On December 24, 1888, the ferry City of Seattle makes its first run from Seattle to Duwamish Head at West Seattle. City of Seattle is the first regularly scheduled ferry on Puget Sound.
In 1889, Robert O. Lee arrives in Seattle and becomes the first African American to practice law in Washington.
In 1889, the Ladies Colored Social Circle, Seattle's first African American social organization for women, forms. Members include Mrs. Fred Lawrence, Mrs. Logan, and Rebecca Grose Dixon.
In 1889, Robert A. Clark, an African American entrepreneur, arrives in Seattle. Clark operates a drayage and delivery service out of his office at 2nd Avenue and Madison Street.
In 1889, John T. Gayton (1868-1954) arrives in Seattle as a coachman for a Mississippi family. A founder of one of Seattle's leading African American families, he works as librarian for the Federal Co...
In 1889, the West Coast Improvement Co., seeking to improve the land that becomes known as Ballard, builds the first bridge across Salmon Bay. It is a wagon bridge made of puncheon (split logs with th...
In 1889, Chas. T. Ernst establishes Ernst Hardware. Chas. Ernst engaged in plumbing and tinning. In 1907, the firm was incorporated as Ernst Hardware and Plumbing Co. and moved into 512 Pike Street in...
On January 2, 1889, the Pontiac Brick and Tile Company is incorporated. The company located a "splendid quality of clay" for a brick-making plant near Sand Point, Lake Washington. The company Presiden...
The opening of a post office is an important marker of the beginning of a community. On January 31, 1889, the Kirkland Post Office is established. John J. Thompkins is the first postmaster. Kirkland ...
On February 4, 1889, the citizens of Roslyn, which began as a coal camp three years earlier, present a petition to Judge L. B. Nash requesting that their city be incorporated. He duly proclaims Roslyn...
On February 15, 1889 Seattle tailors organize Tailors' Union Local No. 71. Wages in 1889 are about $2.85 per day.
During March 1889, stone cutters from Seattle organize a union, a branch of Journeymen Stone Cutters Association of America. Stone cutters earn $4.50 per 9 hour day and work five or six days per week...
On March 1, 1889, the Front Street Cable Railway Company line through the heart of Seattle's business district commences operations. It is one of several Seattle cable-car lines in this era. Its south...
On about March 8, 1889, the first Swedish newspaper issued in Seattle is the Westra Posten (1889-1946). This weekly paper with various names lasted from 1889 to 1946. The newspaper offices are located...
On March 30, 1889, Frank Osgood (1852-1934) tests Seattle's first electric streetcars on his 2nd Avenue line. Addie Burns, an investor in the Seattle Electric Railway and Power Company, is the system'...
On March 31, 1889, the first regularly scheduled electric car runs over a Seattle trolley line formerly powered by a pair of horses. For about a year, this line remains the only electric streetcar lin...
On April 18,1889, a suspicious fire early in the morning devastates the town of Cheney, which had been in existence for only about a decade. Cheney is located about 16 miles southwest of Spokane Falls...
On April 22, 1889, Duncan Hunter, a native of Scotland and a stonemason, files a homestead claim to 80 acres of dense forest in south Snohomish County. The claim sits astride what will become the Nort...
On May 12, 1889, 26-year-old Sophronia (Sweat) Wagner (1863-1889), the mother of two children, is killed in a streetcar accident in the first streetcar death in Seattle. The streetcar is descending th...
On May 17, 1889, the first issues of Washington Posten are distributed to Seattle's Norwegian and Danish populations. In 1898, it boasts being the oldest Norwegian paper in Washington, with a circulat...
The opening of a post office is an important marker of the beginning of a community. On May 20, 1889, the Edgewater Post Office opens. It is located near Lake Union in the future Seattle neighborhood ...
On June 3, 1889, a predawn fire breaks out in downtown Republic, located in Ferry County in North Central Washington. The fire quickly spreads throughout this just-established gold-mining boomtown. De...
In June 1889, ten sawmills operate in Seattle. The Great Fire of June 6, 1889 destroys most of the mills, but they rebuild, many of them on Salmon Bay to the north of the city.
At about 2:30 p.m. on June 6, 1889, a pot of glue bursts into flames in Victor Clairmont's basement cabinet shop at the corner of Front (1st Avenue) and Madison streets in Seattle. Efforts to contain ...