Martian Invaders
On October 30, 1938, Martians invaded our planet and annihilated much of the populace with heat rays -- or at least that's what some folks believed when they turned on their radios. That evening, Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre broadcast a half-hour dramatization of H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds on the CBS radio network, and although the possible end of mankind still had commercial breaks, some thought that the end days had arrived.
The show's "live reports" originated from the East Coast, but local news outlets were flooded with calls from frazzled individuals who feared that aliens might have also landed here in the Northwest. Up in the mountain town of Concrete, people panicked when a power outage plunged the community into darkness in the middle of the broadcast.
In the cold light of dawn, no alien war machines could be found hereabouts. Or were they just biding their time? In 1947, the world's first modern "flying saucers" were spotted over Mt. Rainier, Seattle, and Maury Island. The last sighting proved to be a hoax, but suspicious events gave conspiracy theorists their first "Men in Black" to chew on. Add in all the Cold War jitters, and by 1954 all it took was a few windshield dings to trigger panic in the streets.
Stock Market Traders
In 1929, during the last days of October, a heavy sell-off on the New York Stock Exchange brought down upon many heads a tumble and crash of epic proportions. The stock market collapse ushered in the Great Depression, a 10-year economic downturn that caused hardship worldwide.
Washington suffered as trade dried up, jobs vanished, and businesses closed. Beginning in 1931, unemployed workers in Seattle began establishing "Hoovervilles," the largest of which was south of downtown. The shantytown would remain there for almost a decade, as did a similar encampment in Tacoma.
Across the state, people turned to elected officials for relief. The Washington Highway Department used appropriations balances to provide manual-labor jobs. Newly elected state Representative Warren G. Magnuson helped spearhead unemployment relief by way of other construction projects. In 1935, Governor Clarence Martin signed a revenue act which overhauled taxes and set up a tax system that remains relatively unchanged to this day.
The federally funded Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration provided more jobs. WPA workers built airports, created land-use surveys, wrote books, supported the arts, and kept folks entertained. By 1939, consumers were spending money again and federal funds went to other projects such as shipbuilding and aluminum production. But new perils loomed on the horizon.
