Seattle History
Seattle History
Seattle History
road to
ruin by relying on a single industry and then rebounding gracefully with a typical Seattle resilience.
The first major industry to grace the emerald shores of Elliot Bay was logging. From the time of the first colonial
activities in 1851, the timber trade proved to be the primary source of growth in this small northwestern town.
The combination of the safe bay and the proximity of lush and dense millennia-old coniferous forests made Seattle
the perfect location and in 1852 Henry Yesler began construction on the first steam-powered mill in the Pacific
Northwest.
Seattle quickly boomed, driven by the timber demands of an emerging shipbuilding industry in the area and
massive San Francisco building projects kept money flowing into the town. Traditionally it was believed that the
strip of land that Yesler was given by the settlers (and which is now occupied by Yesler Way) was the first "Skid
Row" in America, named for the logs that were dragged down the hill to Yesler's mill. The abundance of alcohol,
gambling and prostitution located around this center of the logging industry gave "Skid Row" its modern
connotation. True or not, the tale as been part of Seattle myth for nearly a century.
While the fire was catastrophic, Seattle weathered the disaster and emerged stronger than before. The city was
rebuilt in brick and stone and the massive rebuilding effort stimulated the economy providing thousands of new
jobs and ensuring that the economic downturn which had affected much of the country in the last decade of the
19th century would not be felt as strongly in the Emerald City.
While the cold climate and harsh conditions of the Klondike and Alaska ensured migrations were not nearly as
extensive as they were to Oregon and California during its 1849 counterpart, the Klondike Gold Rush brought
thousands of people to Seattle and flooded Seattle with reconstruction money.
By 1938, the fledgling company had become a world leader in aircraft design and manufacturing. During World
War II Boeing was responsible for the design of the B-17 and the B-29, the Allies' most important bombers.
Seattle's biggest employer, Boeing churned out nearly 350 planes each month at the height of the war. All this
activity brought tremendous amounts of capital and labor to Seattle.
The end of World War II, however, was disastrous for the adolescent city as nearly 70,000 people lost their jobs
overnight when the government cancelled all its pending contracts. While the end of the war proved temporarily
catastrophic, the technology developed during the global conflict, namely the jet engine, ensured Boeing's and
consequently Seattle's healthy survival, as would the escalation of military spending during the Cold War.
Within a few years, Seattle had gone from being Boeing's burg to a thriving center of information technology and
research, rivaling California's Silicon Valley and diversifying Seattle's economy, ensuring that the economic
setbacks of the 1970s would not be repeated.
Founded in 1971, the company made a fortune selling warm specialty coffee drinks to its weary, cold and parched
patrons in an inviting café atmosphere. The result was a worldwide phenomenon as the small café branched out
from its humble home in Pike Place Market, opening its doors to similar customers around the world and spawning
dozens of imitators. The grand Starbucks Center is now Seattle's largest building by volume, an indication of its
economic and social prominence within the city.
-Chris Casey
www.seattle.history.com