8272 HistoryLink.org articles now available.
Diablo Dam incline railway climbing Sourdough Mountain, 1930. Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, 2306.
Children waving to ferry, 1950. Courtesy Museum of History and Industry.
Loggers in the Northwest woods. Courtesy Washington State Digital Archives.
What came after the famous 1974 Boldt Decision
upholding treaty fishing rights?
Join us at HistoryLunch on September 17 to hear the story of
how Washingtonians overcame differences and found common ground
to resolve this and other complex conservation
challenges in the Pacific Northwest.
Their success is an inspiring story of how we can tackle complicated
issues we are facing in our own times.
9/5/2024
School Is in Session
This week HistoryLink starts off the school year with a new book, Building for Learning: Seattle Public School Histories, 1862-2022, which includes histories of every public school that has ever operated in the Seattle district. Produced in partnership with Seattle Public Schools, this book builds upon the work done by Caroline J. Marr and Nile Thompson in 2002, with new material written by HistoryLink historians. The stories of the school district’s buildings have been brought up to date and new histories have been added for buildings constructed since 2002. To see all these histories, please go here.
We also invite students and educators to visit our Education Page, where you can find Japanese Americans of Washington State and Their Allies, a new lesson plan we've created for K-12 students, thanks to funding from the Kip Tokuda Memorial Grant Program. That grant also funded biographical essays of Tokuda, James Kazuo Okubo, and George and Frank Hirahara.
You'll also want to check out two of our newest curricula, Cultivating Washington: The History of Our State's Food, Land, and People, and Seattle's Waterfront History. And we'll have a civics curriculum available later this fall based on Jim Ellis’s A Will to Serve: Stories of Patience, Persistence, and Friends Made Along the Way.
War of Aggression
This week in 1858, armed conflict between the U. S. Army and members of the Spokane, Palouse, Yakama, and Coeur d'Alene tribes came to an end when troops led by Colonel George Wright stormed through the Spokane Valley. This massive display of force effectively removed the ability and the will of the Native Americans to resist, and it would change their centuries-old way of life forever.
Troubles began three years earlier when Native Americans rejected a series of flawed treaties offered by Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens. Fighting erupted throughout the territory, but tensions seemed to have abated. On May 18, 1858, as Colonel Edward Steptoe led a small and lightly armed column of soldiers through the heart of the Columbia Plateau Indian lands, he and his troops were soundly thrashed in the Battle of Tohotonimme.
Seeking swift retribution, the Army responded with a brutal punitive strike. On September 1, more than 700 troops led by Colonel George Wright overwhelmed fewer than 500 Indians at Four Lakes, defeating them four days later at Spokane Plains. Artist Gustavus Sohon, who accompanied Wright, sketched a panoramic view of the final battle.
Although the tribes were defeated, Wright continued his efforts to break their resistance. On September 8, 1858, he ordered his troops to slaughter 800 Native American horses and to destroy native lodges and storehouses of grain. A few weeks later, Yakama and Palouse prisoners suspected of killing whites were hanged, including Qualchan, a Yakama warrior who was sent to the noose 15 minutes after he surrendered to Wright while carrying a white flag.
Without horses, homes, and food, many Natives died that winter, mostly from starvation. Resistance from the tribes collapsed. Tribal leader Chief Spokane Garry signed a peace treaty, but never wavered in his insistence that the Spokane people should have the rights to their native lands along the Spokane River, a goal which proved unattainable. He died in poverty in 1892.
On September 11, 1852, The Columbian – Washington's first newspaper – was published in Olympia. The paper lasted for a little more than a year under several editors, but the Ramage press it was printed on was later used to publish The Seattle Gazette, Seattle's first newspaper.
On September 10, 1889, the Washington State Grange was founded at the Pioneer Store in Camas. Born out of objections to the proposed state constitution, the organization became a driving force for many social, economic, and political reforms, including a state income tax, approved overwhelmingly by voters in 1932 only to be struck down by the state Supreme Court on September 8, 1933.
On September 8, 1911, Children's Orthopedic Hospital opened on Seattle's Queen Anne Hill, thanks to the efforts of Anna Clise and her friends. The new facility provided 29 beds, more than double the number in the Fresh Air Cottage next door, which the Children's Orthopedic Hospital Association had opened in 1908.
On September 8, 1928, fire damaged the Old State Capitol Building in Olympia. On September 7, 1949, the Big Four Inn went up in flames in Snohomish County. Two days later, the Snake River Bridge burned down at Burbank. But the biggest fire this week in Washington history began on September 11, 1902, when the Yacolt Burn destroyed 270 square miles of land, and killed 28 people in Southwestern Washington.
On September 6, 1990, Federal District Judge William Dwyer ruled that the Metro Council was unconstitutional. Created on September 9, 1958, with the initial mission of cleaning up Lake Washington, the regional utility gained authority to operate transit services in 1972. Although it won high marks for efficiency, Metro's federated governance rankled critics and fudged the constitutional mandate for "one person, one vote."
Returning to our back-to-school feature, we note a few educational institutions that celebrate anniversaries this week, beginning with Washington State Normal School (now Central Washington University), which opened in Ellensburg on September 6, 1891. Tacoma High School – now known as Stadium High – opened on September 10, 1906, and Seattle Community College welcomed 11,000 students at 13 campuses on September 6, 1966.
On September 5, 1917, the first drafted men arrived at Camp Lewis, south of Tacoma.
"The road to freedom — here and everywhere on earth — begins in the classroom."
–Hubert Humphrey.
