Seattle appears in print for the first time on October 30, 1852.

  • By Walt Crowley
  • Posted 10/15/1999
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 1754
See Additional Media

On October 30, 1852, the Olympia newspaper The Columbian prints an advertisement for Dr. David S. Maynard's store, the "Seattle Exchange." This (and a notice in the same issue about Henry Yesler's sawmill) marks the first use of the name Seattle in print.

Seattle founders briefly called their village "Duwamps" or "Dewamps" after the native name for the Duwamish River. Physician and merchant "Doc" Maynard (1808-1873) was lured north from Olympia in the summer of 1852 by his friend Chief Seattle (d. 1866), and he returned the favor by convincing his new neighbors to rename the settlement in honor of their defacto host. Chief Seattle was reputedly alarmed by the appropriation of his name but remained a friend of the newcomers.


Sources:

Clarence Bagley, History of Seattle (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1916); Clarence Bagley, History of King County, Washington (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1929); Murray Morgan, Skid Road, An Informal Portrait of Seattle (New York: Viking Press, 1951).


Licensing: This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons license that encourages reproduction with attribution. Credit should be given to both HistoryLink.org and to the author, and sources must be included with any reproduction. Click the icon for more info. Please note that this Creative Commons license applies to text only, and not to images. For more information regarding individual photos or images, please contact the source noted in the image credit.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Major Support for HistoryLink.org Provided By: The State of Washington | Patsy Bullitt Collins | Paul G. Allen Family Foundation | Museum Of History & Industry | 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax Revenue) | City of Seattle | City of Bellevue | City of Tacoma | King County | The Peach Foundation | Microsoft Corporation, Other Public and Private Sponsors and Visitors Like You