Keyword(s): Bill Alley
Lincoln Beachey was one of the most famed aviators of his day. In the summer and fall of 1905 he made a series of thrilling balloon flights at Portland's "Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacif...
For much of the first half of the twentieth century, the name Reginald Parsons was readily associated with civic leadership and philanthropy not only in his adopted home town of Seattle, but also in o...
Vancouver's Pearson Field is one of the nation's oldest operating airfields. Aviation first came to Vancouver in 1905, when Lincoln Beachey flew from Portland in a lighter-than-air craft and landed on...
This piece on the Prunarians, a group of civic-minded Vancouver businessmen active in the 1920s, was written by Bill Alley. During the 1920s, Clark County, Washington, was the prune capital of the wor...
On June 1, 1895, Aberdeen businessmen connect their own railroad to the Northern Pacific. In 1892 the Northern Pacific Railroad decided to bypass the town of Aberdeen. Local businessmen take matters i...
On October 16, 1903, a fire destroys 140 buildings in the center of Aberdeen. Fed by wood-frame structures, wooden sidewalks, and sawdust fill, the fire rages unchecked until some 20 acres have burned...
On November 7, 1907, three Aberdeen bankers issue private bank notes dubbed Grays Harbor Currency to counter the effects of the Panic of 1907. The currency, printed in haste on just one side, will ser...
On September 9, 1918, Grays Harbor Motorship Corporation in Aberdeen lays the keel for a new transport ship to meet the demands of the war effort. A mere 17 1/2 days later the Wonder Ship, as federal ...
On June 20, 1937, a Soviet-built ANT-25 monoplane lands at Vancouver's Pearson Air Field, completing the first airplane flight from the Soviet Union to the United States across the North Pole. The unf...
In 1954, Skagit Boats begins building fiberglass boats in the Swinomish Channel just south of La Conner. The firm builds more than a thousand boats before going out of business in 1961. Long afterward...