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Need for Speed

On September 23, 1884, Frank Osgood inaugurated Seattle's horse-drawn streetcar service down the center of 2nd Avenue. The city's first cable cars began shuttling between Pioneer Square and Leschi three years later. It wasn’t long before the street railway lines were converted to electricity too, and Osgood converted his "hayburners" to electric power in 1889. 

Electricity also powered the region's interurban railways, one of the first of which began running between Seattle and Tacoma on September 25, 1902. By World War I, streetcar lines and interurbans -- all privately operated -- spread across the region, but they came undone as more people relied on automobiles.

Washington's first motor car arrived in Seattle in 1900. Four years later the Automobile Club of Seattle, predecessor of AAA Washington/Inland, formed on September 23, 1904. Pioneer motorists made common cause with bicyclists and farmers to promote “good roads” across Washington, and 1905 saw the creation of the State Highway Board, predecessor of today's Washington State Department of Transportation. By the eve of World War II, the automobile had triumphed and the streetcars were no more … or so it seemed.

Planting a Seed

On September 27, 1876, Thurston County pioneer William Owen Bush won a top prize for grain at the nation's centennial exposition in Philadelphia, and he would later attend three other American expositions, winning prizes at each. Bush's interest in agronomy took root at an early age, and the fruits of his labor not only helped to promote Washington's crops, but also led to the creation of Washington State University.

Bush was the son of George W Bush, who in 1845, along with Michael T. Simmons, was one of the first Americans to settle north of the Columbia River in what is now Washington. At the time, Oregon Territory prohibited African Americans from settling south of the river, hence Bush's decision to stake a claim near what is now Tumwater. He began farming his land with his 13-year-old son William by his side.

Owen, as he preferred to be called, proved to be an apt student, and by the time he and his brothers took over the family farm after their father's death, he had become one of the territory's most celebrated farmers. His agricultural expertise persuaded the territorial legislature to fund his appearance in Philadelphia. Upon his return, Bush continued to farm, but also entered politics, and from 1889 to 1891 served in the first legislature convened in the new state of Washington. While in the legislature, he advocated for the creation of a state agricultural college, which would later become WSU.