Wesley Carl Uhlman (born March 23, 1935) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 47th mayor 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.
Early life and education
Uhlman was born in
Cashmere, Washington
Cashmere is a city in Chelan County, Washington, United States. It is part of the Wenatchee– East Wenatchee Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 3,060 at the 2010 census. The population was 3,157 at the 2018 estimates.
Hist ...
. He attended Aberdeen High School, Seattle Pacific College (now
Seattle Pacific University
Seattle Pacific University (SPU) is a private Christian university in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1891 in conjunction with the Oregon and Washington Conference of the Free Methodist Church as the Seattle Seminary. It became the Seat ...
), and the
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 Seattle a ...
, where he pledged and joined the Theta Delta Chi Social Fraternity, which at the time was the most prestigious group of gentlemen in the area.
Career
In 1958, as a 23-year-old law student, he won election as the youngest member of the Washington State House of Representatives. He served four terms before running for, and winning, a seat in the Washington State Senate. He was elected
mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...
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 ...
in 1969 and reelected in 1973. At 34, he was Seattle's youngest mayor.
[Wes Uhlman](_blank)
Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, University of Washington. Accessed online 3 November 2007. Among his accomplishments are the preservation of the historic
Pioneer Square district and expansion of services for senior citizens. Uhlman ran for governor of Washington in 1976 but was defeated in the
Democratic primary by
Dixy Lee Ray
Dixy Lee Ray (September 3, 1914 – January 2, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 17th governor of Washington from 1977 to 1981. Variously described as idiosyncratic and "ridiculously smart," she was the state's first female gover ...
, in a three-way race.
Mayor of Seattle
By Uhlman's own account, prior Seattle mayors had all been "members of the 'establishment'; I was not." Uhlman, a Democrat, and progressive Republican
R. Mort Frayn faced off in the November 4, 1969 election, which Uhlman won 99,290 to 56,312.
[General and Special Elections](_blank)
seattle.gov. Accessed online 16 November 2015.
He took office December 1, 1969, a month earlier than would usually have occurred, because his elected predecessor
James d'Orma Braman had accepted a position in the
Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
administration. (
Floyd C. Miller held the office as an appointee from March 23, 1969 until Uhlman took office.) Roughly a week after he took office, the
Boeing Bust
This is the main article of a series that covers the history of Seattle, Washington, a city in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America.
Seattle is a major port city that has a history of boom and bust. Seattle has on several ...
began. The company eventually shrank from 103,000 employees to 49,000. As Seattle neared 25% unemployment, Uhlman had to cut city budgets.
Uhlman selected Frank Moore to serve as chief of police.
This was also the period in which the federal
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) staged several violent raids on
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...
strongholds. Moore advised Uhlman that ATF wanted to stage a similar raid in Seattle. Uhlman viewed the Seattle chapter of the
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...
as "fairly benign" despite some "fairly outrageous statements" by members of the party elsewhere, and refused active cooperation. While he could not prevent ATF from going in on their own, he made it clear that if such a raid were to be staged in Seattle and the local police were called in as backup, they would need to "determine who the aggressors are." The ATF soon canceled the raid.
Shortly before Uhlman took office,
Edwin T. Pratt was murdered. Seattle was the target of bombings by factions of the
SDS and by
Black Power groups, to the point where it had the highest ''per capita'' level of bombs in the country. According to Uhlman, the bombings ended after Seattle police shot a black man named Larry Ward in the act of setting a bomb and Uhlman made it clear that bombers would be met with deadly force.
On November 6, 1973 Uhlman was narrowly re-elected by a margin of 97,115-91,849 over
Liem Eng Tuai,
a Republican who was the second
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...
(after
Wing Luke
Wing Chong Luke (February 18, 1925 – May 16, 1965; ) was a Chinese-American lawyer and politician from Seattle.
Luke served as an assistant attorney general of Washington for the state civil rights division from 1957 to 1962. He was later a ...
) to serve on the Seattle City Council, and who later went on to serve 18 years as a judge. Early in his second term, he established the Office of Policy Planning in 1974.
Uhlman's drive for efficiency in government antagonized city workers, resulting in a recall campaign. Much of their ire was directed at Budget Director
Walt Hundley, an
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
who had risen to prominence through the federal
Model Cities Program; race became a significant issue in the recall. They were also unhappy with Uhlman's dismissal of fire chief Jack Richards and his appointment as Seattle City Light superintendent of another former fire chief, Gordon Vickery. Vickery had, in the words of Emily Lieb, "fired or dismissed hundreds of employees, had others prosecuted for theft, and changed City Light's staffing policies to make sure more women and minorities (and fewer inept relatives) were hired and promoted." In a vote on July 1, 1975, the recall was defeated by a wide margin, with Seattle's downtown establishment rallying behind Uhlman, who was hardly their own, but whom they preferred to the insurgent workers.
Uhlman's period in office saw a significant increase in opportunities for non-whites and women in city employment and in the mayor's own administration. He also supported similar changes in broadening the membership of
labor unions.
His administration crafted the agreement with
United Indians of All Tribes
United Indians of All Tribes (also known as the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, or UIATF) is a non-profit foundation that provides social and educational services to Native Americans in the Seattle metropolitan area and aims to promot ...
that ended an occupation of
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 ...
and led to the peaceable establishment of the
Daybreak Star Cultural Center
The Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center is a Native American cultural center in Seattle, Washington, described by its parent organization United Indians of All Tribes as "an urban base for Native Americans in the Seattle area." Located on 2 ...
on ten acres of former fort land within a city-run
Discovery Park.
During Uhlman's tenure, the
Kingdome
The Kingdome (officially the King County Stadium) was a multi-purpose stadium located in the Industrial District, Seattle, Industrial District (later SoDo, Seattle, SoDo) neighborhood of Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. O ...
was constructed and opened in 1976. The
Mariners began play in
1977 and the
Seahawks began play in
1976
Events January
* January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force.
* January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea.
* January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...
.
In 1977, Uhlman proclaimed Seattle's first Gay Pride Week and in 1978 he opposed repeal of the city's civil rights protections for gays and lesbians. After 1978, Uhlman largely retired from politics, turning his attention to land development. He later opposed expanded legal rights for renters.
According to Uhlman in 2005, that and declaring a
Cesar Chavez Day in the city were the two actions of his administration that attracted the largest number of phone calls in protest.
Uhlman had a non-speaking cameo in the movie ''
Harry in Your Pocket
''Harry in Your Pocket'' is a 1973 comedy-drama film, about a team of professional pickpockets written by James Buchanan and Ronald Austin and directed by Bruce Geller, starring James Coburn, Michael Sarrazin, Trish Van Devere and Walter Pidge ...
'' released in 1974 and set, in part, in Seattle, where he played a "victim" of the pickpocketing main character "Harry".
Notes
External links
Wes Uhlman Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, University of Washington. Includes numerous video clips from 2005 interview.
Guide to the Wesley C. (Wes) Uhlman Mayoral Recordsat the Seattle Municipal Archives
* Emily Lieb
Uhlman, Wesley Carl (b. 1935) HistoryLink.org Essay 7854, December 21, 2006
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uhlman, Wesley
Mayors of Seattle
Democratic Party members of the Washington House of Representatives
Democratic Party Washington (state) state senators
Seattle Pacific University alumni
University of Washington School of Law alumni
Living people
1935 births
American United Methodists