Born in Seattle on May 15, 1921, Huston "Hu" Sears Riley grew up on Mercer Island in a house built around 1905 by his architect father. By all accounts a quiet and modest man, Hu became the face of th...
Olympia found itself on the feminist map in the 1990s when it gave birth to Riot Grrrl, a cultural and political movement started by women fed up with sexism in the punk music scene. Riot Grrrl groups...
Ritzville is the county seat of Adams County in Eastern Washington and the center of a vast wheat-growing region. It sprang into existence in 1881 when the Northern Pacific railroad established it as ...
This People's History is based on Heather MacIntosh's interview of Homer Venishnick in January 2000, in Renton, Washington. In 1890, Captain Edwin R. Burrows took one look at the idyllic landscape at ...
Dr. Jose Rizal Park is perched on the northwest crest of Seattle's Beacon Hill, where it enjoys sweeping views of downtown Seattle, Puget Sound, and the Olympics. The park is located on land acquired ...
Irvine Robbins, who started scooping ice cream as a kid in his family’s Seattle and Tacoma stores, used his entrepreneurial spirit to create Baskin-Robbins, the world’s best-known ice crea...
Pacific Northwest novelist Tom Robbins, profoundly provoked and inspired by what he calls the "1960s renaissance," is often hailed as a comic/spiritual chronicler of that tumultuous decade. But his ei...
A founding father of Northwest rock 'n' roll, Tacoma's "Rockin' Robin" Roberts (1940-1967) initially sang with that town's trailblazing 1950s white rhythm & blues combo, the Blue Notes. But in mid-195...
Bob Robertson's radio audience on fall Saturdays stretched across Washington and into every demographic: the hunter in Asotin driving home from the duck blind, the gardener in Port Angeles covering he...
Seattle-born activist and musician Earl H. Robinson is remembered for writing some of the labor movement's most famous ballads, including "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night." Robinson attended West ...
Herbert F. "Herb" Robinson was an award-winning television and newspaper journalist in Seattle who served as lead editorial writer for The Seattle Times from 1977 to 1989, and as anchor, news director...
Lelia Robinson is a celebrated feminist pioneer in American legal history. Among her achievements, she was the first woman to earn admission to the Massachusetts State Bar. While those who know of Rob...
Robinson Point Light Station (also known as Point Robinson) is situated on the easternmost point of Maury Island, a 36.7 square mile extension of Vashon Island, in southwest King County. It marks the ...
Limestone quarrying and lime processing began at Roche Harbor, located on the north end of San Juan Island in San Juan County, in the early 1880s. Under the leadership of John S. McMillin (1855-1936),...
Al Rochester, a lifelong Seattle resident, was active in the Democratic Party, served on the Seattle City Council (1944-1956), and published The Seattlite. Rochester was the original advocate and foun...
Seattle's growth from a village to a city was spurred by the fortuitous geographical location of the Queen City of Puget Sound, and by a steady stream of hopeful, ambitious men and women from elsewher...
The City of Rock Island is located on the east bank of the Columbia River in Douglas County, a short distance downriver from Wenatchee. It is just upstream from the former site of the Rock Island Rapi...
In the winter of 1991-1992, the Seattle rock-music scene suddenly became the darling of the global music industry. This "overnight success" was 15 years in the making.
Jay Rockey was the director of public relations for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair (Century 21 Exposition) and the founder of Jay Rockey Public Relations, later The Rockey Company, which became the lea...
Contests pitting humans against animals appear in cultures throughout recorded history. In the U.S., that tradition is the rodeo, which emerged from tasks cowboys did while working cattle in the 1800s...
Theodore Roethke, recognized by many as one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century, taught at the University of Washington from 1947 until his death in 1963. There, he inspired a gene...
John Rogers, who served as Washington's third governor from 1897 until 1901, was the state's only Populist executive. Despite concerns that he would be an activist administrator and bring embarrassmen...
Through hard work, dedication, and (to some degree) an interest in bridge, Nat Rogers (1898-1990) founded and helped grow Van Rogers & Waters, Inc. (now Univar USA) into North America's largest chemic...
On December 17, 1975, at 2:30 p.m., Palmer Coking Coal Company dynamited the portal to the Rogers No. 3 mine and the subsequent explosion closed the state's last underground coal mine, ending a signif...