Showing 1 - 20 of 90 results
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (1909) -- A Cybertour of Selected Buildings
This is a "Now and Then" Cybertour of selected exhibit buildings at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, held in 1909 on the University of Washington campus in Seattle. The buildings included in the Cybertour include most of those funded by the federal government and by the four Washington counties (Chehalis, King, Spokane, and Yakima) that erected buildings at the fair. This tour also includes the Washington Building (an important gathering place for large receptions) and the New York Building (where most of the fair's important banquets were held). This tour was written by Alan Stein and Paula Becker with assistance from Jennifer Ott, and curated by Paula Becker. Map by Marie McCaffrey. Preparation of this feature was made possible by the Washington Humanities Commission.
File 8678: Full Text >
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (1909): Hoo-Hoo House
The Hoo-Hoo House was built by the Hoo-Hoo, a lumberman's fraternity, for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific (A-Y-P) Exposition in Seattle in 1909. The exposition took place between June 1 and October 16, 1909, drawing more than three million people. Visitors came from around the state, the nation, and the world to view hundreds of educational exhibits, stroll the lushly manicured grounds, and be entertained on the Pay Streak midway, while Seattle promoted itself as a gateway to the rich resources of Alaska, the Yukon, and Asia. The Hoo-Hoo House was open to Hoo-Hoo members and lumbermen during the exposition. The house was particularly known for its two large ornamental cats in front of the building with green electric eyes which shone brightly at night. After the exposition ended, the building served as the University of Washington Faculty Club until it was demolished in 1959.
File 8655: Full Text >
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (1909): Special Days
The 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition was held in Seattle on the University of Washington campus from June 1 to October 16. This was Washington's first world's fair and it celebrated 12 years of prosperity -- since the 1897 Alaska Gold Rush -- through the display of resources, products, and advantages of Washington and the region. More than three million people visited the fair from Washington cities and counties and from the rest of the country. Throughout the exposition, commemorative days were set aside to honor organizations, professions, and ethnic communities, as well as visitors from various cities, counties, and states. Some of these commemorations included banquets, conferences, or other forms of special recognition given to the groups being honored. Because these events were so popular with fairgoers, A-Y-P promoters kept adding new commemorative days as the fair progressed. Thus, some days had mulitple honorees. This file contains a list of all A-Y-P commemorative days as reported in The Seattle Daily Times, The Seattle Sunday Times, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
File 8461: Full Text >
Barneston -- Thumbnail History
The company mill town of Barneston, located in King County 40 miles southeast of Seattle, manufactured 15 million to 25 million feet of timber annually for most of a quarter-century. Established in 1898, the town prospered along the Cedar River until the City of Seattle disallowed all human habitation within the watershed in order to keep the water pure. Barneston was razed in 1924.
File 2489: Full Text >
Black Diamond -- Thumbnail History
The city of Black Diamond, located along the Cascade Mountain range, in King County, 25 miles southeast of Seattle, was built as a company town for the Black Diamond Coal Company in the late 1800s.
File 460: Full Text >
Bloedel, Prentice (1900-1996)
Prentice Bloedel was a leader of the timber industry. He left a brief teaching career to join the management of his family's far-flung timber empire and led the industry's forest-conservation efforts. Bloedel guided the firm into a merger with H. R. MacMillan Export Co., which became the giant MacMillan Bloedel Ltd. Prentice and Virginia Bloedel were important patrons of the arts in Seattle, a tradition carried on by their daughter Virginia Wright. The Bloedels created the Bloedel Reserve, a botanical showcase of gardens, pools, lawns, and arbors on Bainbridge Island.
File 5227: Full Text >
Boeing and United Air Lines from Birth to Break Up, 1919-1934
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 international airmail on March 3, 1919, and urged the company to pursue U.S. Air Mail contracts. A skeptical Boeing bid on and won the Chicago-San Francisco route in 1927, and quickly developed faster aircraft culminating in the Model 247, the first true airliner. Boeing developed or purchased airlines to build its own passenger system, United Air Lines. It also expanded its holdings to create the giant United Aircraft and Transportation Company, but federal anti-trust regulators broke up the combine in 1934. An embittered Bill Boeing quit the company and sold his stock that same year.
File 5368: Full Text >
Boeing, William Edward (1881-1956)
William Edward Boeing (1881-1956) started his professional life as a lumberman and ended as a real-estate developer and horse breeder, but in between he founded the company that brought forth important breakthroughs in the field of aviation technology and the airline business. The Boeing Airplane Company became one of the signature corporations of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest and dominated the regional economy for most of the twentieth century.
File 8023: Full Text >
Boeing-Quotient Puzzle, The Wright Stuff: HistoryLink "B-Q" Puzzle published by The Seattle Times on December 17, 2003, centennial of the Wright Brothers' first flight.
On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright executed the first controlled flights by a heavier-than-air machine, at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. One century later, The Seattle Times published this little quiz to test readers’ “B-Q” (Boeing Quotient). The puzzle ran one day after Boeing’s formal announcement that final assembly of the planned 7E7 aircraft would be located in Everett, Washington. The text of the original puzzle follows, as written by Walt Crowley and edited by Lee Moriwaki. Answers are provided at the end with Seattle/King County file numbers for corresponding HistoryLink essays to aid your search for background information and sources. Enjoy.
File 4270: Full Text >
Business and Industry in Seattle in 1900
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. The modest turn-of-the-century Seattle
skyline was that of a town, but within a decade steel-framed skyscrapers
poked high crowns into the heavens above a true city. Historian James R. Warren surveys local industries and businesses at the beginning of the twentieth century in this special essay, adapted with permission from the Puget Sound Business Journal.
File 1669: Full Text >
Cedar Falls -- Thumbnail History
Cedar Falls, originally a City Light company town, is located in the upper Cedar River watershed, 30 miles southeast of Seattle. The town's history also encompasses nearby communities that housed railroad workers, water department personnel, and loggers. A diverse collection of families lived in the rural setting for much of the twentieth century, but by the 1960s, the town began fading away. Now the center of operations for the Seattle Public Utilities, the townsite will soon (2001) be the home of the Cedar River Watershed Education Center.
File 2537: Full Text >
Cedar River Watershed (King County) -- Environmental Overview
The Cedar River watershed, located in the eastern central portion of King County, Washington, is nearly 24 miles long, and roughly 10 miles wide. It has been in use as Seattle's main water supply since 1901. This has resulted in many changes to the land, water, forests, and animal habitats within the 91,400-acre environment.
File 2486: Full Text >
Clallam County -- Thumbnail History
Clallam County occupies the northern portion of the Olympic Peninsula, extending nearly 100 miles along the Strait of Juan de Fuca on its north and more than 35 miles along the Pacific Coast on its west. On the east and the south it borders Jefferson County, out of which it was created in 1854. The county is composed of the traditional lands of the Klallam (for whom it is named), Makah, and Quileute peoples, who continue to play significant roles in county history. It was one of the first parts of Washington contacted by European explorers in the late 1700s, but did not see permanent settlement until after 1850. Seemingly endless stands of Douglas fir, red cedar, western hemlock, Sitka spruce, and other giant conifers made timber the county's economic mainstay for most of its history. As techniques for felling, transporting, and processing the massive trees improved, much of the forest was cut, although the central wilderness is preserved in Olympic National Park. Forestry remains important, but government and service industries are now the leading employers. Port Angeles has been the county seat since 1890, the year it incorporated. Sequim (1913) and Forks (1945) are the other two incorporated cities in the county, whose total population in 2005 is 66,800.
File 7576: Full Text >
Clapp, Norton (1906-1995)
Norton Clapp, one of the five original investors in Seattles Space Needle, was a businessman and philanthropist with a seemingly endless capacity for work. A former president of the Weyerhaeuser Corporation, he also served as president of the Boy Scouts of America, chairman of the Pacific Basin Economic Council, director of the National Parks Foundation, president of both the Tacoma and the Seattle Chambers of Commerce, longtime trustee of the University of Puget Sound, and as a member of innumerable boards and committees. The Seattle-King County Association of Realtors named him First Citizen of 1970.
File 7295: Full Text >
Clark County -- Thumbnail History
Local history buffs call Clark County the "Cradle of Pacific Northwest History," reflecting the importance of the 628-square-mile southwestern Washington county as the scene of key historical developments. Here the Lewis and Clark expedition arrived in 1805, the British Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Vancouver in 1825, and the town of Vancouver was incorporated in 1857. The county's location first made it an entrepot (trading center), then an agricultural area.The region developed in agriculture, lumber, and fishing, and later in shipbuilding and aluminum. In recent times, energy from hydroelectric projects on the Lewis and Columbia rivers has fueled development as a manufacturing center.
File 5644: Full Text >
Coal in the Puget Sound Region
The history of coal in Puget Sound is tied to the development and expansion of the railroad in the West. Locomotives burned coal, and coal, which is heavy and bulky, could not be transported without the railroad. These two industries grew together in the region, the health of each enabling the growth of both. Washington coal, used to fuel locomotives and steamships, and to heat homes in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere, found a major market in California. The largest mines were located in King County (Black Diamond, Franklin, and Renton), Pierce County (Carbonado), Kittitas County (Roslyn), and Lewis County (Centralia). In the nineteenth century coal was king, but increasingly in the twentieth century oil and natural gas were competitors. Across the country coal is widely used as a fuel to generate electricity, but in the Pacific Northwest, coal's fate was sealed by the move toward hydroelectric generation, although when hydroelectric dam construction largely ended in the 1960s, some utilities turned back to coal as one way to meet demand. In Washington state the last underground mine closed in 1975, and the last open pit mine, which operated at Centralia, closed in 2006.
File 5158: Full Text >
Colman, James Murray (1832-1906)
Scottish-born James Murray Colman arrived in Seattle in 1872 at the age of 40 to lease and operate Yesler's sawmill. Colman was a prime mover in organizing the Seattle & Walla Walla Railroad after the Northern Pacific decided to make Tacoma its Western terminus. He built Colman's Dock (today Pier 52, the terminal for the Washington State Ferries), which became a thriving hub of maritime commerce during and after the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897.
File 1680: Full Text >
Corbin, Daniel Chase, (1832-1918)
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 1889, already an experienced Western entrepreneur and well positioned to survive the Panic of 1893, which depleted the fortunes of Spokane's earliest tycoons. The bulk of Corbin's wealth was based on his railroads that "stitched the [Idaho Panhandle and British Columbia Kootenay] mines to Spokane," enriching and forever changing his adopted city (Fahey, Inland Empire, 3). Over the years, he was substantially involved in other enterprises as diverse as banking, real estate, irrigation, beet sugar production, and coal mining. Corbin often was pointed out as Spokane's richest man as he passed in his buggy, its superb team driven at top speed by a coachman. But unlike many of his wealthy predecessors and contemporaries, Corbin was not a civic leader or benefactor, at least in any obvious way, and, upon his death, his wealth remained with his descendants. His personal and family life was full of enigmas, and his aloof demeanor did not make him popular in the community. Furthermore, his secretiveness about earnings and assets would not be allowed under today's business regulations. Yet Corbin's contribution to his adopted city was massive, his railroads and other ventures enabling such wealth to pour into Spokane that, during his time, it became the hub of the "Inland Empire."
File 7960: Full Text >
Cowlitz County -- Thumbnail History
One of the original counties of Washington Territory, Cowlitz County occupies the lower portion of the Cowlitz River and part of Washington's shore of the Columbia River. One of the early conventions to form Washington Territory met at Monticello, which later became Longview. Logging and milling have historically been the big part of the county's economy until the latter part of the twentieth century. A lumber mill led directly to the planned community of Longview, named after lumberman Robert A. Long (1850-1934).
File 7482: Full Text >
Depression, The Great, 1929-1939
For 10 years beginning in 1929, most of the world
experienced the largest economic depression in history. The Great Depression devastated national
economies, threw millions out of work, and contributed to the outbreak of
World War II. In Seattle and King County, the Depression resulted
in tens of thousands unemployed and underemployed, the reemergence of organized
labor, and a redefinition of state politics. The most enduring symbols of the
hard times were the shanty towns called Hoovervilles, thrown up by the homeless.
Recovery programs under the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt
produced an array of public works projects from parks to dams to public housing.
The hard times ended with the rapid growth inemployment and government
spendingfor World War II.
File 3717: Full Text >
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Showing 1 - 20 of 161 results
Michael T. Simmons settles at Tumwater in October 1845.
In late October 1845, Michael T. Simmons (1814-1867) of Kentucky Iowa, and Missouri settles at Tumwater near the Falls of the Deschutes River. Tum-wa-ta is a Chinook Jargon word for strong water or waterfall. Simmons calls the location New Market to signify that there is an alternative to the Hudson's Bay Company post at Nisqually. It is the first American settlement in what would become the state of Washington.
File 5089: Full Text >
California Gold Rush spurs economic development of the Northwest in 1849.
In 1849, the California Gold Rush results in a flood of immigrants to the West Coast whose demand for lumber triggers economic development in the Pacific Northwest. Lumber from the Columbia River and from Puget Sound is more plentiful and more easily transported by sea to San Francisco than from the Sierra Nevada. As California grows, so will the timber industry and the economy of the Northwest.
File 5257: Full Text >
American customs inspector seizes the British ship Albion, whose crew is cutting timber at Discovery Bay, on April 22, 1850.
On April 22, 1850, newly appointed American customs inspector Eben May Dorr seizes the British ship Albion, which is anchored in Discovery Bay at the northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula in what is now Jefferson County. The crew of the Albion, with the help of Clallam Indians who live in the area, has spent four months laboriously harvesting 18 massive trees to sell to the British Navy as ships' spars. Announcing that the British have violated revenue laws, Dorr has the Albion taken under armed guard to Steilacoom, where it is sold at auction for fraction of its value.
File 5181: Full Text >
Settlers begin loading logs on the ship Leonesa in King County's first export on December 9, 1851.
On December 9, 1851, all seven adult male settlers at New York (renamed Alki) begin cutting down trees and loading lumber on the ship Leonesa, bound for San Francisco. This represents the future King County's first export and first significant logging. The seven men are Arthur Denny (1822-1899), David Denny (1832-1903), Lee Terry (1818-1862), Carson Boren (1824?-1912), William Bell (1817-1887), John Low (1820-1888), and Charles Terry (1829-1867).
File 742: Full Text >
Henry Yesler arrives in Seattle on October 20, 1852.
On October 20, 1852, Henry Yesler (1810-1892) arrives in Seattle. He had come from Ohio via California and Portland, and was seeking a suitable site for a steam-powered mill. The land on the Elliott Bay waterfront had already been taken but Carson Boren (1824?-1912) and Dr. David Maynard (1808-1873) adjusted their claims (which had yet to be filed at the land office) to enable Yesler to locate his mill on the water.
File 2766: Full Text >
Yesler's Mill, the first steam-powered sawmill on Puget Sound, is under construction in Seattle on October 30, 1852.
On October 30, 1852, the Olympia newspaper The Columbian reports that "a new steam mill is in process of erection by Mr. H. L. Yesler at Seattle." The region's first steam-powered saw mill begins operation in the following spring and quickly establishes Seattle as the economic capital of Puget Sound.
File 5394: Full Text >
Henry Roeder and Russell Peabody establish Whatcom Mill on Bellingham Bay in December 1852.
In December 1852, Captain Henry Roeder and Captain Russell V. Peabody establish Whatcom Mill on Bellingham Bay. It is one of the first American settlements at what will become the city of Bellingham.
File 5399: Full Text >
Yesler Sawmill cuts first lumber on March 26, 1853.
On March 26, 1853, the Yesler Sawmill cuts its first lumber. This is the first lumber cut in King County. The sawmill is located in Seattle at the foot of Mill street (renamed Yesler Way).
File 760: Full Text >
Captain William Talbot establishes a steam sawmill at Port Gamble in July 1853.
In July 1853, Captain William C. Talbot (1816-1881) establishes a steam sawmill as the Puget Mill Co. at Port Gamble. Ten men, mostly from Talbot's hometown of East Machias, Maine, construct a bunkhouse, a cookhouse, and a store before starting work on the mill. The site is on a sand spit the local Native Americans call Teekalet, meaning "brightness of the noonday sun." The settlers call the mill Teekalet until they change the name to Port Gamble in 1868. The mill will operate continuously for 142 years, from 1853 to 1995.
File 5486: Full Text >
Duwamish Coal Company is established near Black River on October 20, 1853.
On October 20, 1853, the Duwamish Coal Company is formed to mine coal near the Black River located just south of Lake Washington. This is the first coal mined and shipped from King County.
File 1958: Full Text >
West Seattle Beginnings: Alki Post Office opens on April 29, 1854.
The opening of a post office is an important marker of the beginning of a community. On April 29, 1854, the Alki Post Office is established. Charles Terry (1830-1867) is appointed postmaster.
File 385: Full Text >
Surveyors discover coal at Newcastle (east King County) in October 1863.
In the fall of 1863, surveyors discover coal on the north bank of Coal Creek in the Newcastle area. The surveyors are Philip H. Lewis and Edwin Richardson.
File 149: Full Text >
E. D. Smith establishes the Town of Lowell (future Everett) in September 1863.
In September 1863, lumberman Eugene D. Smith and his partner Otis Wilson arrive on the Snohomish River to set up the first logging operation on the river. Experienced at logging with oxen, Smith settles with two squatters for the site and begins to clear the land for a home and a camp. After buying out Wilson, he goes on to build a store, wharf, hotel, blacksmith shop, the post office, and the first sawmill in the area. He names his settlement Lowell after Lowell, Massachusetts. A huge paper mill will follow. For many years, E. D. Smith and logging at Lowell will be the largest economic force on the Port Gardner Peninsula (site of the future city of Everett).
File 7391: Full Text >
Lake Washington Co. opens a coal mine at Newcastle in 1867.
During 1867, the Lake Washington Company opens the first coal mine at Newcastle. Newcastle is located in King County, east of Lake Washington and south of present-day Bellevue.
File 173: Full Text >
James A. Perkins, co-founder and first permanent resident, arrives in Colfax in 1870.
In 1870, James A. Perkins and Thomas Smith establish Colfax in a deep forested valley where two branches of the Palouse River meet. Colfax is the first non-Indian settlement in the fertile rolling hills of the Palouse region located in southeastern Washington along the Idaho border. Smith soon leaves, but Perkins remains, helping to start the first sawmill in the area and becoming a leading citizen of the new town.
File 5032: Full Text >
Issaquah Beginnings: Squak (later Olney or Gilman, later Issaquah) Post Office opens on May 20, 1870.
The opening of a post office is an important marker of the beginning of a community. On May 20, 1870, the Squak Post Office is established. The name Squak is the white man's pronunciation of the Indian name Is-qu-ah, meaning snake. On January 31, 1889, the town and post office are renamed Olney. On June 10, 1895, the town renames itself Issaquah and on February 2, 1899, an Act of the state legislature makes the name Issaquah official.
File 422: Full Text >
Lowell Mason Hidden opens the Hidden Brick Company in Vancouver, Clark County, in 1871.
In 1871, Lowell Mason Hidden (1839-1923) opens the Hidden Brick Company in Vancouver, and his timing could not be better. Mother Joseph (1823-1902), head of the Sisters of Providence mission in the Pacific Northwest, is planning to build the largest brick building north of San Francisco, and she taps Hidden to supply the bricks. The three-story Providence Academy (also called the House of Providence) will be completed in 1873, and will house an orphanage, a school, and the offices of the religious order. After this fast start, three generations of the Hidden family will go on to supply bricks for major projects in Vancouver, Portland, Astoria, and other cities. The Hidden Brick Company will stay in business for 121 years before finally shutting down in 1992.
File 9132: Full Text >
King County begins exporting products to Honolulu in 1871.
In 1871, the schooner Lovett Peacock carries King County products to Honolulu for the first time. The Peacocks cargo includes coal, lumber, and potatoes.
File 1597: Full Text >
J. J. Downing and S. R. Scranton file claims and build a sawmill at Spokane Falls in May 1871.
In May 1871, J. J. Downing and S. R. Scranton file claims and build a sawmill at Spokane Falls. It is the first American settlement at what will become downtown Spokane. Both men will sell their claims two years later and move on.
File 5132: Full Text >
Seattle, state of the city and environs in 1871.
By 1871, Seattle has become the distribution center of the central Puget Sound area and of the Yakima Valley. It supplies goods and services from Snohomish up the Duwamish Valley and west to the lumber mills at Port Blakely, Port Madison, Port Gamble, and Port Ludlow. Seattle has a wide range of businesses and services: boiler makers, bakeries, gristmills, tinsmiths, cigar manufacturers, wharf builders, jewelry makers, and sash and door factories, to mention a few. King County has a total of six post offices.
File 1610: Full Text >
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A Coal Miner's Story -- Mike Babcanik's Week Trapped Underground (1914)
This is an account of a coal mine accident that occurred on February 16, 1914, in the Cannon coal mine, near Franklin, about two miles southeast of Black Diamond, located in east King County. Coal miner Andrew Chernick died in the accident. His partner, Mike Babcanik (1876-1942), was believed dead but survived for seven days trapped underground. The account was written by Frank Hammock, a Maple Valley journalist; researched by JoAnne Matsumura from her private collection and from the archives of the Black Diamond Historical Society; and compiled by Bill Kombol, Manager of Palmer Coking Coal Co. This piece first appeared in Life on the Cedar magazine, Vol. 2, No. 5 (July 2008) and is here reprinted with kind permission.
File 8698: Full Text >
Bess the Mule: a Coalmining Story of 1914
The following articles, reprinted from 1914 issues of The Seattle Star, relate the story of the underground deaths of two coal miners, Andrew Churnick and Mike Babchanik (or Babcanik). (Actually Mike Babcanik was rather miraculously found alive seven days later.) It is also the story of a mistreated mine mule named Bess. Bess worked 24 hours a day without a rest at a Pacific Coal Co. coal mine in Franklin, in east King County. The revelation of the mule's condition came when a reporter went to the mine to cover the accident. The articles were contributed by William Kombol, Manager of Palmer Coking Coal Company located in Black Diamond (King County), Washington.
File 8651: Full Text >
Black Diamond and Franklin (King County coal towns), as seen in 1902
This article about the east King County coal towns of Black Diamond and Franklin is reprinted from The Coast, Vol. 3, No. 2 (March 1902).
File 8862: Full Text >
Bratnober, John (1879-1951)
Say the name Bratnober to anyone living on the Sammamish Plateau in the first half of the twentieth century (or to a Plateau historian) and their face will light up in instant recognition. Bratnober was one of the preeminent lumber barons of the Sammamish Plateau, in the first four decades of the twentieth century, rivaled only by the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company. Yet it was Bratnober who seems to have left a bigger impression on the Plateau. This account, written by Sammamish Heritage Society historian Phil Dougherty, reprints Dougherty's article, "Lumber John" ( Sammamish Scene, April 4, 2007, pp.12-14), and appears here with the kind permission of the Sammamish Review.
File 8292: Full Text >
Coal Miners' Picnic
Through the middle of the twentieth century, when hundreds of coal miners worked the coal mines of eastern King and Pierce counties, the annual Coal Miners' Picnic was a highlight of the summer for miners and their families. This People's History presents a description of the typical fare and activities at Miners' picnics written by William Kombol, Manager of Palmer Coking Coal Company. This is followed by an account of one of the largest Miners' picnics of the era, held by the Morris Brothers Coal Mining Company on July 16, 1933, which originally appeared in the Enumclaw Courier-Herald on July 21, 1933. The Palmer Coking Coal Co. is the successor to the Morris Brothers Coal Mining Company and William Kombol is a descendant of the Morris family.
File 9076: Full Text >
Coal Mining in an east Pierce County area known as Pittsburg (1889-1909), Spiketon (1910-1916), and finally Morristown (1917-1927)
East Pierce County's Carbon River coal district was once dotted with a dozen small mining communities. Wilkeson, Carbonado, South Prairie, and Burnett survived, but Fairfax, Manley-Moore, Melmont, Montezuma, Morristown, and Wingate all met the fate awaiting mining towns when their minerals cease to be economically viable. This is the story of one of those communities; initially known as Pittsburg, later as Spiketon, and finally as Morristown. It is written by William Kombol, Manager of Palmer Coking Coal Company located in Black Diamond (King County), Washington.
File 8262: Full Text >
Durham: a King County Coal Mining Town
This reminiscence of childhood in the King County coalmining town of Durham was written by Nina Elizabeth Betty (Morris) Falk in 1990-1991. Betty Morris (Falk), was born on March 26, 1920, in Tacoma, Washington, to Nina Marie Morris and John Henry Morris. Her father was a co-owner with his brothers and the mine superintendent at Durham. Betty married Carl Gustav Falk (1920-1997) on December 19, 1942, in Enumclaw, and they raised five children. Betty Falk died on April 16, 2006, in Kent, Washington. Her nephew William Kombol found this memoir amongst her papers, transcribed and edited it, and added genealogical and coal production information. The Durham Colliery was originally organized by Peter Kirk's Moss Bay Iron & Steel Co in 1886 to supply coal for his planned Kirkland steel mills. Durham was named for a town in Kirks native north England. Coal production commenced in 1888 but was shut down within a year. The mine re-opened in 1915 as Durham Colliery Co. The name was changed in 1922 to Morris Bros. Coal Co., changed again in 1932 to Durham Coal Co. and yet again in 1933 to Palmer Coking Coal Co. Bill Kombol is manager of the Palmer Coking Coal Co., today (2006) located in Black Diamond.
File 7996: Full Text >
Elk Coal: A Forgotten King County Coal Mining Town
Among the forgotten coal mining towns of King County, perhaps none is more forgotten than Elk Coal near the flank of Sugarloaf Mountain. The town, in an area rich with coal mines, was situated one-half mile west of the dimly remembered town of Durham, 1.25 miles south of Kangley, and 1.25 miles north of Palmer-Kanaskat. Within three miles of Elk Coal there were numerous underground coal mining operations, including Durham, Hiawatha, Kangley, Palmer, Bayne, Occidental, Cumberland, Navy, and the larger Ravensdale and Black Diamond mines further west. Robert Pearson, an Irish immigrant and livery stable operator, homesteaded the south 160 acres of Section 34, Township 22 North, Range 7 East, which became the site of the Elk Coal mine and the town of the same name. Pearson, and after his death his daughter Aileen (Estby and later Gregovich), operated a store and gas station on the Kanaskat-Kangley county road, where the alternate spelling, "Elkcoal," advertised the town's existence to travelers. Locals simply called it Elko.This People's History was contributed by William Kombol, Manager of the Palmer Coking Coal Company, in Black Diamond.
File 9419: Full Text >
Franklin Mine disaster (August 24, 1894): A Compilation of Contemporary Sources
This People's History consists of contemporary newspaper accounts of the Franklin Mine Disaster of August 24,1894, and portions of the investigative report by the official state mines inspector. With a death toll of 37, this was at the time the second worst mine disaster in Washington state, exceeded only by the Roslyn mine explosion two years earlier, in which 45 died. A reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was soon on the scene in eastern King County, and his report appeared in the paper the following day. These lengthy excerpts, including the stacked headlines in the style of the day, reflect a time when newspapers were the exclusive medium through which the public could learn of newsworthy events. This material was contributed by Bill Kombol, manager of Palmer Coking Coal Co. No attempt has been made to update the spellings or usages of the period.
File 9165: Full Text >
Go West Young Man: Great Grandpa Charles McDowell
This People's History was contributed by Diana Schafer Ford. It is about the migration to the West of her great grandfather Charles McDowell in the 1880s.
File 5479: Full Text >
John Spellman: King County Politics in the Sixties, Seventies and Beyond
The long career of John Spellman (b. 1926) in local and state politics began in 1967 when he was elected a King County Commissioner. His term overlapped the controversial Forward Thrust capital improvements package, the overarching bond initiative that funded the Kingdome (the domed stadium imploded in March 2000). In addition, as the first King County Executive Officer elected during the institution of the Home Rule Charter of 1968, Spellman was instrumental in constructing King County's first highly centralized, streamlined, and professional governmental system. More than 30 years later, he discusses his role in local politics and in the Kingdome's history and fate. This interview was conducted by Interview conducted by Heather MacIntosh for HistoryLink.org in March 2000, Seattle, Washington.
File 2200: Full Text >
Lawson Mine Disaster (November 6, 1910): Official Investigative Reports
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 Coal Mines, Fourteenth Bienniel Report" in Fourth Annual Report of the State of Washington, December 31, 1910 (Olympia: E. L. Boardman, Public Printer, 1911), pp. 75-78, and is provided to HistoryLink.org by William Kombol, manager of Palmer Coking Coal Company in Black Diamond.
File 9473: Full Text >
Log Cowboy: A Story of Lake Union and Lake Washington by Dorothea Nordstrand
This story about Vern Nordstrand (1918-2009) and his job locating and returning stray logs to their log booms on Seattle's Lake Union and Lake Washington was contributed by Vern's widow, Dorothea Nordstrand (b. 1916). This took place in the mid-1930s.
File 9448: Full Text >
Magnesite Mining in Stevens County (1916-1968) by J. E. (Jess) Buchanan
J. E. Buchanan (1904-1986) wrote this account for The Pacific Northwesterner where it appeared in Vol. 25, No. 3 (Summer 1981). It is reprinted here with kind permission. Born in Iowa, Buchanan was brought to Spokane at age 2 and lived there until 1921. At the University of Idaho he was a civil engineering student, 1923-1927; teacher and materials testing engineer, 1927-1936; engineering dean, 1938-1942; and university president, 1946-1954. As an engineer, his practice included engineering materials, roads, bridges, airports, and administration. From 1954 until retirement, 1969, he was president of the Asphalt institute, College Park, Maryland.
File 9034: Full Text >
Morris Brothers Coal Mining Company, Inc.
This history of the Morris Brothers Coal Mining Company, incorporated on December 15, 1921, and situated in east King County at Durham, was written by Betty (Morris) Falk (1920-2006) and originally appeared in the Black Diamond Historical Society newsletter in 1996. Notes and edits were added by William Kombol, manager of the Palmer Coking Coal Company located in Black Diamond. The Palmer Coking Coal Co. is directly descended from Morris Brothers Coal Mining Company, and William Kombol is the grandson of John Henry Morris.
File 8420: Full Text >
Morris, Abe (1879-1933): Coal Operator
Abraham Morris, a Pierce County coal operator and eponym of the coal town Morristown, was born in Wales and moved to the United States with his family at the age of 2. The family arrived in Washigton state in 1890 and he began working in east Pierce County coal mines as a teenager. In 1916 he was elected to the Washington State Legislature, and served for two terms. This People's History consists of a 1917 newspaper article about Abe Morris, followed by his 1933 obituary. These materials and additional information on Abraham Morris at the end were contributed by William Kombol, manager of Palmer Coking Coal Company located in Black Diamond (King County), Washington.
File 8387: Full Text >
Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Interview with Arnold Reinholdtsen
Lynn Moen interviewed and Morris Moen videotaped Arnold Reinholdtsen (b. 1928) on July 17, 2000 for the Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Oral History Project. Arnold, of Norwegian heritage, is an impressive story-teller who describes his life in the fishing industry and recounts many humorous vignettes of Norwegian Ballard. His father-in-law came to Seattle with three other Norwegians in a Model T carrying a claw-foot bathtub on the roof. The brakes went out and, with no money for repairs, three of them would get out and let the car down hills slowly with a rope.
File 5759: Full Text >
Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Interview with Johann Johnson
Ted Beck interviewed Johann Johnson (b. 1915) on June 22, 2000 for the Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Oral History Project. Johann, of Icelandic heritage, describes the various jobs he's held in the Ballard maritime industry and the changes he's seen in Ballard since the 1920s -- how the sawmills once darkened the day with their sawdust and smoke, and how the neighborhood boys would build underground hovels and tree camps in the many vacant lots that no longer exist.
File 5763: Full Text >
Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Interview with John Boitano
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 Piscitello, he describes day-to-day life in the multi-ethnic Ballard community of the 1920s through the 1940s. Whether working in the Arctic Vodle Cannery, the Ballard Ice House or in one of the 23 shingle mills in the area, he illuminates how the Italians, Greeks, Irish, Swedes, Norwegians, and Germans lived and labored together through the Depression, Prohibition and World War II.
File 5770: Full Text >
Oil Exploration in Washington
David Brannon has provided this overview of oil exploration and production in Washington, beginning with Native Americans and ending as recently as the 1960s.
File 7446: Full Text >
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