Topic: War & Peace
During the Cold War Washington state received substantial defenses against enemy bombing attacks. These included the supersonic Nike missile system emplaced around Seattle, Spokane / Fairchild Air For...
United States military efforts in the Pacific theater during World War II were significantly aided by Japanese-speaking members of the U.S. Military Intelligence Service, nearly all of them second gen...
This interview with Bjarne Andvik, (b. 1923) is part of The Vanishing Generation Oral History Project in the Nordic Heritage Museum. Interviewed by Olaf Kvamme on October 18, 2000, Bjarne Andvik is a ...
John Boitano (b. 1922) is a first generation Italian American from Ballard interviewed on August 4, 2000. In this Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Oral History Project Interview by Richard ...
This is part 2 of a Nordic Heritage Vanishing Generation Oral History Project interview with Olaf Kvamme (1923-2013), conducted by Jennifer Carell on May 2, 2000. In this continuation, Olaf talks abou...
In the summers of 1915 and 1916, businessmen from around the Northwest learned how to soldier at Business Men's Camps held at American Lake in Pierce County. The camps, organized by the Northwest Men'...
This file contains Seattle historian and photographer Paul Dorpat's Now & Then photographs and reflections on Seattle's General Strike of 1919.
European exploration of the Pacific Northwest from the late 1500s through the 1700s led to multiple and overlapping territorial claims by Spain, Russia, France, Britain, and last but not least, the ne...
In 1942 a popular Grays Harbor County resort, the Pacific Beach Hotel, was taken over by the United States Navy. It became an anti-aircraft training center, with gun installations on the beach and the...
In 1909, Nicholas Sheffer (1825-1910) was Whatcom County's oldest pioneer. He prepared his reminiscences for The Lynden Tribune, which ran them in three parts in August of that year as "A Story of Pio...
Beginning in the early 1920s, Fort Lewis, located in Pierce County south of Tacoma, provided separate clubs where officers, non-commissioned officers, and enlisted personnel could enjoy meals and atte...
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, located adjacent to the city of Bremerton on Sinclair Inlet, was established in 1891. It was the first dry-dock and repair facility in the Northwest capable of handling the...
The Quinault Treaty was signed by Isaac Stevens (1818-1862), Governor of Washington Territory, and by Quinault Chief Taholah and other chiefs, subchiefs, and tribal delegates on the Quinault River on ...
This oral history of Arline and Letcher Yarbrough concerning racism during World War II in Seattle and at Fort Lewis was conducted at the Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) on January 26. 1985, ...
For most young men who reached their late teens in the late 1960s, mandatory military service was a looming reality. At the other end of the fun spectrum were the early rock festivals, which, for a ti...
This is a reminiscence of trains and the railroad in Seattle during the 1920s and 1930s, and during World War II. It is by Warren Wing (1918-2011), historian, author of To Seattle by Trolley (1988), a...
James S. Russell grew up on American Lake in Pierce County, where he developed a love of sailing. After graduating from Stadium High School in Tacoma at age 15, he tried to join the navy but was turne...
Born in Seattle, James Y. Sakamoto became one of the leaders of the local and national Japanese American community during the critical era just before and after the start of World War II. He was a fou...
The "Pig War" is the name commonly given to the 13-year standoff between the American Army and British Royal Navy on San Juan Island that began in the summer of 1859 after an American settler shot a B...
The military confrontation between the United States and Great Britain over the San Juan Islands known as the "Pig War" lasted for 13 years from the shooting of the pig in 1859 until its belated but p...
Under a variety of official designations, Sand Point, a peninsula in north Seattle that juts into Lake Washington, served for almost 50 years as an air base, aviation training center, and aircraft rep...
Marine Corps aviation pioneer Lawson H. M. "Sandy" Sanderson (1895-1979) was born and grew up in Shelton, Washington. He became a Marine Corps pilot at the end of World War I and in the following year...
The eventful life of Jean Kurosaka Sano, a Japanese American from Seattle who became a close friend of Joe and Ruth Caldbick soon after they moved to the city from rural Northern Ontario in 1929, is t...
Floyd Schmoe's life, which more than spanned the twentieth century, was shaped by his love of nature and by his equally passionate commitment to helping those afflicted by war and injustice. A child o...