Showing 1 - 20 of 70 results
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.
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Barstow Bridge (Stevens and Ferry counties)
The Barstow Bridge, a surplus military bridge, was placed across the Kettle River in 1947, after floods damaged several earlier bridges. The bridge is located in Northeast Washington on the border between Stevens and Ferry counties, not far from the Canadian border. Since it was a bit short in length, an additional structure was added on to enable it to span the river. After more than 60 years in service, the Barstow Bridge is scheduled to be removed in 2010. It has been put up for sale. If a willing buyer is not found, the bridge will be demolished. The Barstow Bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.
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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.
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Bicycle Tree at Snohomish (1890-1927) -- a Slide Show
This slide show presents the vintage postcard collection of Peter Blecha on the enormous and curious "bike tree," located in Snohomish County within what is now Snohomish city limits. The slide show was written and curated by Peter Blecha and funded by the Henry M. Jackson foundation.
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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.
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Burke, Judge Thomas (1849-1925)
Thomas Burke, chief justice of the Washington State Supreme Court, arrived in Seattle in 1875 at the age of 25. A lawyer, he began practicing law, and within a couple of years was elected probate judge. He was a civic activist, becoming involved in education, railroading, and the cultural growth of the city. He opposed the Northern Pacific Railroad, became a partner in the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad, and in the end served as attorney for James J. Hill's Great Northern Railway. He was an eloquent speaker and a voice for racial tolerance during the anti-Chinese riots of February 1886. Thomas Burke was married to Caroline McGilvra.
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Business and Industry in Seattle in 1900
A look at Seattle area businesses in 1900 indicates that the economy was simpler, life less complicated,
labor harder, travel slower, and that opportunities to enhance
one's quality of life were rarer. The modest turn-of-the-century Seattle
skyline was that of a town, but within a decade steel-framed skyscrapers
poked high crowns into the heavens above a true city. Historian James R. Warren surveys local industries and businesses at the beginning of the twentieth century in this special essay, adapted with permission from the Puget Sound Business Journal.
File 1669: 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.
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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).
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Des Moines Memorial Way South, Women's Memorial
Following World War I, the Seattle Garden Club worked with veterans organizations to plant some 1,400 elm trees along Des Moines Memorial Way S, dedicating each one to a fallen veteran. In a separate ceremony, Seattle's Ex-Service Women's Club planted elms to memorialize female war dead. An engraved monument took their place in the 1960s, with the names of more than 1,000 veterans. But the war dead commemorated by the Ex-Service Women's Club are missing.
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Freeman, Frederick Kemper, Jr. (b. 1941)
A fourth-generation Washington businessman and leading Eastside real-estate baron, Kemper Freeman Jr. directed redevelopment of his father’s Bellevue Square into a first-class urban mall with 200 stores and anchors including Nordstrom and The Bon Marché (now Macy’s). He went on to develop several of Bellevue’s premier commercial spaces and taller buildings, at Bellevue Place in the late 1980s and Lincoln Square in the 2000s. The outspoken Freeman is renowned for his support of “roads over transit,” opposing transit projects like the Regional Transit Authority’s 1995, $6.7 billion plan for light rail, commuter rail, and regional bus service. He helped defeat that plan, but was unable to stop a slimmed-down plan costing $3.9 billion that passed in 1996. Ironically, the 1995 plan would have served Bellevue, while the 1996 plan does not. Freeman remains unapologetic, arguing that roads need more funding and that transit plans cost too much and serve too few travelers.
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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.
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Graves, Jay P. (1859-1948)
Few entrepreneurs have been more important to the development of Spokane and the Inland Northwest or involved in a broader range of endeavors than Jay P. Graves. Arriving in Spokane from Illinois in 1887, he became modestly successful in real estate. After the Panic of 1893, he profited from the fall of others to build (and eventually lose) a major fortune in mining, railroads, and real estate. Graves put his stamp on Spokane with his urban and suburban developments, while his city and interurban railroads contributed to the growth and prosperity of Spokane and the surrounding area. His donations of land, although prompted more by self-interest than altruism, nevertheless resulted in Spokane’s Manito Park and a new campus for Whitworth College. For many years, Graves’s respite from business cares was his English-style model farm on the Little Spokane River. Although his personal fortunes eventually declined, Graves would be remembered for “his contributions for the betterment of quality of life, the business community, agriculture, mining, railroad building [which]… greatly enhanced Spokane’s stature as a city, its growth and development” (Moldovan, 54).
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Great Northern Tunnel -- Seattle
The Great Northern Tunnel is a one-mile-long tunnel that runs beneath downtown Seattle from Alaskan Way (below Virginia Street) on the waterfront, to 4th Avenue S and Washington Street. The Great Northern Railway built it in 1904, at the insistence of Seattle City Engineer Reginald H. Thomson (1856-1949), to help alleviate rail congestion on Railroad Avenue (now Alaskan Way) and it is still in use today. In its heyday, the Great Northern Tunnel was the largest, although not the longest, tunnel in the nation. It cost $1,500,000 to build and was intended for use by both the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific Railroads, which split construction costs. Today the tunnel is owned and operated by the Burlington Northern -- Sante Fe Railway.
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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.
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Hadley, Homer More (1885-1967), Engineer
Engineer Homer M. Hadley designed several unique concrete bridges throughout the state of Washington during his lifetime, including many early American applications of the European innovation of concrete hollow-box, or cellular construction. This economical method of construction was used extensively throughout Europe, but was not widely used in the United States until the 1940s and 1950s. It was Hadley who originally conceived the design of a floating bridge across Lake Washington, the large lake that separates Seattle from Bellevue and Kirkland (the Eastside). He visualized a floating roadway made up of a series of hollow concrete barges. Homer Hadley's unusual work reveals the effects of a single innovative engineer on bridge design within the state.
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Hansen, Julia Carolyn Butler (1907-1988)
Julia Butler Hansen was one of the most powerful female legislators in Washington state history, amassing a long list of "firsts." She served nine years on the Cathlamet, Washington, Town Council, 21 years in the state House of Representatives, 14 years in the United States House of Representatives, and five years on the Washington State Highway Commission. She came from tough, self-reliant pioneer, suffragist stock and was imbued by her grandmother and mother with self-assurance and a deep social conscience. She was known in the state Legislature as "Madam Queen," then the "The Lady of Cathlamet," and "The Little Old Lady in Logging Boots" the latter tag attributed to Henry Gay (1926-1999), iconoclastic editor-publisher of The Shelton-Mason County Journal. She relished the "rough and tumble" of creating legislation and enjoyed outstanding success in hitherto traditional male bastions. While functioning well in the halls of power, however, she strengthened her family's deep bonds, called Cathlamet home, and was "old-fashioned" about her house and her domestic skills. She was married for 42 years to Henry Hansen, a logging blacksmith 24 years her senior, and the Hansens had one son, David. Julia Butler Hansen died in 1988 in Cathlamet.
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Hill, James J. (1838-1916)
James J. Hill, nicknamed the Empire Builder, embodied the archetypal American story of success, rising from poor dock clerk to multimillionaire railroad magnate. In time, Hill had gained control of the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and the Burlington railroads. James J. Hill was perhaps more significant to the framing of the empire of the Pacific Northwest than any other individual. His decisions about rail routes and station stops had the power to turn fledging communities into robust cities -- and to cause other hopeful towns to die a bornin'. Settlers cultivated land along the margins of the tracks he laid, later shipping the products of their farms to distant markets via the trains. Hill's impact on the economic development of the Midwestern and Pacific Northwestern regions of the United States is difficult to overestimate.
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Hill, Samuel (1857-1931)
Samuel Hill made the Northwest his home for a
little more than 30 years, leaving a legacy of philanthropy, monuments, and highways still visible in the twenty-first century. He made a small fortune in utilities and investments and spent most of it on other people, on causes and programs he believed in, and in traveling the world to promote peaceful trade and prosperity. His most notable achievement was the establishment of the Maryhill Museum of Art overlooking the Columbia River near Goldendale, Washington.
File 5072: Full Text >
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Francis Chenoweth builds Washington's first railroad in July 1851.
In July 1851, Francis A. Chenoweth (1819-1899), who moved west from Wisconsin in 1849 and settled near present day Bonneville Dam on the north side of the Columbia River, begins operating what can be described as the first railroad in the Northwest. Variously estimated at 2 to 4 miles long, it is a wood-tracked portage railroad, established to carry freight and passengers around the Cascades rapids in the Columbia River -- downstream from present-day Stevenson, Washington, and upstream from Bonneville Dam. (Decades later the erection of the dam will bury the rapids under water.)
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Construction begins on the Whatcom Trail in September 1857.
In September 1857, construction begins on the Whatcom Trail to connect Bellingham to Everson and the international boundary with Canada. The track will follow an existing Indian trail called the Nook-sack Road. Seven months later, gold will be discovered on the Fraser River in British Columbia and the trail will take on greater import and help open up the countryside. The route will eventually serve a telegraph line and be called Telegraph Road.
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Lt. John Mullan and a 230-man crew begin building Mullan's Road (Mullan Road) from Walla Walla in spring 1859.
In the spring of 1859, Lt. John Mullan (1830-1909), under the auspices of the U.S. War Department, begins directing a crew of 230 soldiers and civilians in the work of making a military road. Mullan Road is planned as a 624-mile road from Fort Walla Walla to Fort Benton, Montana. The road crew labors for months, hacking through forests, laying corduroyed strips through marshes, and building hundreds of river crossings. The road reaches Fort Benton on August 1, 1860. (Present-day I-90 more or less traces the route of the old Mullan Road through the Rockies.) There are no funds for maintenance, and when Lt. Mullan makes his return trip, some of the Mullan Road has already deteriorated. Nevertheless, it provides Walla Walla with a supply route to several mining districts and causes the hamlet (with seven houses in 1860) to boom.
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Gustavus Sohon explores Eastern Washington and beyond as part of Captain John Mullan's military road-bulding team in the summer of 1859.
During the summer of 1859, Gustavus Sohon (1825-1903), a member of Captain John Mullan's team, explores the plains of Eastern Washington and the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountains in search of a viable route across the mountains for a military wagon road. He finds that the tribes of Eastern Washington Territory are reluctant to share information about the countryside for fear that the road will bisect their homeland and bring an influx of traffic and settlements. Sohon arrived on the Columbia River in 1852 as a private in the U.S. Army, and during the following decade, accompanied four expeditions across Eastern Washington. A man of many talents, he serves as a guide, an interpreter, an explorer, and a cartographer, but he is best known as a self-taught artist whose surviving pencil sketches and watercolors of important figures and landmarks comprise valuable eyewitness records of a crucial transitional period in Inland Northwest history.
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Military road from Fort Vancouver through Olympia to Seattle is completed in 1860.
In 1860, a military road is completed from Fort Vancouver to Seattle. It passes through Olympia, Fort Nisqually, Fort Steilacoom, and Fort Puyallup.
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Road is completed over Snoqualmie Pass by October 7, 1867.
On October 7, 1867, the Seattle Weekly Intelligencer announces that the first wagon road is completed over Snoqualmie Pass through the Cascade Mountains. The importance of this route was realized as early as 1855, but it was not until 1865 that a group of Seattle men located and surveyed a route for the road. Snoqualmie Pass is located on present-day Interstate 90 in east King County not far from North Bend.
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Cattle cross Snoqualmie Pass to Seattle in December 1869.
In December 1869, M. S. Booth drives 200 head of cattle across Snoqualmie Pass to Seattle.
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Northern Pacific sets off an economic boom and a bidding war in Puget Sound region beginning in August 1870.
About August 2, 1870, immediately after Northern Pacific Railroad surveyors arrive in Seattle, speculators begin a buying-frenzy of Seattle real estate. One Northern Pacific team will survey a route from Yesler’s Wharf at the foot of Mill Street (later renamed Yesler Way), proceeding south to Olympia. Another team will survey a route that goes around the south end of Lake Washington and over the Cascade Mountains. Seattle property immediately doubles in price and some real estate increases three to four times. Puget Sound towns vie for the Northern Pacific terminus and within a couple of years a bidding war has erupted among towns over which one would donate the most land, cash, and bonds to the Northern Pacific.
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Cattle drives over Snoqualmie Pass are reported on October 22, 1870.
On October 22, 1870, it is reported that during the previous year more than 1,200 head of cattle were driven from Yakima Valley to Puget Sound. Most if not all of the cattle went over Snoqualmie Pass.
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East Coast capitalists invest in Seattle and King County for the first time in July 1871.
For 10 days starting July 21, 1871, Philo Remington (1816-1889) and his associate Philo Osgood purchase from 13 different owners more than $50,000 in Seattle and King County real estate. Philo Remington, from Illion, New York, heads E. Remington & Sons, a manufacturing firm that produces guns and pistols. These are the first capitalists from the East that invest heavily in Seattle and its environs.
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Vitus Schmidt constructs first wagon made in Seattle, in 1872.
In 1872, Vitus Schmidt constructs the first wagon made in Seattle, for teamster David Morris. Earlier on, there were few if any roads, and most transportation went on water.
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Coal train runs on first railroad in Western Washington on March 25, 1872.
On March 25, 1872, workers complete Western Washington's first railroad. It is built in Seattle and runs from Lake Union to the foot of Pike Street. The railroad forms part of the transportation system to carry coal from Newcastle.
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Northern Pacific Railroad establishes Tenino as a rail junction in 1872.
In 1872, the Northern Pacific Railroad establishes a rail junction at Seatco 15 miles south of Olympia and calls it Tenino. The name derives from a Chinook word meaning junction, referring to the junction of military roads between Fort Vancouver, Olympia, and Steilacoom.
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Northern Pacific Railroad announces Tacoma terminus on July 14, 1873.
On July 14, 1873, an expectant crowd gathers at Yesler Mill in Seattle to hear Arthur Denny (1822-1899) read a telegram from Northern Pacific Railroad executives R. D. Rice and J. C. Ainsworth announcing the railroad's decision on where to locate the terminus. The crowd expects the terminus to be located in Seattle, but Denny opens the telegram and reads, "We have located the terminus on Commencement Bay." Seattleites are shocked, dismayed, and angered that the planned transcontinental railroad and its coveted wealth of goods and passengers would serve Puget Sound not from Seattle but from Tacoma, then barely a village. The reaction in Tacoma is quite the opposite -- celebration. Promoter Matthew McCarver had platted Tacoma City on Commencement Bay speculating that the railroad would come there and his investment proved a good one.
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Scheduled service on the Northern Pacific Railroad between New Tacoma and Kalama begins on January 5, 1874.
On January 5, 1874, scheduled service on the Pacific Division of Northern Pacific Railroad (NP) begins between New Tacoma and Kalama. New Tacoma is located in Pierce County in the southern part of the Puget Sound region and Kalama is located in Cowlitz County on the Columbia River north of Vancouver. The fare is $6 with $1 more for the ferry ride to Portland. The transcontinental railroad still needed 1,500 miles of track between Kalama and Bismarck, Dakota Territory.
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Seattle citizens begin work on their railroad, the Seattle & Walla Walla, on May 1, 1874.
On May 1, 1874, most of the men of Seattle begin work on the Seattle & Walla Walla Railroad, established in reaction to the decision by Northern Pacific to site its Western terminus in Tacoma.
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Walla Walla & Columbia River Railroad is completed from Wallula to Walla Walla on October 23, 1875.
On October 23, 1875, Dr. Dorsey Syng Baker (1823-1888) completes the Walla Walla & Columbia River Railroad from Wallula, on the Columbia River, to Walla Walla. Work on the railroad began in 1871, and it is completed four years later. Dr. Baker celebrates by offering a free round-trip ride on the new railroad. Hundreds come from around the valley to see the new train. Walla Walla residents board the train, ride to Wallula, and enjoy a picnic before returning by train to Walla Walla. The line will become part of the Northern Pacific Railroad.
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Seattle & Walla Walla Railroad runs first train on March 7, 1877.
On March 7, 1877, owner James M. Colman (1832-1906) operates the first train over the Seattle & Walla Walla Railroad, a line that runs from Seattle to the coal town of Renton.
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Cattle are driven from Yakima Valley over Snoqualmie Pass from May 1 to August 8, 1877.
From May 1 to August 8, 1877, more than 3,000 cattle are driven from Yakima Valley over Snoqualmie Pass into the Puget Sound region.
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Coal is discovered northeast of Sedro (Skagit County) in 1878.
In 1878, Layfayette Stevens discovers coal in the foothills northeast of Sedro, at a place later called Cokedale (in Skagit County). This joins earlier nearby strikes to produce coal fever in the region, which is amplified by prospects of a railroad to connect the town of Sedro with Fairhaven, on Bellingham Bay, and by further prospects of a route over the Cascade Mountains via Cascade Pass for James J. Hill's (1838-1916) transcontinental Great Northern Railway. Fifty coke ovens will be built at Cokedale and the Fairhaven & Southern Railway (completed 1889) will transport coal from Sedro to the bay. Cokedale will be a good producer for more than a dozen years. Eventually the coal boom will turn bust, but Sedro will merge with its neighbor Woolley to form Sedro-Woolley in 1898, and will live beyond the coal boom to grow steadily after 1900.
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A Letter Written from a 1900 Railroad Trip from Spokane to Athena, Oregon
This people's history, contributed by Richard Hall, consists of an eight-page letter written by his great grandmother, Annie Hall (1869-1921) in late November 1900. She boarded a Spokane-bound Northern Pacific train in Edwall, Lincoln County, and recorded her trip in a letter addressed to "My Dear Joe and Children." Joe is Joseph Banyon Hall (1857-1947), her husband. In Spokane, Annie changed to a Union Pacific train that took her to Athena, Oregon. The writing commenced at Tekoa and the letter was mailed, on December 2, 1900, several days after her arrival in Athena. Following the letter is a brief history of the Hall family by Richard Hall.
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Allentown Covered Bridge
Kent resident Michael C. Atkins submitted this retrospective on the Allentown Covered Bridge (built 1903, burned down 1956), which spanned the Union Pacific rail line. The bridge was replaced by the Codiga Bridge, which carries S 129th Street over Interstate 5 and railroad tracks. Allentown is located in King County just north of Tukwila and west of Skyway. Michael's family has lived in the Skyway area since 1956.
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Bill Newby and Seattle City Light's Skagit Hydroelectric Project, 1935-1996
Bill Newby (b. 1935) was born in the Seattle City Light community
of Newhalem on the Skagit River. He worked for City Light starting in
1955 as a laborer, digging ditches.
He retired in 1996 as Director of Operations on the
Skagit River hydroelectric project, responsible for three dams, four power houses,
and two communities. In this interview conducted by David Wilma for HistoryLink in January 2001, Bill Newby recalls life in Newhalem and on the Skagit Project.
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Charles Fletcher - Memories of an operator on the interurban
Charles Fletcher left the following account of his work on the Seattle, Renton and Southern Railway in the 1920s and 1930s. This electric interurban connected downtown Seattle with Renton along Rainier Avenue S. Fletcher's reminiscence is taken from "Centennial History: Columbia City, Rainier Valley, 1853-1991," dated 1992, and compiled Carey Summers for Pioneers of Columbia City, Rainier Valley Historical Society, Seattle, Washington.
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Daniel Corbin and the Spokane Falls & Northern Railway
John R. Fahey, the author of this essay, was born and educated in Spokane. He graduated from Gonzaga University and went to graduate school in journalism and political science at Northwestern. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a provost marshal and in a program democratizing German prisoners of war. In civilian life he worked as a radio news editor and announcer with several stations and became program director on KHQ radio and TV. For this piece, first published in The Pacific Northwesterner's and edited for HistoryLink.org by David Wilma, Fahey interviewed Edward J. Roberts and examined his personal papers. It appeared as John R. Fahey, “Spokane Falls and Northern,” The Pacific Northwesterner, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Spring 1960), pp. 17-26, and is reprinted by kind permission.
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Dorothea Nordstrand Remembers a 1920 Seattle Streetcar Accident and Hard Times
In this People's History, Dorothea (Pfister) Nordstrand recalls the time her father, riding from the Green Lake neighborhood to downtown Seattle to look for work on January 5, 1920, was injured in a serious streetcar accident. The family had just moved to Seattle from a homestead near Tiger, Washington (in Pend Oreille County). The Dad of the story is Joseph Pfister (1883-1947). The Mom is Mary Annie (Gierhofer) Pfister (1888-1962). The brother Jack is John Joseph Pfister (1907-1973), and the sister is Florence Mary (Pfister) Burke (1909-1998). In 2009 Dorothea Nordstrand was awarded AKCHO's (Association of King County Historical Organizations) Willard Jue Memorial Award for a Volunteer, for contributing these vivid reminiscences to various venues in our community, including HistoryLink.org's People's History library.
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Dorothea Nordstrand Remembers the Coming of Interstate 5
In this People's History, Dorothea (Pfister) Nordstrand (b. 1916), resident of Seattle's Green Lake neighborhood, remembers the neighborhood before and after Interstate 5 cut through it during the 1950s. Dorothea Nordstrand has lived in Seattle since the family moved here about 1920. In 2009 Dorothea Nordstrand was awarded AKCHO's (Association of King County Historical Organizations) Willard Jue Memorial Award for a Volunteer, for contributing these vivid reminiscences to various venues in our community, including HistoryLink.org's People's History library.
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Elevated Transportation Company: Extending the Monorail (Seattle)
The Elevated Transportation Company (ETC) was created by Initiative 41 on November 4, 1997. In that initiative, a 53 percent majority of Seattle voters called for construction of a 40-mile elevated system linking Seattle's four corners to downtown Seattle. It established the Elevated Transportation Company to seek private capital and management. In this People's History essay, monorail advocate Tom Carr describes the evolution of the ETC since 1998, including its struggles with Seattle City government, especially the city's attorney, mayor, and the city council. On November 5, 2002, Seattle voters approved Proposition 1, which created the Seattle Popular Monorail Authority (SPMA) to replace the ETC, and gave it the authority to design, build, and operate the 14-mile Green Line monorail as the first line in a city-wide monorail system. In 2005, following cost overruns and revenue shortfalls, Seattle voters killed the Seattle monorail project they had supported in four earlier votes.
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Elmer Yates remembers the Toonerville Trolley in the Rainier Valley.
Elmer Yates (b. 1917) was raised in the Rainier Valley and graduated from Franklin High School in 1934. He went to sea and became a ship's captain. In about 1996, he wrote to the Rainier Valley Historical Society about his memories of public transit in the Rainier Valley.
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For the Monorail: A 1997 Op-Ed by Walt Crowley
This op-ed piece was written by Walt Crowley after the passage, on November 4, 1997, of Initiative 41, a Seattle initiative that called for an expanded monorail. It appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on November 11, 1997. Walt Crowley, Executive Director of www.historylink.org (this website), is a journalist and historian, author of Routes: A Brief History of Public Transportation in Seattle, Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle, and the National Trust Guide for Seattle, among other books. Crowley worked for Mayor Wes Uhlman's administation in the Office of Policy Planning and has been a frequent television commentator. In 1998, he served on the unpaid Elevated Transportation Company (ETC) Board of Directors. He left a few months later to launch www.HistoryLink.org. This opinion piece pre-dates his involvment with the ETC.
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Hill, James Jerome (1838-1916)
Joel E. Ferris, a Spokane banker, wrote this article on the life of the railroad entrepreneur James J. Hill for the Winter 1959 edition of The Pacific Northwesterner. It is here edited by David Wilma and reprinted with permission. Joel Ferris was president of the Eastern Washington State Historical Society (Spokane), a member of the Washington State Historical Society Board (Tacoma), and of the Council of Friends of the Bancroft Library, University of California. He was a charter member, of the Westerners of Spokane and is the eponym of Spokane's Joel E. Ferris High School. James J. Hill was the founder of the Great Northern Railway.
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Junior Safety Patrol: A Reminiscence of Loyal Heights Elementary School (Seattle)
Former Seattle resident John M. Leggett offers this account of participating in the Junior Safety Patrol during the 1930s while attending Seattle's Loyal Heights Elementary School. Called the Schoolboy Patrol, the Junior Safety Patrol (which now includes girls) was sponsored by the AAA Club, and begun in Seattle Schools in September 1928. Its purpose was to increase safety for children crossing streets to get to school.
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Masked Robbers Trammel Train in Ballard
Romantic tales of bank heists, train robberies, and hold ups were favorites of American newspapers, large and small, in the early part of the twentieth century. Among these is a story set in Ballard, then an incorporated city. On October 6, 1905, a Leavenworth (Washington) newspaper, Echo, covered a train robbery that occurred four miles outside of Ballard. In 1982, United Artists studio brought to the big screen the story of Bill Miner, the Grey Fox, one of the perpetrators identified in this account. The 1905 Ballard train robbery postdates the popular film, The Great Train Robbery, produced in 1903. This file includes the Echo account of the robbery.
File 2275: Full Text >
Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Interview with Arvid Kangas
This Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Oral History Project interview of Arvid Kangas by Curtis Jacobs took place on July 27, 2000 in the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard. Arvid Kangas (b. 1916), of Finnish Heritage, talks about hopping a freight train from Minnesota to Seattle's Pioneer Square in 1940. Living in Ballard since 1948, he describes his work building the sea wall at Shilshole Bay and wooden piers on the downtown waterfront.
File 5765: Full Text >
Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Interview with Bjarne Andvik
This interview with Bjarne Andvik, (b. 1923) is part of The Vanishing Generation Oral History Project in the Nordic Heritage Museum. Interviewed by Olaf Kvamme on October 18, 2000, Bjarne Andvik is a Norwegian born Seattleite. He talks about his parents' immigration and their early days living in the Greenwood area, his father's job as a streetcar conductor with the Seattle Municipal Street Railway, his days in the band at Ballard High School, and his World War II service and shipyard work at The Ballard Marine Railway. This interview describes the Norwegian congregational community at the First Norwegian Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Brethren Church, and the Emmanuel Tabernacle, and delves into the communities' theological dissension.
File 5772: Full Text >
Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Interview with Holger Leander Berg
Holger Leander Berg, of Finnish heritage, grew up in Ballard and tells tales of his rambunctious childhood: harassing streetcar drivers with his Scout Troop, "creative" fishing around the Puget Sound, watching the silk trains fly by from the tracks at Shilshole Bay, and panning gold with a Scandinavian he met at Index on a camping trip. This is a Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Oral History Interview by Phyllis L. Beaulieu that took place in Seattle on July 20, 2000.
File 5773: Full Text >
Romance of Seattle Railroads: a Reminiscence by Warren Wing
This is a reminiscence of trains and the railroad in Seattle during the 1920s and 1930s, and during World War II. It is by Warren Wing, historian, author of To Seattle by Trolley (1988), and To Tacoma by Trolley: The Puget Sound Electric Railway (1995).
File 2266: Full Text >
Seattle Center Monorail -- History Worth Saving
The following letter, written by Glenn Barney to the Seattle Landmark Preservation Board on March 17, 2003, is in the public domain files of the Seattle Landmark Preservation Board. In the letter Barney summarizes the history and unique technology of Seattle's monorail, built by the ALWEG firm for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. The Board unanimously voted to landmark the monorail. Glenn Barney is the General Manager of Seattle Monorail Services, but wrote the following letter to represent his personal position. His views are not necessarily the positions of either Seattle Monorail Services, the Seattle Center, or the Seattle Monorail Project.
File 4282: Full Text >
South Lake Union: The Evolution of a Dream
This essay surveys the development of Seattle's South Lake Union and Cascade communities from 1854 to 2003, with emphasis on visions for its future including Virgil Bogue's 1911 Plan of Seattle, the 1972 Bay Freeway, the 1995-1996 Seattle Commons proposals, and Paul Allen's efforts to create a new community centered on biotechnology. It was published in The Seattle Times on June 8, 2003.
File 4250: Full Text >
The Driver's License: A Seattle Reminiscence by Dorothea (Pfister) Nordstrand
In this reminiscence, Dorothea (Pfister) Nordstrand (b. 1916) relates the story of how she learned to drive in Seattle. The year was 1936, just 36 years after the first auto arrived in Seattle in 1900. Dorothea Pfister, age 20, lived in the Green Lake area, and her friend Ernie of the Model A Roadster lived in Maple Leaf, a north Seattle neighborhood that at the time had dirt roads. In 2009 Dorothea Nordstrand was awarded AKCHO's (Association of King County Historical Organizations) Willard Jue Memorial Award for a Volunteer, for contributing these vivid reminiscences to various venues in our community, including HistoryLink.org's People's History library.
File 8012: Full Text >
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