Creating an art museum in Seattle began with a modest gathering of like-minded art and cultural enthusiasts in the early years of the twentieth century. Through two predecessor organizations and the p...
Until the early 1970s, the Seattle Art Museum had been firmly led by one man, Richard Fuller, but things were about to change. Many people would lead the museum as directors and board members over the...
Seattle is home to myriad art galleries and art museums, but it wasn't always so. In this original essay, historian Vicki Halper surveys the city's burgeoning art community in the years following the ...
The Seattle Arts Commission was formed in 1971. The commission evolved out of the Municipal Arts Commission, founded in 1955 with the aim of integrating artistic experiences into Seattleites' daily li...
Seattle Bandstand was a televised teen-dance show modeled after Dick Clark's national program, American Bandstand and hosted by Ray Briem (b. 1930). The Northwest version is an instant favorite of Nor...
This is a People's History of the first 50 years of the Seattle Banjo Club, founded in 1962. It was written by John LaFond, who joined in 1973. He is the club's longest-serving member.
The Seattle Camera Club, a group of photography enthusiasts, was formed in 1924 and disbanded in 1929. Composed mostly of Issei (first-generation Japanese immigrant) men, the club also welcomed men of...
The Seattle Cemetery, located at the present (1999) site of Denny Park north of downtown, was Seattle's first official municipal cemetery. The first burials in 1861 (?) were bodies removed from other ...
The 74 acres that comprise Seattle Center have played a pivotal role in the region’s history. The defining moment came in 1962 when the Century 21 Exposition, also known as the Seattle World&rsq...
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 Barn...
Coast Salish Indians fished, hunted, and gathered shellfish along Elliott Bay for millennia before May 1792, when European sailors first gazed at the site of present-day Seattle. Sixty years later, U....
The waterfront between Battery and Broad streets, beginning with Pier 69, is graced by the Edgewater Hotel, the Port of Seattle terminal for high-speed Victoria Clipper catamaran ferries, and Myrtle E...
Piers 46 and 47 are located south of Pioneer Square and Pier 48 is located directly west of Pioneer Square. Piers 46 and 47 serve as the Port of Seattle's vast loading apron for containers. Pier 48 is...
The waterfront at the foot of Yesler Way (piers 1 and 2 by pioneer arithmetic, later piers 50 and 51) serves as an auto staging area for the Washington State Ferries terminal. Yesler's Wharf (there is...
Colman Dock, Pier 52, now the Washington State Ferries terminal at the base of today's Columbia Street, was originally built by Scottish engineer James Colman in 1882 to service the growing regional s...
Piers 54, 55, and 56 are home to today's Ivar's Acres of Clams restaurant and the renowned Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. The Northern Pacific Railroad built the piers during the golden age of Seattle's mari...
Following the Great Fire of 1889, which consumed the harbor from Yesler's Wharf below Pioneer Square to as far north as University Street, the Northern Pacific Railroad rebuilt and extended over-water...
Pier 58, now Waterfront Park, was once the renowned Schwabacher's Wharf. It was built in 1902 and taken over in 1909 by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad ("Milwaukee Road"), the last of f...
The present site of the Seattle Aquarium was once a giant coal pier and the city's first commercial swimming beach (brrrr!). Both had disappeared by the late 1870s. A furniture mill and a succession o...
Piers 64, 65, and 66, including the Bell Street Pier and the Bell Harbor complex, are located south of Virginia Street and east of Belltown. The area was once a shantytown, home to mostly Native Ameri...
Seattle's oldest charity, the Seattle Children's Home originated as the Ladies' Relief Society in April 1884. The founding members intended "general benevolence and charity ... with special emphasis o...
Seattle Children's Theatre dates its birth to 1975, but it actually got its start in 1971 when the City of Seattle and the fundraising organization PONCHO together built Poncho Theatre at Seattle's Wo...
Since the City of Seattle was incorporated in 1869, city government has occupied various spaces, beginning with rented facilities all over town. Seattle's first City Hall, built in 1882, was located a...
This file contains an undated, unsigned letter describing what it was like working at Seattle City Light in the early years, around 1910. The letter is held in the Seattle Municipal Archives. It descr...