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1411 4th Avenue Building (Seattle)

With the opening of the 1411 4th Avenue Building on 4th Avenue and Union Street in early 1929, the Stimson Realty Company contributed an elegant addition to Seattle's growing central business district. The company chose the architect Robert Chambers Reamer (1873-1938), who created modern Art Deco ornamentation for the facade and interior finishes. It chose the Metropolitan Building Company to manage the operations of the building. With an impressive architectural vision and state-of-the-art conveniences, the Stimson Realty Company attracted a "high character of tenantry" (Western Building Forum, 1929) and "firms with whom dignity of surroundings is an important consideration" (Metropolitan Bulletin, December 1928). The building at the corner of 4th Avenue and Union Street became a financial and transportation hub in downtown Seattle, with national and local investment brokers, insurance firms, and ticket offices for railway companies and steamship lines. Because of its unique Art Deco styling, prominent location in the central business district, and impressive modernist stone facade, 1411 4th Avenue has been designated as Seattle Landmark and placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
File 9000: Full Text >

Adams, Brock (1927-2004)

Brock Adams represented the state of Washington for 12 years in the U.S. House of Representatives during the 1960s and 1970s and for six years in the U.S. Senate as well as serving as the U.S. Secretary of Transportation. He began his career as a lawyer in Seattle, and in 1961 was appointed to the position of U.S. Attorney. In 1964 he was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. In Congress he criticized the Vietnam War, became a key player in restructuring the nation's railroad system after Penn Central collapsed, and worked for support of AIDS research. Persistent allegations of sexual harassment and rape forced him to withdraw from politics in 1992.
File 5739: Full Text >

Berentson, Duane (b. 1928)

Duane Berentson served for 18 years (1962-1980) as a Washington state legislator representing Burlington, Skagit County, and specializing in transportation issues. In 1981, he became the first non-engineer to serve as chief executive of Washington's highway transportation program, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). Berentson served as Secretary of Transportation for 12 years until 1993.
File 7367: Full Text >

Boeing and Early Aviation in Seattle, 1909-1919

Seattle residents saw their first flying machine on June 27, 1908, a balloon flown by L. Guy Mecklem (1882-1973) from West Seattle's Luna Park, and saw another flying machine, a dirigible, in 1909 during the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Charles Hamilton demonstrated the city's first airplane the following year. Herb Munter (1897-1970), a self-educated engineer, was building his own aircraft on Harbor Island by 1915. His efforts attracted the interest of William E. Boeing (1881-1956) and Navy Lt. Conrad Westervelt, who hired Munter to help them build their first airplane, the B&W, in 1916. America's entry into World War I in 1917 lifted the new Boeing Airplane Co. to dizzying heights. Peace two years later sent it into a near-fatal nose dive.
File 5369: Full Text >

Boeing and United Air Lines from Birth to Break Up, 1919-1934

The Boeing Airplane Company nearly collapsed following the end of World War I military orders. Pioneer pilot Eddie Hubbard (1889-1928) helped William E. Boeing (1881-1956) deliver the first bag of international airmail on March 3, 1919, and urged the company to pursue U.S. Air Mail contracts. A skeptical Boeing bid on and won the Chicago-San Francisco route in 1927, and quickly developed faster aircraft culminating in the Model 247, the first true airliner. Boeing developed or purchased airlines to build its own passenger system, United Air Lines. It also expanded its holdings to create the giant United Aircraft and Transportation Company, but federal anti-trust regulators broke up the combine in 1934. An embittered Bill Boeing quit the company and sold his stock that same year.
File 5368: Full Text >

Building Seattle -- A Slide Show History of Seattle's Capital Improvement Projects

This is a Slide Show photo essay on the history of Seattle's Capital Improvement Projects. Written By Walt Crowley and curated by Paul Dorpat, with Chris Goodman. Presented by Seattle City Councilmember Martha Choe.
File 7083: Full Text >

Bulley, William A. (b. 1925)

William Arthur Bulley served as Director of Highways for the Washington Department of Highways from 1975 to 1977, and in September 1977 when the Legislature created the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), he became the first Secretary of Transportation (1977-1981). As director, then secretary of the department, Bulley helped to resolve federal and local impediments to the completion of Interstate 90. He also secured federal funding to repair the Hood Canal Bridge after it sank, and to rebuild roads and bridges destroyed in the eruption of Mount St. Helens. Bulley was instrumental in continuing the department’s gradual change of focus from highway building exclusively to its current inclusion of mass-transportation.
File 7289: Full Text >

Camas -- Thumbnail History

The city of Camas (originally La Camas) takes its name from the camas lily, the bulbs of which were a staple of the Native American diet from the Great Plains to the Pacific Coast. Camas lies along the north bank of the Columbia River and the Camas Slough. The slough begins where the Washougal River meets the Columbia, and it scribes the north shore of Lady Island before rejoining the Columbia further downstream. Most of Camas lies west of the Washougal, but a small section of the city crosses onto the east bank, where it blends seamlessly with the neighboring city of Washougal. The Clark County seat is in Vancouver, approximately 15 miles downriver to the west and slightly north. There were no known permanent Indian settlements near present-day Camas, but the area was frequented by Chinookan-speaking Natives who hunted and fished there centuries before the first European explorers and trappers arrived. Early attempts by Americans to settle the area were not successful, and nothing that could be called a town existed until the mid-1880s, when the La Camas Colony Company decided to build one. For most of its existence, the life's-blood of Camas has been the wood pulp used for the production of paper, and the local economy has been dominated by that industry for more than a century. In recent years, the city has drawn significant investments from high-tech firms, giving it a broader financial base. Camas shares a long history with the city of Washougal, and they have jointly operated the Port of Camas-Washougal since 1935. Accounts of the area's earliest settlement by non-Natives do not always draw sharp distinctions between the two localities, leaving room for doubt about precisely where particular persons lived and specific events occurred.
File 9290: Full Text >

Cape Disappointment State Park

Cape Disappointment State Park juts into the Pacific Ocean at the tip of the Long Beach Peninsula, in the southwesternmost corner of Washington state. This is the place where Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Volunteers for Northwestern Discovery ended their long journey to the sea. They carved their names and the date -- November 18, 1805 -- on a tree, pausing to watch the powerful surf breaking on the rocks below. Exactly 200 years later, members of the Chinook Tribe, art patrons, politicians, and community leaders gathered here to dedicate the first phase of the Confluence Project, designed by famed artist and architect Maya Lin to commemorate the Lewis-Clark Expedition. For Lin, Cape Disappointment is a study in convergence: water and land, river and ocean, white explorers and Native Americans, past and present. "Here is where we hold up a mirror to the Lewis and Clark story," she says. "Our journey begins here" (Confluence Project website).
File 7602: Full Text >

Davis, Aubrey (b. 1917)

Health care reformer, public transportation advocate, politician, civil servant, businessman, inventor, environmentalist -- Aubrey Davis has affected the lives of Northwesterners for more than half-a-century. He helped create King County Metro; ensured the survival of what a New England Journal of Medicine editor called health care's "model of the future" (The New York Times); pioneered community involvement in highway planning; ran businesses that created products ranging from military weather stations to waterproofing for decks; advocated to preserve abortion rights in Washington; and chaired the task force that investigated the 1990 sinking of the Interstate 90 floating bridge. His political life included election as mayor of Mercer Island, running for King County Executive, managing Senator Warren Magnuson's last campaign, and chairing the state transportation commission. Then-State Representative Ed Murray once described Davis as "a man of the future ... a visionary" (Hadley). A Seattle Times reporter said Davis is "crusty, stubborn, indefatigable and widely respected. He leads -- and lasts -- with patience and persistence, taking on the big issues without ego interfering. ... Aubrey Davis has no patience for failure" (Gilmore). Andrew Johnson, an adviser to former Governor Gary Locke, said, "Folks like Aubrey are giants" (Gilmore).
File 8179: Full Text >

Edmonds -- Thumbnail History

The city of Edmonds rests along a shoreline and the hillside beyond about 15 miles north of Seattle. Native Americans of the Snohomish people occupied coastal and river areas surrounding the site, and Euro-American explorers encountered their canoes, but they apparently had no permanent village sites in the immediate locale. Its founding father was George Brackett (1842-1927) (arrived 1876) and in its early decades Edmonds thrived as a mill town. During the late twentieth century the city became increasingly urban, while retaining elements of its small town character.
File 8542: Full Text >

Flying Saucers

The modern phenomena of UFOs and “flying saucers” began in Washington state on June 24, 1947, when Kenneth Arnold spotted nine mysterious, high-speed objects “flying like a saucer would” along the crest of the Cascade Range. His report made international headlines and triggered hundreds of similar accounts of “flying saucers” across the nation. The rash of sightings peaked on July 8, 1947, when the U.S. Army reported that flying saucer wreckage had been found near Roswell, New Mexico. This was retracted the following day, and despite relentless debunking and the absence of concrete evidence, reports of flying saucers and other unidentified flying objects (UFOs) persist to the present day.
File 2067: Full Text >

Furth, Jacob (1840-1914)

Jacob Furth played a pivotal role in the development of Seattle's public transportation and electric power infrastructure, and he was the founder of Seattle National Bank. As the agent for the utilities firm Stone and Furth, he consolidated the city's random independent streetcar lines into Seattle Electric. He was a member of Seattle's first synagogue, Ohaveth Sholum, and Temple de Hirsch.
File 87: Full Text >

Gold in the Pacific Northwest

The discovery of gold in California in 1848 sent would-be millionaires on a quest for treasure throughout the West. By 1900, major strikes had been made in Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Alaska, and western Canada. Although prospectors found relatively little gold within the borders of what is now Washington state, their very presence, as they rushed from one rumored bonanza to another, created new patterns of transportation, settlement, and commerce. Miners traveling to gold fields on tributaries of the upper Columbia River in the 1850s stimulated development along the lower Columbia. Walla Walla was the largest town in Washington in the 1860s and 1870s because of its position as a supply center for mines in north central and southern Idaho. Spokane boomed as a result of discoveries in northern Idaho in the 1880s. The Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 yanked Seattle out of a recession and transformed both the city's infrastructure and character. Gold rushes were defining events not only for the places where the gold was found, but for the places the miners passed through in search of gold.
File 7162: Full Text >

Green, Joshua (1869-1975)

Joshua Green was a ship-owner during Puget Sound's Mosquito Fleet era. He and his partners made significant money during the gold rush to the Klondike (beginning in 1897) by transporting prospectors to and from Alaska on his steamers. He became a partner in the Puget Sound Navigation Co., a cross-Sound ferry service founded by Charles Peabody in 1898. In the 1920s he got out of shipping (which was suffering competition from rail and road transportation) and became a banker. Joshua Green lived to be 105 years old.
File 1689: Full Text >

Interurban Rail Transit in King County and the Puget Sound Region

Electric interurban railways played a major part in defining early twentieth century transportation routes and growth patterns in King County. Early roads were primitive and before the development of the first inter-city rail service in 1899, most shippers and commuters on Puget Sound relied on water transport and "Mosquito Fleet" steamers for mobility. By 1912, private interurban lines connected Tacoma, Seattle, and Everett, but modern highways would soon offer fatal competition. Seattle-Tacoma service ended in 1928 with the opening of Highway 99, and Seattle-Everett service ended 11 years later (Seattle ripped up its streetcar lines in 1941). After the rejection of previous rail rapid transit proposals, regional voters approved a Sound Transit system in 1996. In September 2000, Sound Transit inaugurated commuter rail service between Seattle and Tacoma.
File 2667: Full Text >

Jacobs, Frank (1881-1979)

A pioneer in the field of photojournalism, Frank Jacobs covered events big and small throughout the Pacific Northwest, but specialized in transportation disasters such as ship and train wrecks. Although he spent most of his career with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, he also had stints with other publications, ran his own photography studio, served as an early motion picture cameraman for the Pathe News, and had the opportunity to photograph eight Presidents.
File 3258: Full Text >

Kennewick -- Thumbnail History

The site of Kennewick, on the west side of the Columbia River between the mouths of the Yakima and Snake rivers, has long been an ancient area of human habitation. The bones of the so-called Kennewick Man, dated at 9,200 years ago, were discovered in the city's riverbank. In more recent centuries, the site was an important gathering spot for various tribes, including the Umatilla, Wallowa, Wanapum, Nez Perce and Yakama tribes, who found abundant fish and often wintered in this relatively mild valley. Lewis and Clark came through in 1805 and 1806, followed by fur trader David Thompson in 1811 and Alexander Ross in 1812. White settlement came slowly because of the arid nature of the landscape, although stockmen drove cattle and horses through the area beginning in the 1860s. Kennewick first sprang into existence as a bustling railroad construction camp in 1884, when the Northern Pacific Railroad started laying track on the west side of the Columbia River. Yet Kennewick did not truly become established until 1902, after irrigation made farming possible. Kennewick -- along with Pasco, just across the Columbia River -- slowly grew into a small railroad and agricultural center with a population of about 1,918 by 1940. World War II changed the city forever, as thousands of workers poured into Kennewick and neighboring Richland to work on the Hanford Engineer Works, a secret project at nearby Hanford to build an atomic bomb. By 1950, Kennewick had more than 10,000 residents. The Tri-Cities -- as the Pasco-Kennewick-Richland area came to be called -- prospered through the second half of the twentieth century; none more than Kennewick, which became a transportation, agricultural, and technology hub. By 1980, Kennewick had grown into the largest of the Tri-Cities with a population of 34,397. As of 2007, Kennewick had an estimated population of about 62,250, making it the 12th largest city in the state.
File 8499: Full Text >

King County Historical Bibliography, Part 13: Transportation

This bibliography on the history of transportation in King County was prepared as a community history resource by staff of the former King County Office of Cultural Resources, now 4Culture (King County Cultural Development Authority). It was last revised in June 1999.
File 7155: Full Text >

King County Landmarks: Elliott Farm (1909), Maple Valley

Address: 14207 Maple Valley Highway, Maple Valley. The prominent farmhouse and barns at the Elliott Farm, located in the Cedar River Valley just east of Renton, reflect the development of small-scale dairy farming in the valley in the early 1900s. Homesteaders settled the Cedar River Valley in the 1870s, cleared land for crops and pastures, and established small subsistence farms. As transportation and refrigeration technologies improved, dairy farming became the main agricultural activity in the area. The milk barn on the farm, built by R. J. Elliott between 1909 and 1910 along with four ancillary farm buildings, reflected Elliott’s interest in the latest dairying practices. In 1911, he designed and built the 2.5-story, nine-room Craftsman-style home on the farm. Threatened today (2000) by neglect and encroaching urban development, the Elliott Farm is the last intact dairy farm in the valley.
File 2388: Full Text >

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