Showing 1 - 14 of 14 results

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 >

Bulley, William A. (b. 1925)

William Arthur Bulley served as Director of Highways for the Washington Department of Highways from 1975 to 1977. 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 >

Colman Clock (Seattle)

The Colman Clock of the Seattle Ferry Terminal at Colman Dock has truly taken a licking, but keeps on ticking. Over the past hundred years, since 1908 when it arrived, the clock has been dunked into Puget Sound, tossed in a warehouse, and moved around here and there. Today (2005) it is back at Colman Dock (Seattle Pier 52), and once again marks the minutes and hours of the day.
File 7559: Full Text >

Colman, James Murray (1832-1906)

Scottish-born James Murray Colman arrived in Seattle in 1872 at the age of 40 to lease and operate Yesler's sawmill. Colman was a prime mover in organizing the Seattle & Walla Walla Railroad after the Northern Pacific decided to make Tacoma its Western terminus. He built Colman's Dock (today Pier 52, the terminal for the Washington State Ferries), which became a thriving hub of maritime commerce during and after the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897.
File 1680: Full Text >

Ferry Kalakala

The ferry Kalakala was launched from the Lake Washington Shipyards, in Kirkland, on July 2, 1935. Between 1935 and 1967, the streamlined ferry plied the waters of Puget Sound, carrying commuting workers between Seattle and the naval shipyard in Bremerton. Auctioned off in 1967, the Kalakala spent the next 31 years in Alaska, serving as a fish processor. The vessel returned to Seattle on November 6, 1998. After failed attempts to raise sufficient funds to restore her, she was auctioned off, moved to Neah Bay, removed from Neah Bay, and in September 2004 moved to Tacoma.
File 312: Full Text >

Ferry Whistles on Puget Sound: A Slide Show

For more than a century, ferryboat captains on Puget Sound have used the distinctive docking signal made up of a long blast on the boat's whistle followed by two short ones. In maritime terms, this is called a warp and two woofs. Still in use today, this method of sounding the vessel's arrival to land is not only unique to each boat's whistle, but also to each individual ferryboat captain and the techniques they use to sound the call. This file links to sound recordings of some of the more distinctive boat whistles of the Washington State Ferry fleet. The recordings were made in the 1960s and 1970s by retired Black Ball Line publicist William O. Thorniley.
File 7191: Full Text >

Kitsap County -- Thumbnail History

Kitsap County, named after a military leader of the Suquamish Tribe, occupies the northern end of the Kitsap Peninsula between Hood Canal and Admiralty Strait. Loggers cleared the dense forests and fed sprawling mills and thriving company towns. Even before the mills went out of business, the U.S. Navy founded the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton, which became the centerpiece of the county's economy and the largest single employer. Water transportation has dominated the county's culture and economy since before settlement. The Washington State Ferry System carries more than half its 25 million passengers back and forth from the east side of Puget Sound to Kitsap County. In 2005, an estimated 240,000 people lived there.
File 7864: Full Text >

Port of Seattle Central Waterfront Cybertour

A guided, photographic Cybertour of Seattle's downtown waterfront. Curated by Paul Dorpat, written by Walt Crowley, Designed by Chris Goodman.
File 7056: Full Text >

Puget Sound's Mosquito Fleet

Puget Sound's historic "Mosquito Fleet" consisted of thousands of steamships that steamed from port to port around the sound from the 1850s to the 1930s. They were so numerous that people said they resembled a "swarm of mosquitoes." From the days of the earliest tribal canoes to the early 1930s, Puget Sound and the Inside Passage (the channel between the British Columbia/Alaska coasts and the islands) constituted the major transportation corridor of the Northwest. The heyday of the Mosquito Fleet ended in the 1930s when competition with rail and road transportation put the fleet out of business.
File 869: Full Text >

San Juan County -- Thumbnail History

Accessible only by water or air, San Juan County is an archipelago of hundreds of islands, reefs, and rocks between mainland Washington and Vancouver Island. Around 20 islands are inhabited. The largest three -- Orcas, San Juan, and Lopez -- contain most of the land area and nearly all the population. Only in 1872, later than any other area in the 48 contiguous states, did the San Juan islands become an undisputed part of the United States following the "Pig War" boundary dispute with Great Britain. San Juan County was created the next year. Like the Lummi, Samish, and other Northern Straits Salish peoples who have made the islands home for thousands of years, early settlers depended heavily on the islands' rich marine resources. As settlement increased the islands supplied the surrounding region with fish, agricultural produce, timber, and lime from some of the nation's richest deposits. A few residents still make a living from fishing, farming, or forestry, but tourism, construction, real estate, and self-employment are now the leading economic sectors as ever more weekend visitors, summer-home buyers, and retirees flock to enjoy the San Juans' beauty.
File 7505: Full Text >

Santos, Robert "Bob" Nicholas (b. 1934)

Bob Santos, born and raised in Seattle's Chinatown-International District, has spent most of his life as an activist in his old neighborhood -- saving it, nurturing it, defending it against outside threats, whether environmental, cultural, or political. Dubbed unofficial mayor of the ID and Uncle Bob, he has been arrested six times fighting for civil rights, and he served as the Pacific Northwest's Housing and Urban Development director during the Clinton administration. "Santos gained prominence ... as an activist who could walk that thin line between being a provocateur and a peacemaker. With a famously salty tongue tempered by a gentleman's graciousness, he helped secure affordable housing, child-care services and social outlets for the elderly in the neighborhood" (Beason). Santos is also honored for what he helped keep out -- a garbage incinerator, a prison or work-release facility, a transportation hub, and a McDonald's. Santos and his wife, state representative Sharon Tomiko Santos, live in Seattle.
File 8989: Full Text >

Seattle Central Waterfront Tour, Part 4: From Mosquito Fleet to Ferry System at Colman Dock

Colman Dock, Pier 52, now the Washington State Ferries terminal at the base of today's Columbia Street, was originally built by Scottish engineer James Colman in 1882 to service the growing regional steamship traffic. Immediately to the north (now an auto waiting area) stood the Grand Trunk Pacific Pier, which was consumed in a tragic fire in 1914. Colman Dock served as the terminal of the Black Ball line before that private enterprise was taken over by Washington State Ferries in 1951.
File 2474: Full Text >

Transportation Chronology: Moving Washington for a Century -- 100 Years in the History of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT)

This chronology marks the major milestones in the evolution of Washington's transportation system over a century of progress, challenge, and innovation.
File 7273: Full Text >

Vashon-Maury Island -- Thumbnail History

Vashon-Maury Island is located in the middle of southern Puget Sound, midway between Seattle and Tacoma, but within the boundaries of King County. Its history parallels that of the rest of the county, but growth and development have occurred at a much slower rate, owing in main part to its distance and inaccessibility to the mainland.
File 3909: Full Text >