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.
This Week Then
7/24/2025
Civil Rights
On July 25, 1963, police made the first arrests of the civil rights movement in Seattle when 22 persons were removed from the city council's chambers after a four-day occupation. Earlier that month, 35 young African American and white demonstrators occupied Mayor Gordon Clinton's lobby to protest the make-up of the city's new Human Rights Commission, tasked with writing an open-housing ordinance. That protest ended within 24 hours without incident or arrests, but also without action from the mayor.
When the council met on July 22 to consider Clinton's nominees for the 12-member commission, hundreds of citizens showed up to express concerns that only two of the nominees were Black. At the end of the meeting, four young women sat down in protest. Other protestors joined them over the next four days until they were all removed by the police. The commission was created as planned, and although it submitted an open-housing ordinance the following year, voters rejected it. A similar law didn't pass in Seattle until April 1968.
A month earlier, at Franklin High School, a sit-in protested the expulsion of two students, demanded the hiring of more Black educators, and called for an African American history curriculum at the school. Four days after its peaceful ending, police arrested University of Washington Black Student Union members Aaron Dixon and Larry Gossett and local SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) head Carl Miller. Their sentencing for unlawful assembly triggered riots in Seattle's Central Area, and their case traveled up through the courts for years. Gossett was later elected to the King County Council and served there from 1993 until 2019.
Lofty Heights
This week marks three anniversaries, two atop and one above Mount Rainier. On July 28, 1896, Olof Bull carried his violin to the summit and played several solo songs, including "Nearer, My God, To Thee." Thirteen years later, on July 30, 1909, the summit had other visitors of note when a group of suffragists joined The Mountaineers to plant a "Votes for Women" banner atop the mountain.
And on July 25, 1920, Seattle aviator Herbert Munter became the first person to overfly the peak when he soared above the summit in his Boeing Model 8 biplane. Ever the showman, Munter circled the peak three times before crossing over it. Spectacular for the time, his feat of aviation was bested 30 years later when another intrepid pilot actually landed his plane atop the mountain.
President Warren G. Harding received a warm Seattle sendoff after giving what turned out to be his last public speech on July 27, 1923. He fell ill en route to San Francisco and died six days later. In 1925 a memorial created by Alice Robertson Carr was erected in Woodland Park Zoo, where the president had spoken at a Boy Scout jamboree, but it was demolished in the late 1970s and is now buried under the central knoll in the zoo's African Savanna exhibit.
Boeing's Elation
On July 26, 1928, Boeing Field opened in Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood, a day William Boeing called, "… just about the happiest one of my life." Many Boeing aircraft took their maiden flights from the field, including the B-17 Flying Fortress, which first rose skyward on July 28, 1935.
Cetacean Exploitation
In 1965 Ted Griffin opened the Seattle Marine Aquarium on Pier 56, where he displayed Namu, the world's first captive killer whale. A year later, the movie Namu the Killer Whale, filmed in the San Juan Islands, had its premiere in Seattle. Namu's plight generated great concern over the use and exploitation of orcas, and a shift in public opinion led to the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972.
River Revelation
On July 24, 1966, the first unlimited hydroplane race on the Columbia River was held at Tri-Cities. Thirty years later, on July 28, 1996, two racing fans were wading in the water when one of them stepped on what seemed to be a round rock. It turned out to be a 9,200-year-old human skull -- the remains of an individual who came to be known as Kennewick Man, or The Ancient One.
Musical Sensation
On July 25, 1969, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, and Santana performed in Woodinville at the Seattle Pop Festival. A year later, on July 26, 1970, Jimi Hendrix played his final Seattle show, at Sicks' Stadium, less than two months before his death.
