Topic: Business
John Wilson Sprague was born in the state of New York, became a successful businessman in Ohio, served the Union cause with distinction during the Civil War, and then moved to the Northwest in 1870 as...
Richard Hall of Coupeville offers this account of the business his grandfather, Stanton Hall, built in Everett. Stanton Hall later served as a member and as president of the Washington State Universit...
Seattle-based Starbucks is a multi-national corporation that sells coffee drinks, coffee beans, food, and beverages at its retail stores as well as wholesale to other outlets. When the first Starbucks...
Elbridge A. Stuart created the firm that became the Carnation [evaporated milk] Company in 1899 in Kent, Washington. Carnation became one of the world's largest milk-product companies. In 1910, Stuart...
Gordon H. Sweany was a Seattle lawyer and the chairman of the board of SAFECO Corp. Under his leadership, SAFECO grew into one of the 20 largest diversified financial corporations in the United State...
Seattle's taxicab industry began in 1908 with a fleet of three Stearns Landaulets operated by the Seattle Taxicab Company. Competitors elbowed in, rate wars ensued in the 1920s, and Seattle Taxic...
Sidney Thal was one of Seattle's most beloved personalities. In 1948, he and his wife Berta Thal (1911-1996) purchased Fox's Gem Shop in downtown Seattle and transformed it into a leading retailer of ...
In the early morning of January 9, 2009, a raging fire burned down The Dutchman rehearsal and recording studio in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood. The rundown industrial warehouse had been a vibrant cente...
Thanks to Seattle's damp and soggy weather, coffee has always been a cherished commodity. The city's first commercial roasting operations began producing fresh-roasted coffee more than 100 years ago, ...
In 1954 three Klineburger brothers -- Gene (b.1920), Bert (b.1926), and Chris (b.1927) -- bought the Jonas Brothers taxidermy studio in Seattle and by the early 1960s turned it into one of the largest...
Harvey Vern Thomas (1920-1987) led an active and multi-faceted life as a musician, a machinist, a businessman -- and a notoriously fun-loving prankster. But it was his role as the luthier responsible ...
Dr. William F. Tolmie played a significant role in the Puget Sound region as it came under United States jurisdiction and Washington Territory was created. A young Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) clerk and...
Roscoe Conkling Torrance, known as Torchy, was a Seattle printer and civic booster. Among his numerous civic causes he was best known as an unflagging sports fan, a tireless booster of the University ...
The San Juan Islands, an archipelago located in Salish Sea waters between Washington and Vancouver Island, B.C., have always held a strong attraction for visitors. From the first peoples who inhabited...
From the earliest settlement of the San Juan Islands, visitors traveled to the enchanting archipelago in the far Pacific Northwest Salish Sea to fish and hunt; explore rocky coasts and inland forests;...
The roots of Trager USA in Monroe, Snohomish County, trace back to Lloyd F. Nelson (1894?-1986) of Bremerton, Kitsap County. Nelson was working in Alaska in 1920 when he decided to enjoy a hike into t...
Imagine life without telephones or email; without automobiles, motorboats or airplanes; without floating bridges or paved roads over the Cascades. So it was in 1900. Seattle boasted some of the nation...
United Parcel Service (UPS), the international package delivery company, grew out of a messenger service established in Seattle in 1907 by an enterprising 19-year-old named James E. "Jim" Casey and hi...
In this People's History, Jim Douglas (1909-2005), the first chairman of Seattle's United Way, remembers the early challenges of organizing this charitable foundation which has served the area for alm...
Frederick Hart is co-owner of La Tienda Folk Art Gallery, an import shop that was located for many years in Seattle's University District. This is a transcript of an oral history that Hart gave in an ...
Leslie Grace founded La Tienda Folk Art Gallery in Seattle's University District in 1962. She is the daughter of attorney Cal McCune, late "Godfather" of the District, who wrote From Romance to Riot. ...
Lynn Huff is a longtime resident of Seattle's University District who worked for Safeco for 36 years. In this oral history transcript he describes growing up in the University District and his career ...
This is a transcript of an oral history by Stephen Herold. He is the former owner of the Id Bookstore, an anarchist bookstore in Seattle's University District during the late 1960s and early 1970s, an...
This reminiscence was written by Dorothea Nordstrand (1916-2011), who as a young woman worked as a teller at the Green Lake State Bank, located in Seattle's Green Lake neighborhood. In it she remember...