Showing 1 - 20 of 33 results
Auburn -- Thumbnail History
The city of Auburn, located 20 miles south of Seattle, was home to some of the earliest white settlers in King County. Nestled in a fertile river valley, it has been both a farm community and a center of business and industry for more than 150 years.
File 675: Full Text >
Bell, William Nathaniel (1817-1887)
William Nathaniel Bell and his wife Sarah Ann (Peter) Bell (1819-1856) were members of the Denny party that arrived on Alki (present-day West Seattle) on the schooner Exact in 1851. The Bells helped to establish the settlement that became Seattle, settling north of the future downtown in "Belltown." After Indians attacked Seattle on January 26, 1856, William Bell and his ailing wife left Seattle for California. Sarah Ann died that year, but Bell did not return until 1870. He sold some of his lots, which had become valuable, built the Hotel Bellevue, and engaged in other businesses.
File 2015: Full Text >
Bellevue -- Thumbnail History
The City of Bellevue is a modern, metropolitan community dotted with skyscrapers. Although it didn't incorporate until 1953 and has experienced most of its rapid growth since then, its history goes back many decades, as a farming center, inland port, and milling center.
File 313: Full Text >
Blaine, David (1824-1900) and Catharine Paine Blaine (1829-1908)
David Blaine and Catharine Paine Blaine came to Seattle from Seneca Falls, New York, the site of America's first women's rights convention, in which Catharine Paine participated. The Blaines were Methodist missionaries who arrived in Seattle in 1853 via the Isthmus of Panama sea route. David founded Seattle's first church, called the "Little White Church," and Catharine became Seattle's first teacher and school administrator. After the January 1856 Battle of Seattle (a conflict with Indians), the Blaines left for missionary duty in Portland. They returned to Seattle in retirement in 1882.
File 1447: Full Text >
Boren, Carson Dobbins (1824-1912)
The pioneering contributions of Carson Dobbins Boren to the founding of Alki (in future West Seattle) and Seattle began and ended within a short period of six years. Carson Boren was a member of the Denny party, which arrived in 1851. He was the brother of Mary Ann (Boren) Denny (1822-1912), who was married to Arthur Denny (1822-1899), and Louisa Boren Denny (1827-1916), whose marriage to Arthur's younger brother David Denny (1832-1903) was the first non-Indian wedding in Seattle. Arthur Denny was the acknowledged leader of the immigrant party that chose Seattle as the site of a future town.
File 1936: Full Text >
Chief Seattle's Speech
In addition to his namesake city, Chief Seattle (178?-1866) is best remembered for a speech given, according to pioneer Dr. Henry Smith, on the occasion of an 1854 visit to Seattle of Isaac Stevens (1818-1862). Stevens was governor and Commissioner of Indian Affairs of Washington Territory. He visited in January and again in March 1854. Chief Seattle's speech went unnoted in the written record until October 29, 1887, when the Seattle Sunday Star published a text reconstructed from admittedly incomplete notes by Dr. Smith.
File 1427: Full Text >
Conklin, Mary Ann (1821-1873) aka Mother Damnable
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 into "Madame Damnable" when she diversified the hotel business by adding a brothel on the upper floor. She died in 1873. Felker House burned to the to ground in the Great Fire of 1889.
File 1934: Full Text >
Darrington -- Thumbnail History
The town of Darrington, located in Snohomish County 30 miles east of Arlington, was once known as the Burn or Sauk Portage. Darrington got its name from the flip of a card. With settlement beginning in the early 1890s, it gained its reputation as a jumping off place for mineral exploration and later logging. Never incorporated until 1945, it remained a rough and tumble place well into the 1950s. Today it is the gateway to exceptional outdoor activities such as hiking, mountain climbing and other outdoor recreation. Currently it numbers 1,500 citizens.
File 8798: Full Text >
Des Moines -- Thumbnail History
The City of Des Moines, located 15 miles south of Seattle along the shores of Puget Sound, has never been a large center of industry like other Seattle suburbs. Although it incorporated as recently as 1959, it has been a Northwest community for over 100 years.
File 697: Full Text >
Donation Land Law, also known as the Oregon Land Law
The Donation Land Law of 1850, or Oregon Land Law, permitted settlers on unsurveyed lands to select claims of 320 acres per settler (640 acres per married couple) provided they resided there for four consecutive years.
File 400: Full Text >
Fares, Lucinda Collins (1838-1886)
Lucinda Collins Fares was the first white woman to settle in the Snoqualmie Valley. She was the daughter of Luther and Diana (Borst) Collins, and as a 13 or 14 year old was a member of the Collins party, the first white settlers to establish homes in the future King County. (Her father, Luther Collins [1813-1860], was leader of this party, which settled on the Duwamish River in September 1851.)
File 395: Full Text >
First African Methodist Episcopal Church (Seattle)
The First African Methodist Episcopal Church, located at 1522 14th Avenue, is the oldest black church in Seattle. Established in 1886 it was designated a Seattle landmark in 1984.
File 1621: Full Text >
Fort Dent Park
Fort Dent Park in Tukwila was once a winter village for the Duwamish Indian tribe. After being partially vacated following the signing of the 1855 Point Elliott treaty, the site briefly became home to a small military blockhouse. Years afterward the property was used as farmland, until it became a King County park in 1968. Currently (2003) the park is owned by the City of Tukwila.
File 4114: Full Text >
Juanita Beach Park (Kirkland)
Juanita Beach Park, located along Juanita Bay in Kirkland, has been a popular summer destination for most of a century. Originally settled by Dorr and Eliza Forbes, the park blossomed as a resort in the 1920s under the guidance of their son Leslie and his wife Alicia. In 1956, they sold the park to King County. It remained a county park until 2002, when ownership was transferred to the City of Kirkland.
File 4009: Full Text >
King County Landmarks: Lagesson Homestead (1890), Maple Valley
Address: 20201 SE 216th Street, Maple Valley. Nils Peter Lagesson, a Swedish immigrant, filed his homestead claim in Maple Valley in 1885 and five years later built a two-room, hewn log house and two barns on 29 acres of orchard, pasture, and cultivated land. He married Laura Nelson after a trip home to Sweden. In anticipation of Laura's parents moving to the farm, Lagesson built a second house in 1897. This house later became a bunkhouse for his sons. The large barn features posts and beams hand-hewn by Lagesson. In addition to the houses and barn, the property includes a pumphouse, garage with gas pump, pig house, blacksmith shop, smokehouse, and wheathouse. These outbuildings illustrate the self-sufficient nature of this pioneer family.
File 2389: Full Text >
KRSC: Seattle's Radio and TV Pioneers
Of Seattle's earliest telecommunications pioneers, the long-gone KRSC radio and television media outlets could claim a most significant corporate history. One of the Pacific Northwest's first AM radio stations, KRSC ultimately expanded to include a trail-blazing sister station on the FM dial. Then in 1948 the region's first television station, KRSC-TV, was launched. But aside from that primacy, it was the actual content aired by those stations that remains particularly important: some of the nation's very first broadcasts hosted by talented African American performers including future R&B, jazz, and pop star, Ray Charles. In addition, KRSC-TV would have a lasting impact in its final incarnation as Seattle's esteemed KING-TV.
File 9342: Full Text >
Maple Valley -- Thumbnail History
Maple Valley, a King County community nestled 10 miles southeast of Renton within the sheer-cliffed Cedar River valley, grew from its outskirts inward toward its center. Originally a hodgepodge of homesteader cabins, its growth can be attributed to the lumber industry, coal mining, railroads, watersheds, and highway development.
File 1922: Full Text >
Maynard, Dr. David Swinson (1808-1873)
David S. "Doc" Maynard was a colorful and influential figure in King County's early history. Historian Bill Speidel anointed him "The Man Who Invented Seattle." On the advice of Chief Seattle, Maynard settled in the tiny village of Duwamps (the original name of Seattle) in the spring of 1852 and served as its first physician, merchant, Indian agent, and justice of the peace.
File 315: Full Text >
Milestones for Washington State History -- Part 1: Prehistory to 1850
This is a brief chronology of the milestones of Washington state history. Part 1 begins at prehistorical times and goes to 1850. Search the HistoryLink.org database for detailed essays on these events.
File 5366: Full Text >
Morrison, "Morrie" and Alice -- Northwest Music Industry Pioneers
At the dawn of the Roaring Twenties, a Pacific Northwest couple -- Howell Oakdeane “Morrie” Morrison (1888-1984) and his wife, Alice Nadine Morrison (1892-1978) -- launched what became the region’s first successful local commercial pop music empire. Fueled by a fortune made off royalties earned from a string of original hit song compositions, the Morrisons’ pioneering web of interrelated mom-and-pop businesses would grow to include a dance school, a sheet music publishing company, a vaudeville orchestra, a dancehall chain, a record label, a Seattle-based recording studio (with a record-pressing plant), and even a film production endeavor.
File 7548: Full Text >
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Showing 1 - 20 of 28 results
Mexican and Spanish settlers complete Neah Bay settlement in May 1792.
In May 1792, Mexican and Spanish settlers commanded by Salvador Fidalgo complete the first permanent European settlement in present-day Washington at Neah Bay near the northern tip of the Olympic Peninsula. Explorer Manuel Quimper had claimed the bay and named it Nunez Gaona on August 1, 1790. The camp is only briefly occupied before Spain retreats from the Pacific Northwest under threat of war with Great Britain.
File 7953: Full Text >
Native Americans force settlers to leave Whidbey Island in August 1848.
In August 1848, local Puget Sound Indians force two white settlers, Thomas W. Glasgow and Antonio B. Rabbeson, to abandon farms on Whidbey Island, located in northern Puget Sound. Among the Native peoples are members of the Duwamish, Snoqualmie, and Snohomish tribes. It will be two years before settlers successfully establish themselves in the Puget Sound region away from the protection of the two Hudson's Bay Company farms at Nisqually and Cowlitz and the U.S. settlement in the Tumwater-Olympia area.
File 5246: Full Text >
Luther Collins Party, first King County settlers, arrive at mouth of Duwamish River on September 14, 1851.
On September 14, 1851, Luther M. Collins (1813-1860), Henry Van Asselt (1817-1902), Jacob Maple (or Mapel) (1798-1884) and his son Samuel Maple (or Mapel) (1827-1880) arrive at the mouth of the Duwamish River and Elliott Bay in the future King County and begin exploring the area with an eye to selecting a Donation Land Claim.
File 5390: Full Text >
Denny party lands at Alki Point near future Seattle on November 13, 1851.
On November 13, 1851, the Denny Party lands at Alki Point, not far from the site of the future Seattle.
File 5392: Full Text >
David "Doc" Maynard arrives at Alki Point on March 31, 1852.
On March 31, 1852, David "Doc" Maynard arrives at Alki Point. He has come from Olympia in a canoe paddled by Chief Seattle and other Duwamish Indians.
File 2790: Full Text >
Marriage unites David Denny and Louisa Boren on January 23, 1853.
On January 23, 1853, King County's first Justice of the Peace, Dr. David S. Maynard (1808-1873) issues the new county's first (in a manner of speaking) marriage license and presides at the wedding of Seattle pioneers David T. Denny (1832-1903) and Louisa Boren (1827-1916).
File 2027: Full Text >
Sisters of Providence arrive at Fort Vancouver on December 8, 1856.
On December 8, 1856, five Sisters of Providence, Roman Catholic nuns, arrive at Fort Vancouver, Washington. Sister Joseph (formerly Esther Pariseau) (1823-1902) is their leader. She will later be known as Mother Joseph, the Northwest's first architect.
File 5207: Full Text >
1857 Census: King County Population By Name
In 1857, a census of King County residents is taken. The population consists of 152 persons of European American descent including 86 adult males, 23 females age 18 and over, and 43 children of whom 14 were born in King County. This essay lists the 170 persons by name, sex, occupation, and place of birth.
File 1920: Full Text >
Mercer's Island is named in 1860.
In 1860, a government land survey names Mercer's Island for the first time. Later shortened to Mercer Island, the island is named for Thomas Mercer (1813-1898), an early pioneer who suggested the names of Lake Washington and Lake Union.
File 3723: Full Text >
Marcus Oppenheimer, eponym of Marcus, Washington, settles on the Columbia River near the Canadian border in 1862.
In 1862, Marcus Oppenheimer (1834-1901) settles on the Columbia River near the Canadian border in what will be Stevens County. He opens a store to purvey goods to miners traveling north to Canada, and he and his brothers, Joseph and Samuel, eventually diversify into steamboats, freight lines, and flour milling. He is the only Jewish immigrant to Washington to have a town named after him.
File 8232: Full Text >
African American pioneer Matthias Monet opens a restaurant in Seattle in 1864.
In 1864, Mathias Monet, an African American pioneer and native of Oregon, arrives in Seattle and opens Monet's Seattle Restaurant and Coffee Saloon opposite the Yesler, Denny and Company's Store.
File 235: Full Text >
Two Snohomish Indians kill the Casto family in Squak Valley on November 7, 1864.
On November 7, 1864, two Snohomish Indians kill William and Abigail Casto in their home in Squak Valley (now Issaquah.) Also killed is John Halstead, a housemate. The assailants are in turn killed by Aleck, the Castos' Klickitat friend and employee.
File 4182: Full Text >
Seattle pioneers petition against a reservation on the Black River for the Duwamish tribe in 1866.
In 1866, King County settlers petition the Territorial Delegate to Congress, Arthur Denny
(1822-1899), against the establishment of a reservation for the Duwamish tribe on the Black River.
The Superintendent of Indian Affairs had proposed such a reservation to correct deficiencies in the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855. The pioneer's petition is forwarded to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the reservation is not
established. There are about 156 signatures, all or nearly all King County residents, including Chas. C. Terry (first signature), John Denny, D. T. Denny, H. L. Yesler, D. S. Maynard, Chas Plummer, Jacob Maple, and J. P. Pinnell.
File 2955: Full Text >
Seattle Neighborhoods: Sand Point's first settler is William Goldmyer on September 5, 1868.
On September 5, 1868, William Goldmyer (1843-1924) is the first homesteader to settle on a point jutting into Lake Washington, later called Sand Point. (Sand Point in on the western, Seattle side of the lake). In his mid-20s, Goldmyer arrives in King County after hiking from California. He homesteads 81 acres immediately south of (the later named) Pontiac Bay. He establishes a farm, marries Rebecca Spray, and starts a family before selling the property in January 1878 and moving to Fall City in eastern King County.
File 2219: Full Text >
Erhart Seifried, known as Green Lake John, files a homestead claim on Green Lake (Seattle) on October 13, 1869.
On October 13, 1869, Erhart Seifried (1832-1899) files a claim under the Homestead Act for 131.66 timbered acres on Green Lake, which now (1999) define the north Seattle neighborhood of Green Lake. Seifried, known as Green Lake John, becomes the first white settler to occupy land on Green Lake. He arrives as an unmarried German immigrant, age 37.
File 1468: Full Text >
Cattle cross Snoqualmie Pass to Seattle in December 1869.
In December 1869, M. S. Booth drives 200 head of cattle across Snoqualmie Pass to Seattle.
File 184: Full Text >
Jewish governor of Washington Territory Edward Salomon takes office in the spring of 1870.
In the spring of 1870, Edward S. Salomon (1836-1913) takes office as governor of Washington Territory. He serves from the spring of 1870 to the spring of 1872. As of 2003, he has been Washington's only Jewish governor.
File 5243: Full Text >
Seattle pioneer Doc Maynard dies on March 13, 1873.
On the evening of March 13, 1873, David Swinson "Doc" Maynard (1808-1873) dies at his Seattle residence. "Doc" Maynard was proprietor of Seattle's first store, a physician and surgeon, realtor, justice of the peace, school superintendent, notary public, clerk of the court, attorney-at-law, and in general a key settler of the new town that he advocated calling Seattle after his friend Chief Seattle.
File 198: Full Text >
Man kills bear on Mercer Island on June 22, 1873.
On June 22, 1873, Mr. G. Proctor, who lives on "an island in Lake Washington," sights a bear near his premises and gives chase. The bear "took to the lake." Proctor follows in a skiff, kills the animal with his rifle, and tows it ashore. The island is likely the one that will be named Mercer Island. In the 1870s, Gardner Proctor owns land on the northwest portion of Mercer Island. In 1873, he is about 43 years old and works as a cooper smith and hook maker.
File 1616: Full Text >
The first ring-necked pheasants introduced into the United States arrive at Port Townsend on March 13, 1881.
On March 13, 1881, around 60 Chinese ring-necked pheasants arrive in Port Townsend aboard the ship Otago. United States consul general Owen Nickerson Denny (1838-1900) and his wife Gertrude Jane Hall Denny (1837-1933) have shipped the pheasants, along with other Chinese birds and plants, from Shanghai in hopes of establishing a population in their home state of Oregon. Most of the pheasants succumb as they are transported from the Olympic Peninsula to Portland. A few survivors are released on the lower Columbia River, but accounts differ as to whether this population survives. However, the Dennys ship more pheasants in 1882 and 1884, successfully introducing ring-necked pheasants into Oregon's Willamette Valley and on Protection Island in Jefferson County near Port Townsend. The colorful game birds prove prolific and popular. Ring-necked pheasants spread throughout Oregon and Washington and are introduced in states across the country, becoming so common that they seem more a native species than one first established in the United States in 1881.
File 8444: Full Text >
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Showing 1 - 4 of 4 results
Colville Valley (1870s-1880s): A 1928 Memoir by Thomas Graham
In 1928, Thomas Graham (1868-1946) wrote a series of articles in the Colville Examiner titled "50 Years Ago," recounting his experiences and observations as a teenager in the Colville Valley. His family had arrived in Stevens County from County Monaghan in Ireland on October 14, 1878, assisted by James Monaghan (1839-1916), who was a brother of Tom's mother, Rosanna Graham. Tom's father, also Thomas Graham, had emigrated from Scotland to Ireland, where he married Rosanna Monaghan. The family of nine sailed from Liverpool to New York, took the Southern Pacific to San Francisco, then a ship to Portland and the riverboat from Portland to The Dalles, where it was always necessary to portage around the cascades before continuing on by steamboat to Wallula. From there, they traveled over the Dr. Baker wood railroad to Walla Walla where James Monoghan met the family with two wagons to transport them over the Colville Road to the Colville area, a distance of more than 200 miles. This trip via Monaghan's LaPray Bridge over the Spokane River, took seven days, the family camping out all the way. They spent one night at the Monaghan homestead, now part of Chewelah, before continuing to Pinkney City, the town that grew up adjacent to military Fort Colville, just over three miles north of present Colville.
File 9188: Full Text >
Doc Maynard: Seattle Pioneer by Dorothea Nordstrand
This account of the stubborn, original, and generous life of the important Seattle pioneer Doc Maynard (1808-1873) was written by Dorothea Nordstrand.
File 4273: Full Text >
Dorothea Nordstrand tells the story of Dandy, a Pend Oreille County horse in the 1910s
In this People's History, Dorothea (Pfister) Nordstrand tells the story of a horse with a mind of his own. This very strong-minded horse lived with the Pfister family near Tiger in Pend Oreille County. The "Daddy" and "Mom" mentioned in this story were Joseph and Mary Pfister, whose homestead was on Tiger Hill. Dorothea was born there in 1916. The family lived there from 1911 until 1919, when they were granted title to the property, sold it, and moved to Seattle. In 2009 Dorothea Nordstrand was awarded AKCHO's (Association of King County Historical Organizations) Willard Jue Memorial Award for a Volunteer, for contributing these vivid reminiscences to various venues in our community, including HistoryLink.org's People's History library.
File 5447: Full Text >
The Ulin and Spray Families, Pioneers of Seattle
The Ulin family arrived in Seattle in 1869, and Erick Ulin Sr. worked as a ship carpenter. The Spray family arrived in 1875. Carl Wade, third cousin to the Sprays, contributed this account of these two interconnected families.
File 3931: Full Text >
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