Surrounded by history

Information Outlook,  May, 2008  by Barnes Susan J.

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When you look at the mountains and water visible from Seattle, you are seeing evidence of tectonic forces and their associated earthquakes and volcanoes.

Mount Rainier, that beautiful white peak towering just southeast of Seattle, is one of four potentially active volcanoes in Washington. Weather permitting, you'll be able to see Rainier from downtown Seattle.

Arriving by plane, you may see the line of snow-covered peaks that dwarf the rest of the Cascade mountain range. Those are the volcanoes. Mount St. Helens is the active one, about 170 miles to the southeast of Seattle. From the air, it looks like its top has been broken off (because it was, in 1980).

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You can see the remains of glacial scouring when you look at Seattle's hills, at Puget Sound, and at Lake Washington. People have lived here for at least 4,000 years, and perhaps for much longer than that. Newcomers--Europeans--began to explore the Washington coast in the 16th century, and the Lewis and Clark expedition arrived in Washington in 1805.

With its early growth stimulated by the lumber industry, the city of Seattle was incorporated in 1869. The original "Skid Road" is here in Seattle and was used to slide logs downhill to Yesler's sawmill (also known as "Skid Row," it is now known as Yesler Way).

Much of downtown burned to the ground in the Great Fire of 1889, but just a few years later, 1895-1897, the discovery of gold in Alaska and Canada's Yukon and Klondike valleys turned Seattle into a boomtown for the second time. Seattle's population had been less than 4,000 in 1880; within 30 years, the population had grown to almost 240,000. By then, Seattle had hosted its first world's fair to celebrate its prosperity and the American Messenger Service (later UPS) had been founded, as has Nordstrom (which began as a shoe store).

The Chinatown-International District began to grow as immigrants from Asia came to the Northwest to find employment. In 1914, Sears established its Northwest Catalog Distribution Center in a building that was, at the time, the largest west of Chicago. You can still see this building today south of downtown--it is now the corporate headquarters of Starbucks.

World War II and the subsequent expansion of the commercial aviation industry brought more bustle and expansion to Seattle. The city celebrated with its second World's Fair in 1962, which brought the iconic Space Needle.

With its typical boom-and-bust economics, Seattle's economy was very troubled by the 1970s (real estate agents put up a billboard that said "Will the Last Person Leaving Seattle-Turn Out the Lights") and then thriving again by the end of the 20th century with the arrival of technology and biomedical companies. In a flush of optimism, Seattle voters approved a "Libraries for All" bond issue to modernize its public library system and many neighborhood libraries have been renovated or rebuilt, including the famous and eye-catching Rem Koolhass-designed Central Library.

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