Keyword(s): Peter Blecha
Today's labor union for Seattle's professional musicians is the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) Local 76-493, and that cumbersome name reflects perfectly the organization's tangled and sometime...
Washington's first World's Fair -- the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition -- was held in Seattle on the grounds of the University of Washington campus between June 1 and October 16, 1909, and drew more t...
The U.S. government officially recognizes more than 250 wine-growing regions, known as American Viticultural Areas (AVAs). Twenty of those AVAs are located partially or entirely within Washington...
Ernestine Anderson launched her amazing career as a jazz singer while still a teenaged Seattle high school student back in the 1940s. By the 1950s she was an experienced performer who'd toured widely ...
The excellent wood-working skills of Swedish immigrant, Otto Edward Anderson provided him with good job opportunities upon his arrival in the Pacific Northwest in 1888. One highlight of his career mus...
William Arquette, a member of the Puyallup Indian Tribe who as a child living along Elliot Bay witnessed the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, was among the earliest musical stars from the Pacific Northwest...
Associated Vintners (AV) was a Seattle winemaking firm formed primarily by a group of University of Washington faculty members. Its backstory is perhaps the classic local instance of home garage-based...
The "spectator sport" of bear wrestling is an ancient, if disturbing, one that is still practiced in only a few nations. In America, the man-vs.-bear spectacle became a fad among beered-up tavern patr...
A half-decade prior to the Pacific Northwest's great rock 'n' roll eruption of 1959-1960 -- a period that saw a series of teenage groups (including the Fleetwoods, Frantics, Shades, Gallahads, Wailers...
Seattle's Kearney Barton was the man whose audio engineering work can be credited with forging the powerful aural esthetic that became widely known as the "original Northwest Sound." Numerous musician...
Ted Baseler (b. 1954) grew up in Bellevue, graduated from Washington State University (WSU), and studied journalism at Northwestern University in Illinois. From there he worked at a series of advertis...
Fabled Pacific Northwest mountaineer Fred Beckey (1923-2017) was a virtual unknown to the general public thanks to his eccentric, lone-wolf lifestyle and reticence to engage in self-promotion. Bu...
Several of Seattle's distinct neighborhoods are closely associated with their rich musical histories, including the Jackson Street area's early jazz scene, E Madison Street's funky R&B past, and d...
Overton Berry, a kindly pianist who lived in Seattle from 1945 until his death in 2020, saw and did it all, from podunk lounge gigs to major jazz festivals, from one-nighters to years-long extended en...
On Thursday evening, February 22, 1894, the Puyallup Reservation Band performs at a banquet/dance and then later for the editors and staff of the Tacoma Daily Ledger at their offices. The band consist...
On April 25, 1895, an article appears in the Everett Herald featuring rare details about one of the Pacific Northwest’s first guitar-makers, Mr. W. O. Welch. The story apparently was origin...
On July 28, 1896, Tacoma's Olof Olsson Bull (1852-1933) scales Mount Rainier and plays several solo songs -- including "Nearer, My God, To Thee" -- on his fiddle at the Columbia Crest summit. That fea...
On January 5, 1902 the Seattle Post-Intelligencer publishes a full-page feature about the remarkable colony of floating homes that had arisen on Elliott Bay just off Seattle's central waterfront. It c...
On May 11, 1909 -- a mere three weeks prior to the Grand Opening on June 1, 1909 of Seattle's first World's Fair (the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, which was mounted on a portion of the current Uni...
On June 21, 1909, more than 10 years prior to the launching of America's first commercially licensed radio station, a young inventor named William Dubilier (1888-1969) publicly unveils what was promot...
On August 18, 1909, German Day ("Deutscher Tag") is celebrated at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition on the grounds of the University of Washington in Seattle. The exposition took place between June ...
On April 17, 1910, The Seattle Times -- in a demonstration of the newspaper's connection to, and fondness for, Robert W. Patten (1832-1913) -- breaks the sad news that the Civil War veteran and eccent...
On October 22, 1914, a patent application drawn up by Seattle attorney Henry L. Reynolds (1861?-1959) is filed with the U.S. Patent Office in an effort to establish legal protection for an invention b...
On July 1, 1917, a rustic and romantic park hotel, the Paradise Inn, located in Mount Rainier's beautiful Paradise Valley, holds its grand opening and the event's many attendees have the opportunity t...
On Friday December 12, 1919, while en route from Los Angeles to Seattle for a visit back home, Helen Louise Ferera (1887?-1919) vanishes from the Pacific Steamship Company's SS President. The famed m...
On Friday March 24, 1922, a local newspaper reports that Dr. H. M. Read -- Seattle's Public Health Commissioner -- issues his department's annual report. Contained within the document are several disq...
On July 31, 1922, a patent application drawn up by Seattle attorney Richard J. Cook (1881?-1946) is filed with the U.S. Patent Office in an effort to establish legal protection for an invention by Bre...
On Sunday evening, May 6, 1923, longtime vaudevillian Mamie Smith (1883-1946) makes her Seattle performance debut at the city's grand Metropolitan Theatre in a big-time touring revue titled "Struttin'...