Topic: Business
Seattle residents saw their first flying machine on June 27, 1908, a balloon flown by L. Guy Mecklem (1882-1973) from West Seattle's Luna Park, and saw another flying machine, a dirigible, in 1909 dur...
The Boeing Airplane Company nearly collapsed following the end of World War I military orders. Pioneer pilot Eddie Hubbard (1889-1928) helped William E. Boeing (1881-1956) deliver the first bag of int...
The Boeing Company, founded in 1916, hit a low point in 1934 when it was forced out of the airline business and was forced to concentrate on its original airplane-manufacturing business. The company's...
Beginning in 1969, the Boeing Company, after a decade of rapid growth in air travel, began laying off employees due to oversaturation of the airplane market. As airplane sales continued to decline, th...
In 1890, Josephine Nordhoff (d. 1920) and her husband, Edward Nordhoff (1858-1899) arrived in Seattle and used their $1,200 savings to start a dry goods store. That tiny retail shop, which they called...
Paul Brainerd founded the Aldus software company, which produced the first desktop publishing program, Pagemaker. The product transformed printing and publishing almost as dramatically as had moveable...
The architectural firm of Carl Alfred Breitung (1868-?) and Theobald Buchinger (1866-1940), partners from only 1905 to 1907, provided Seattle with several buildings reflecting their German and Austria...
Jeffrey and Susan Brotman were long one of the most dynamic public-spirited couples contributing to the region’s well being, their efforts ranging over the arts, health care, education, and dive...
Dorothy Stimson Bullitt purchased a small Seattle radio station with almost no listeners in 1947. She expanded it into one of the finest broadcasting empires in the nation. She was a Seattle civic lea...
Second-generation Vancouver restaurateur George Propstra, the son of a Dutch immigrant, opened the first Burgerville USA on March 10, 1961. By 2008, the Vancouver-based fast-food chain had grown to 39...
A look at Seattle area businesses in 1900 indicates that the economy was simpler, life less complicated, labor harder, travel slower, and that opportunities to enhance one's quality of life were rarer...
Clinton C. Filson (1850-1919) moved to Washington in 1890, opened a series of general stores, and within a few years was selling clothing and work gear to gold prospectors flocking to the mines of Mon...
Easily one of Seattle’s all-time quirkiest and best-loved neighborhood dives, the Café Racer Espresso (5828 Roosevelt Way NE), has since 2005 offered up good coffee, simple food, cheep beer, and fu...
Chateau Ste. Michelle is a Woodinville-based winery that is Washington's largest fine-wine producer. The business was built upon the foundation of the state's most successful winemaking firm, Seattle'...
The first Washington state elected official to make national history in a crusade against cigarettes was not Attorney General Christine Gregoire, who brokered a settlement between the tobacco industry...
Norton Clapp, one of the five original investors in Seattle's Space Needle, was a businessman and philanthropist with a seemingly endless capacity for work. A former president of the Weyerhaeuser Corp...
James W. Clise arrived in Seattle the day after the great fire of 1889 had burned down the business district. He promptly founded a real estate company, launching a career that made him one of the mos...
Mary Ann Conklin ran Seattle's first hotel, the Felker House, at Main Street and 1st Avenue S. Her profane vocabulary and fiery temper earned her the moniker "Mother Damnable" which later transmuted i...
From canoes to container ships, a variety of vessels have carried people and goods between Elliott Bay and the wider world for thousands of years. The introduction of new technologies, such as canoes,...
The Coon Chicken Inn was a fried-chicken restaurant chain located on the Old Bothell Highway on the outskirts of the Seattle city limits, in what is today the Lake City neighborhood of Seattle. The Se...
Mining and railroad magnate, Daniel Chase Corbin ranks as a major shaper of the growth and prosperity of Spokane, the economic and geographic center of the Inland Northwest. He settled in Spokane in ...
Although never known for the cultivation of theatrical talent, during the early twentieth century Seattle had more than its share of businessmen make their mark on the entertainment industry. The star...
The Crescent Manufacturing Company is a Seattle-based spice and seasoning firm which began in 1883 as a small supplier of vanilla extract. For nearly six decades the president was D. K. "Don" Weaver. ...
John Croce was the founder of Pacific Food Importers, a Seattle-area wholesale imported-food business, and its retail outlet, called Big John's PFI. The business, which began when Croce started sellin...