Topic: People's Histories
In January 1943, the U.S. Naval Military Band transferred from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois to Sand Point Naval Air Station in Seattle. A group of these musicians formed their own...
John Luther Murray (1859-1949), a longtime resident of Friday Harbor on San Juan Island in Northwest Washington, served as auditor and treasurer of San Juan County, as a state legislator, and as mayor...
Melody Barker shares her great grandfather John Williamon's slightly scandalous story.
This is an account by Gus A. Temple of a March 1885 journey from Puyallup (in present-day Pierce County) to Davis Lake Valley in east Lewis County near present-day Morton. Temple was 14 years old at t...
Former Seattle resident John M. Leggett offers this account of participating in the Junior Safety Patrol during the 1930s while attending Seattle's Loyal Heights Elementary School. Called the Schoolbo...
This history of the Vashon Island firm K2, manufacturer of fiberglass skis, and later of snowboards and in-line skates, was submitted by Andy Luhn, marketing director of the firm. Company founder Bill...
Arvel and Helga Settles, with their five children, spent seven years (1935-1942) as keepers at the Lime Kiln Lighthouse on San Juan Island, in the Salish Sea between the Northwest Washington mainland ...
This is an interview of Frank Ruano (1920-2005), an outspoken critic of Seattle's Kingdome stadium, which opened on March 27, 1976, and was imploded on March 26, 2000. The interview was conducted in S...
Priscilla Maunder Kirk (1898-1992), an African American Seattleite, was born on August 9, 1898, in Seattle. In 1919 she moved to Montana with her husband, where she lived until 1929. She also lived in...
Lulu Mildred (Shircliff) Kombol was born on August 27, 1885, in Walla Walla.She wrote her autobiography at age 89 while living in Seattle with a daughter. Her original account has been slightly expand...
Kurt Cobain (1967-1994) was the lead singer of the Seattle grunge band Nirvana. He commited suicide in 1994. In this People's History Clark Humphrey reflects on his life and music.
The first documented game of lacrosse in Seattle was played in 1896, between two teams from British Columbia, Canada. The original Seattle Lacrosse Club was formed in 1900. Many of its players came fr...
This is the complete text of a promotional brochure written in 1912 by real estate developer Ole Hanson (1874-1940). The brochure extols the wondrous virtues of living in idyllic Lake Forest Park, loc...
Beloved for its convenience and breathtaking views but derided as an architectual eyesore, the Alaskan Way Viaduct ferried motorists through downtown Seattle for more than six decades before it was to...
This reminiscence of an old friendship was written by Dorothea (Pfister) Nordstrand (1916-2011). Both she and her friend, Margaret (Bavin) Medley (1915-2006), were graduates of Seattle's Roosevelt Hig...
Sixteen men, all foreign-born, were killed on November 6, 1910, in an explosion at the Lawson Coal Mine in Black Diamond in east King County. The following is excerpted from the "State Inspector of Co...
This is a harrowing account of a legal abortion which resulted in complications that received inadequate care. It is written by Janet Creighton and excerpted from the June 1974 issue of From the Groun...
Chris Legeros was a longtime reporter and anchor at KIRO 7 in Seattle, spending 31 years at the CBS affiliate. He started his 39-year journalism career at WTCN TV and WWTC radio in Minneapolis and in ...
This People's History relates the history of the Leonard Gayton family. The jazz drummer, jazz singer, and band leader Leonard Gayton (1908-1982) was the fourth child of the early African American res...
In this People's History Dorothea (Pfister) Nordstrand (1916-2011) reflects on the lessons learned while working at Seattle's Green Lake State Bank, where she worked for 10 years from the time she was...
Natalie Notkin (1900-1970) was the Foreign Books librarian at The Seattle Public Library's Central branch from 1927 to 1932. Born in Kherson, Russia, Notkin emigrated in 1921, earned an undergraduate ...
This is a quarterly branch report written by Green Lake Branch librarian Ruth A. Dennis. In the report reprinted here, Dennis explains that the circulation numbers at her branch are down, particularly...
This People's History is an interview with Margaret Reed conducted by Jyl Leininger on April 7, 1999, in Seattle, Washington. Margaret Reed describes herself as an every-day individual. "Believe me, I...
This is an excerpt from an article by novelist Tom Robbins on the lightshows of the 1960s. It appeared in Seattle magazine in 1967, and is reprinted with permission of Tom Robbins.