quickly as previous inhabitants moved out to newly created neighborhoods, new immigrants came in to take their place in the city core.
Once the obvious extensions of downtown had been made along the flatlands to the north and south, streetcars began providing transportation to new outlying neighborhoods.
Following the vision of city engineer
R.H. Thomson, who had already played a key role in the development of municipal utilities, a
massive effort was made to level the steep hills that rose south and north of the bustling city. A
seawall
A seawall (or sea wall) is a form of coastal defense constructed where the sea, and associated coastal processes, impact directly upon the landforms of the coast. The purpose of a seawall is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation ...
containing spoils (
dirt
Dirt is an unclean matter, especially when in contact with a person's clothes, skin, or possessions. In such cases, they are said to become dirty.
Common types of dirt include:
* Debris: scattered pieces of waste or remains
* Dust: a gener ...
) sluiced from the Denny Regrade created the current waterfront. More spoils from the Denny Regrade went to build the industrial
Harbor Island at the mouth of the
Duwamish River, south of Downtown.
The Denny Regrade wasn't the only radical reshaping of Seattle's topography in this period. The slightly earlier Jackson Regrade had already reshaped
Pioneer Square and the
International District. The 1911–1917 construction of the
Lake Washington Ship Canal included two major "cuts" (the
Montlake Cut
The Montlake Cut is the easternmost section of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which passes through the city of Seattle, linking Lake Washington to Puget Sound. It was completed in 1916 and is approximately long and wide. The center channel ...
and the
Fremont Cut
The Fremont Cut is a canal in
Seattle, Washington, United States, that connects Lake Union to the east with Salmon Bay to the west. It is part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal linking Lake Washington to Puget Sound, and is long and wide. ...
), four
bascule bridge
A bascule bridge (also referred to as a drawbridge or a lifting bridge) is a moveable bridge with a counterweight that continuously balances a span, or leaf, throughout its upward swing to provide clearance for boat traffic. It may be single- o ...
s, and the Government Locks (now
Hiram M. Chittenden Locks
The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, or Ballard Locks, is a complex of locks at the west end of Salmon Bay in Seattle, Washington's Lake Washington Ship Canal, between the neighborhoods of Ballard to the north and Magnolia to the south.
The Ballard L ...
). The level of Lake Washington dropped; the
Black River, which formerly ran out of the south end of the lake, dried up completely, and Seward Island became the Seward Peninsula, now the site of
Seward Park.
All of the expansion was happening without zoning, leading to "different land uses and economic classes everywhere
eingmixed."
At the same time as the city was expanding dramatically, the city planners began to put in parks and boulevards under a plan designed by the
Olmsted Olmsted may refer to:
People
* Olmsted (name)
Places
* Olmsted Air Force Base, inactive since 1969
* Olmsted, Illinois
* Olmsted County, Minnesota
* Olmsted Falls, Ohio
* Olmsted Point, a viewing area in Yosemite National Park
* Olmsted Town ...
Firm, providing numerous parks and about twenty miles of boulevard which link most of the parks and greenbelts within the city limits. Much of the ambiance of Seattle today derives from this project.
Where there had so recently been wilderness, increasingly there was the reality of a major city. The
Seattle Symphony
The Seattle Symphony is an American orchestra based in Seattle, Washington. Since 1998, the orchestra is resident at Benaroya Hall. The orchestra also serves as the accompanying orchestra for the Seattle Opera.
History
Beginnings
The orchestr ...
was founded in 1903, and while few, if any, other comparably important arts institutions were established, the story was different in more popular entertainments.
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
impresarios
Alexander Pantages,
John Considine, and
John Cort (the last also involved in
legitimate theater
Legitimate theatre is live performance that relies almost entirely on diegetic elements, with actors performing through speech and natural movement.Joyce M. Hawkins and Robert Allen, eds. "Legitimate" entry. ''The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dict ...
) were all based in Seattle in this era.
The progressive school board hired a new superintendent in 1901,
Frank B. Cooper, who oversaw a program of building many new schools in Seattle's neighborhoods. The schools expanded their curriculum from the basic core to include music and art, physical education, vocational training, and programs for immigrants and special needs students.
[
]
As a major port Seattle depended heavily on its waterfront. Before 1911 it was a confused jumble of private rail lines and docks. The progressive reformers rationalized the system by building a port owned and operated by local government. The efficient new system allowed Seattle to expand after 1945 with the Sea-Tac airport, and enabled Seattle to become one of the first Pacific Coast ports to move to containerized shipping and thus expand business with Asia.
Seattle trumpeted and celebrated its rise with the
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909, but the city's rapid growth had led to much questioning of the social order. Not only the labor left, but also
progressives
Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techno ...
calling for "good government" challenged the hegemony of the captains of industry. Rail baron
James J. Hill
James Jerome Hill (September 16, 1838 – May 29, 1916) was a Canadian-American railroad director. He was the chief executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwes ...
, addressing Seattle business leaders in 1909, noted and regretted the change. "Where," he asked, "are the man who used to match your mountains...?"
Religion was less of a force in Seattle than in eastern cities, but the Protestant
Social Gospel movement had a national leader in the Rev.
Mark A. Matthews (1867-1940) of Seattle's First Presbyterian Church. He was a tireless reformer who investigated red light districts and crime scenes, denouncing corrupt politicians, businessmen and saloon keepers. With 10,000 members, his was the largest Presbyterian Church in the country, and he was selected the denomination's national moderator in 1912. He built a model church, with night schools, unemployment bureaus, a kindergarten, Anti-tuberculosis clinics, and America's first church-owned radio station. Matthews was the most influential clergymen in the Pacific Northwest.
World War I and after
In 1910, Seattle voters approved a
referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
to create a development plan for the whole city. However, the result, known as the Bogue plan, was never to be implemented. The unused plan had at its heart a grand civic center in
Belltown and the
Denny Regrade
The Denny Triangle is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, United States, that stretches north of the central business district to the grounds of Seattle Center. Its generally flat terrain was originally a steep hill, taken down as part of a ...
connected to the rest of the city by a rapid transit rail system, with a huge expansion of the park system, crowned by a total conversion of
Mercer Island
Mercer Island is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located on an island of the same name in the southern portion of Lake Washington. Mercer Island is in the Seattle metropolitan area, with Seattle to its west and Bellevue to it ...
into parkland. However, the plan was defeated by an alliance of fiscal conservatives who opposed such a purportedly grandiose plan on general principles and populists who argued that the plan would mainly benefit the rich.
Growth during this 1910s was almost all in lumber and maritime industries. With the
Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
a scene of belligerency,
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
increased
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...
maritime trade and caused a boom in shipbuilding, there was very little growth in new industries. When the war ended, economic output crashed as the government stopped buying boats, and there were no new industries to pick up the slack. Seattle stopped being the place of explosive growth and opportunity it had been for two consecutive decades.
After the war, Western Washington was a center of radical labor agitation. Most dramatically, in 1919, a dispute over post-war lowering of waterfront wages spread to become the
Seattle General Strike
The Seattle General Strike of 1919 was a five-day general work stoppage by more than 65,000 workers in the city of Seattle, Washington from February 6 to 11. Dissatisfied workers in several unions began the strike to gain higher wages, after t ...
. The
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
played a prominent role in the strike. Seattle mayor
Ole Hanson
Ole Hanson (January 6, 1874 – July 6, 1940) was an American politician who served as mayor of Seattle, Washington from 1918 to 1919. Hanson became a national figure promoting law and order when he took a hardline position during the 1919 Seat ...
became a prominent figure in the
First Red Scare
The First Red Scare was a period during the early 20th-century history of the United States marked by a widespread fear of far-left movements, including Bolshevism and anarchism, due to real and imagined events; real events included the R ...
, and made an unsuccessful attempt to ride that backlash to the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
in an unsuccessful bid for the
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
nomination for the
presidential election of 1920.
Although no longer the economic powerhouse it had been at the turn of the century, Seattle first began seriously to be an arts center in the 1920s. The Frye and Henry families put on public display the collections that would become the core of the
Frye Art Museum
The Frye Art Museum is a modern and contemporary art museum located in the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1952 to house the collection of Charles and Emma Frye and has since grown to include rotating temporary e ...
and
Henry Art Gallery
The Henry Art Gallery ("The Henry") is a contemporary art museum located on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington. Located on the west edge of the university's campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the University District, it wa ...
, respectively.
Australian painter
Ambrose Patterson arrived in 1919; over the next few decades
Mark Tobey
Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosophi ...
,
Morris Graves
Morris Graves (August 28, 1910 – May 5, 2001) was an American painter. He was one of the earliest Modern artists from the Pacific Northwest to achieve national and international acclaim. His style, referred to by some reviewers as Mysticism, ...
,
Kenneth Callahan
Kenneth Callahan (1905–1986) was an American painter and muralist who served as a catalyst for Northwest artists in the mid-20th century through his own painting, his work as assistant director and curator at the Seattle Art Museum, and his wr ...
,
Guy Irving Anderson, and
Paul Horiuchi would establish themselves as nationally and internationally known artists. Bandleader
Vic Meyers and others kept the
speakeasies
A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an illicit establishment that sells alcoholic beverages, or a retro style bar that replicates aspects of historical speakeasies.
Speakeasy bars came into prominence in the United States ...
jumping through the
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...
era, and by mid-century the thriving jazz scene in the city's
Skid Road district would launch the careers of musicians including
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Ge ...
and
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award n ...
.
In 1924, Seattle's Sand Point Airfield was the endpoint of the
first aerial circumnavigation
The first aerial circumnavigation of the world was completed in 1924 by four aviators from an eight-man team of the United States Army Air Service, the precursor of the United States Air Force. The 175-day journey covered over . The team general ...
of the world. The historic flight helped convince Congress to develop
Sand Point as a Naval Air Station.
[
]
The
Great Depression hit Seattle hard. For example, Seattle issued 2,538 permits for housing construction in 1930, but only 361 in 1932. During the
Maritime Strike of 1934,
Smith Cove was nearly a battle zone; shippers were scared, to the point where Seattle lost most of its Asian trade to
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
.
World War II
Following Japan's surprise
attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii ...
, the U.S. entered
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
and the whole Puget Sound region was full on rolling in the nation's war effort. Among the chief priority was the federal government's sudden desire for tens of thousands of planes a year, and
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
was positioned to provide them. Working under fixed-fee contracts, Boeing churned out aircraft and became by far the largest employer in Seattle. During the war, Seattle ranked as one of the top three cities in the nation in contracts per capita, and Washington state ranked as one of the top two in the nation for war contracts per capita. Seattle and
Renton produced 8,200 planes, including 6,981
B-17s and more than 1,000
B-29 bombers. Civilian use of
Boeing Field
Boeing Field, officially King County International Airport , is a public airport owned and operated by King County, five miles south of downtown Seattle, Washington. The airport is sometimes referred to as KCIA (King County International Airp ...
was greatly curtailed to accommodate the production of thousands of Boeing bombers. To accommodate the war effort, the U.S. military also annexed
McChord Field
McChord Field is a United States Air Force base in the northwest United States, in Pierce County, Washington. South of Tacoma, McChord Field is the home of the 62d Airlift Wing, Air Mobility Command, the field's primary mission being worldwi ...
in
Tacoma, prompting that city to plead with the
Port of Seattle to develop
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at Bow Lake -- midway between the Sound's two major cities.
Puget Sound-area shipyards constructed a large number of war vessels. At the combined Todd Shipyards/Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding operation, 33,000 men and women worked in Tacoma to build five freighters, two transports, 37 escort carriers, five gasoline tankers, and three destroyer tenders. At the Seattle yards, 22,000 employees built 46 destroyers and three tenders for the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
, plus other vessels. The
Lake Washington Shipyard at
Houghton Houghton may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Houghton, South Australia, a town near Adelaide
* Houghton Highway, the longest bridge in Australia, between Redcliffe and Brisbane in Queensland
* Houghton Island (Queensland)
Canada
*Houghton Township, ...
, now annexed to
Kirkland, employed 6,000 workers to repair dozens of merchant vessels and ferries during the war and to turn out ships for the Navy. The shipyard site is now the location of Carillon Point, a residential-commercial development. 15 smaller shipyards in Seattle and other cities in the Puget Sound area also produced vessels for the war effort.
The war also attracted tens of thousands of workers from across the country, as the greatly expanded wartime production quickly exhausted local labor pools. Of the five million rural southern African-Americans migrating to the industrial North and West during the
second wave of the
Great Migration, an estimated 45,000 went to the Pacific Northwest, of which 10,000 moved to Seattle. Most African American workers came to Seattle as shipyard employees, and by summer 1942, the
National Youth Administration
The National Youth Administration (NYA) was a New Deal agency sponsored by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his presidency. It focused on providing work and education for Americans between the ages of 16 and 25. It operated from June 26, 1935 to ...
brought to the city the first group of blacks to work for Boeing. By war's end, 4,078 (7 percent) of the 60,328 shipyard workers in Seattle were African Americans. AA's also found work as non-military government employees. Of 18,862 federal employees in Seattle in 1945, 1,019 (5 percent) were black. Moreover, the 4,000 black soldiers and sailors stationed at
Fort Lawton
Fort Lawton was a United States Army post located in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle, Washington overlooking Puget Sound. In 1973 a large majority of the property, 534 acres of Fort Lawton, was given to the city of Seattle and dedicated as ...
in Seattle and other military installations nearby contributed to the new employment diversity of the African American population. As a result, between 1940 and 1950, Seattle's black population grew 413 percent, from 3,789 to 15,666. The newcomers became permanent residents, building up black political influence, strengthening civil rights organizations such as the NAACP, and calling for antidiscrimination legislation. On the negative side, racial tensions increased, both black and white residential areas deteriorated from overcrowding, and inside the black community there were angry words between "old settlers" and recent arrivals for leadership in the black communities.
Japanese American community
Japanese-Americans living in the Pacific Northwest were heavily affected by the war; President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
authorized the removal of 110,000 Japanese immigrants and ethnic Japanese citizens from the
West Coast to
internment camps
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...
inland, relocating 7,000 people from the Seattle area alone. Seattle's Japantown, once the 2nd largest in the nation, was emptied. Local grocers and the
Pike Place Market
Pike Place Market is a public market in Seattle, Washington, United States. It opened on August 17, 1907, and is one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers' markets in the United States. Overlooking the Elliott Bay waterfront on Pug ...
lost the bounty of hundreds of Japanese American truck farms, including the 55 families who had produced famed strawberries in
Bellevue Bellevue means "beautiful view" in French. It may refer to:
Placenames
Australia
* Bellevue, Western Australia
* Bellevue Hill, New South Wales
* Bellevue, Queensland
* Bellevue, Glebe, an historic house in Sydney, New South Wales
Canada ...
. Although most of their neighbors acquiesced to the internment of Japanese Americans, a few community leaders questioned its validity or necessity. Tacoma Mayor Harry P. Cain said, "America has always been interested in selection, and I feel it would be preferable to make careful selection of those who are evacuated then just to say, 'Let's get rid of our problem by the easiest, most obvious way, by moving everybody out'".
Post-war boom 1945–1970
![Seattle - Alaskan Way Viaduct under construction - 1952](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Seattle_-_Alaskan_Way_Viaduct_under_construction_-_1952.gif)
After the war ended, the military canceled its bomber orders; Boeing factories shut down and 70,000 people lost their jobs,
[
] and initially it appeared that Seattle had little to show for the wartime Boeing boom. However, this period of stagnation soon ended with the rise of the
jet aircraft and Boeing's reincarnation as the world's leading producer of commercial passenger planes.
With all the post-war growth came growing pollution of the lakes and rivers that provided much of beauty that had been Seattle's appeal to its recent immigrants. Also, the sprawl constantly demanded more roads, since the ones already built had terrible traffic. Jim Ellis and other Seattle natives, anxious to preserve the city in which they grew up, came together to institute the Metropolitan Problems Committee, or METRO, intended to manage and plan the metropolitan area. The original, comprehensive METRO regional plan was defeated in a vote by the suburbanites;
METRO came back, scaled down to a sewage treatment and transport organization; METRO was eventually merged into the King County government.
During this period, Seattle attempted to counter the decline of its downtown and the area immediately to the north by hosting the
Century 21 Exposition
The Century 21 Exposition (also known as the Seattle World's Fair) was a world's fair held April 21, 1962, to October 21, 1962, in Seattle, Washington, United States.[World's Fair
A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...]
. The fair, given a futuristic science theme, was designed to leave behind a civic center, now known as
Seattle Center
Seattle Center is an arts, educational, tourism and entertainment center in Seattle, Washington, United States. Spanning an area of 74 acres (30 ha), it was originally built for the 1962 World's Fair. Its landmark feature is the tall Space Needle ...
, including arts buildings, the
Pacific Science Center
Pacific Science Center is an independent, non-profit science center in Seattle with a mission to ignite curiosity and fuel a passion for discovery, experimentation, and critical thinking. Pacific Science Center serves more than 1 million people e ...
and the
Space Needle
The Space Needle is an observation tower in Seattle, Washington, United States. Considered to be an icon of the city, it has been designated a Seattle landmark. Located in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood, it was built in the Seattle Center ...
, and serving also as a fairground. In addition, freeways were built to compensate for all this new growth for people to commute. Most of the
Eastside (east of
Lake Washington) and northern suburbs came into being during the Boeing boom, as did
Interstate Highways (
I-5
Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Californi ...
and
I-90). I-5 neatly cut off Downtown Seattle from
Capitol Hill and
First Hill
First Hill is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is named for the hill on which it is located, which in turn is so named for being the first hill encountered while traveling east from downtown Seattle toward Lake Washing ...
.
In conjunction with the fair, a demonstration
monorail
A monorail (from "mono", meaning "one", and " rail") is a railway in which the track consists of a single rail or a beam.
Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover. More accurat ...
line was constructed at no cost to the city and was paid for out of ticket sales, and then turned over to the city for
$600,000. ''(See
Seattle Center Monorail
The Seattle Center Monorail is an elevated straddle-beam monorail line in Seattle, Washington, United States. The monorail runs along 5th Avenue between Seattle Center and Westlake Center in Downtown Seattle, making no intermediate stops. ...
.)'' It is now mostly a tourist attraction. The World's Fair arguably reenergized the downtown of Seattle, and was generally a smashing success, even finishing with a profit.
After the war, the University of Washington also took a step forward, finally fulfilling the promise of its name under university president
Charles Odegaard
Charles Edwin Odegaard (January 10, 1911 – November 14, 1999) was the president of the University of Washington from 1958–1973. Odegaard is credited in transforming the University of Washington from an average state university to one among the ...
. Starting in the late 1950s, Seattle was one of the centers of the emergence of the American
counter-culture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
and culture of protest. Before
grunge there were
beats, fringies (a local Seattle term),
hippies, and
batcavers.
The Boeing Bust
Due to the simultaneous decline in
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
military spending, the slowing of the space program as
Project Apollo neared completion, the
recession of 1969-1970, and Boeing's $2 billion in debt as it built the
747 airliner, the company and the Seattle area greatly suffered.
Commercial Airplane Group, by far the largest unit of Boeing, went from 83,700 employees in 1968 to 20,750 in 1971. Each unemployed Boeing employee cost at least one other job, and unemployment rose to 14%, the highest in the United States. Housing vacancy rates rose to 16% from 1% in 1967.
U-Haul
U-Haul is an American moving truck, trailer, and self-storage rental company, based in Phoenix, Arizona, that has been in operation since 1945. The company was founded by Leonard Shoen in Ridgefield, Washington, who began it in the garage ...
dealerships ran out of trailers because so many people moved out. A billboard appeared near the airport:
After 1973, Seattle was in good company for its recession, since the rest of the country was also experiencing the
energy crisis
An energy crisis or energy shortage is any significant bottleneck in the supply of energy resources to an economy. In literature, it often refers to one of the energy sources used at a certain time and place, in particular, those that supply n ...
.
![Pike Place Market - rehabilitating Corner Market - 1975](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Pike_Place_Market_-_rehabilitating_Corner_Market_-_1975.jpg)
The
Pike Place Market
Pike Place Market is a public market in Seattle, Washington, United States. It opened on August 17, 1907, and is one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers' markets in the United States. Overlooking the Elliott Bay waterfront on Pug ...
, arguably Seattle's most important tourist attraction, gained its modern form in the aftermath of the Boeing crash. The internment of the Japanese Americans from Seattle during World War II had hit the market particularly hard, since 80% of its "wet stall" vendors had been ethnically
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
. A "Keep the Market" initiative led by architect
Victor Steinbrueck
Victor Eugene Steinbrueck (December 15, 1911 - February 14, 1985) was an American architect, best known for his efforts to preserve Seattle's Pioneer Square and Pike Place Market. He authored several books and was also a University of Washingt ...
, passed in 1971, pushing for
adaptive reuse
Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an existing building for a purpose other than which it was originally built or designed for. It is also known as recycling and conversion. Adaptive reuse is an effective strategy for optimizing the o ...
. The project was wildly successful in spite of intense opposition by the Seattle Establishment, and today the Pike Place Market pulls in nine million visitors each year.
A similar story occurred with Pioneer Square. An old neighborhood, largely built after the Fire of 1889, it had fallen into derelict status after the war. However, with a reenergized downtown, businesses started to look for buildings that could be acquired cheaply. When offices moved into renovated buildings, suddenly there was a market for facilities to service them, leading to a "flood of other restaurants, galleries, boutiques." Seattle was definitely recovering from the blow dealt by the Boeing recession, refilling areas that had threatened to become slums.
High tech: 1970 onwards
In 1979,
Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...
(1955–) and
Paul Allen
Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American business magnate, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which ...
(1954–2018), founders of
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
, moved their small company from New Mexico to the suburbs of their native Seattle. By 1985, sales were over $140 million, by 1990, $1.18 billion, and by 1995, Microsoft was the world's most profitable corporation, Allen and Gates were billionaires, and thousands of their past and present employees were millionaires. Microsoft spawned a host of other companies in the Seattle area: millionaire employees often left to found their own companies, and Allen, after his own departure from Microsoft, became a major investor in new companies. Seattle-area companies that owe their origins at least indirectly to Microsoft include
RealNetworks,
AttachmateWRQ,
InfoSpace
Infospace, Inc. was an American company that offered private label search engine, online directory, and provider of metadata feeds. The company's flagship metasearch site was Dogpile and its other notable consumer brands were WebCrawler and Met ...
, and a host of others. Quite unlike Boeing, Microsoft has served as a catalyst for the creation of a whole realm of industry. Microsoft has also taken a much more active hand than Boeing in public works in the area, donating software to many schools (including the University of Washington).
Seattle has also been experiencing quite good growth in the
biotechnology
Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...
and coffee sectors, with international coffeeshop chain
Starbucks originating from Seattle, and Seattle-based
Nordstrom
Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, a ...
now a national brand.
Paul Allen, whose fortune was made through Microsoft though he had long since ceased to be an active participant in the company, was a major force in Seattle politics. He attempted a voter initiative to build the
Seattle Commons
South Lake Union (sometimes SLU) is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, so named because it is at the southern tip of Lake Union.
The official boundaries of the City of Seattle Urban Center are Denny Way on the south, beyond which is Denny ...
, a huge park in South Lake Union and the Cascade District, and even offered to put up his own money to endow a security force for the park, but it was defeated at the polls. (Allen then became the leader of the movement to redevelop this same area as a biotech center.) He did get a football stadium for the
Seattle Seahawks through a successful statewide ballot initiative, and founded the
Experience Music Project
The Museum of Pop Culture or MoPOP is a nonprofit museum in Seattle, Washington, dedicated to contemporary popular culture. It was founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2000 as the Experience Music Project. Since then MoPOP has organized ...
(originally intended as a
Jimi Hendrix museum) on the grounds of Seattle Center.
Seattle's bid for the world stage by hosting the
World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1999
The WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 was a meeting of the World Trade Organization, convened at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington, USA, over the course of three days, beginning Tuesday, 30 November 1999. ...
did not play out as planned. Instead, the city became the site of the
first great street confrontation between the
anti-globalization movement
The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalis ...
and the
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation
in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and ...
on November 30, 1999. While many of those in the streets, and most of those in the suites, were from out of town or even out of country, much of the groundwork of Seattle hosting both the event and the protests against it can be attributed to local forces. In 2001 the central city was the site of rioting, mixed with partying and racially motivated violence against European Americans in the
Seattle Mardi Gras riot. Seattle along with other west coast cities experienced politically inspired confrontations and violence during the May Day marches in 2015.
Seattle today is physically and demographically similar to the Seattle of the 1960s. It is still filled with single-family households, predominantly white with equal numbers of Asian and African Americans. The city is politically still largely progressive, with about half a million people.
"HistoryLink.org Essay 11124" (2015)/ref> The city, or its setting, is still physically beautiful.
See also
*
Timeline of Seattle
*
Seattle Police Department
The Seattle Police Department (SPD) is the principal law enforcement agency of the city of Seattle, Washington, United States, except for the campus of the University of Washington, which is under the responsibility of its own police department ...
Notes and references
Much of the content of this page is from
"Seattle: Booms and Busts", by Emmett Shear, who has granted blanket permission for material from that paper to be reused in Wikipedia.
Bibliography
* Blackford, Mansel G. "Reform Politics in Seattle During the Progressive Era, 1902-1916." ''Pacific Northwest Quarterly'' 59.4 (1968): 177-18
online
*
*
*
"Not an official UW Green Bay site."
*
* Klingle, Matthew W. ''Emerald City: an Environmental History of Seattle'' (Yale University Press, 2008).
*
* Mullins, William H. ''The Depression and the Urban West Coast, 1929-1933: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland'' (2000)
*
* Ott, Jennifer. ''Olmsted in Seattle: Creating a Park System for a Modern City'' ( Seattle: History Link and Documentary Media, 2019
online review*
*
Speidel provides a substantial bibliography with extensive primary sources.
*
Speidel provides a substantial bibliography with extensive primary sources.
* Taylor, Quintard. "Blacks and Asians in a white city: Japanese Americans and African Americans in Seattle, 1890-1940." ''Western Historical Quarterly'' (1991): 401–429
in JSTOR* Taylor, Quintard. "Black Urban Development: Another View: Seattle's Central District, 1910-1940." ''Pacific Historical Review'' (1989): 429-44
in JSTOR* Taylor, Quintard. "The Civil Rights Movement in the American West: Black Protest in Seattle, 1960-1970." ''Journal of Negro History'' (1995): 1-14
in JSTOR*
External links
HistoryLink.org''Encyclopedia of Washington State History'' provides a collection of articles on Seattle and Washington State history, unparalleled in its niche.
* Seattl
Museum of History and Industry With the Seattle Room at the
Seattle Public Library
The Seattle Public Library (SPL) is the public library system serving the city of Seattle, Washington. Efforts to start a Seattle library had commenced as early as 1868, with the system eventually being established by the city in 1890. The sys ...
, hosts the most extensive archives about Seattle. Both have references to other archives.
Washington State History Museum Washington State Historical Society
*
An extensive project directed by
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...
professor James Gregory
University of Washington Libraries: Digital Collections
*
Vintage Seattle Blog featuring collections of high resolution images from Seattle's past.
''The Seattle Times'': Seattle History a collection of articles and resources commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Denny Party's arrival
{{DEFAULTSORT:History Of Seattle