Seattle

HISTORY

The Seattle area had been inhabited by native tribes for more than 4,000 years, before George Vancouver became the first European to visit the area. The British explorer stopped by in 1792 during his voyage to chart the Pacific coast of North America.

Downtown Seattle, Washington and the Bainbridge Island ferry

Arthur A Denny and his group of travelers from New York State, subsequently known as the Denny Party left Cherry Grove, Illinois in April 1851 to head west. They arrived on a cold, stormy day on the schooner Exact at Alki Point on November 13, 1851.They originally called their settlement in what’s today known as West Seattle, "New York." After the party moved across Elliott Bay, they renamed the territory “Seattle” after Chief Si'ahl of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes befriended them.

The president of Denny-Renton Clay and Coal Company was the first boy born to the settlers of Seattle.

The Great Seattle Fire destroyed the entirety of downtown Seattle, on June 6, 1889. It started with a woodworker who mishandled hot glue, and resulted in an estimated $8,000,000 of damage. 116 acres were reduced to ash and the city's opera house and 11 of its 23 churches were among the buildings destroyed by the blaze.

The Great Seattle Fire of 1889 also killed 1 million rats, which completely eliminated the town's major rodent problem.

The picture below shows Seattle's first streetcar, at the corner of Occidental and Yesler in 1884. All of the buildings visible in this picture were destroyed by the Great Seattle Fire.

Seattle became a boomtown during the Klondike Gold Rush, a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1896 and 1899. Many Seattle citizens made a fortune outfitting the hordes of prospectors heading north to strike it rich.

Pike Place Market, the most popular tourist destination in Seattle, opened for business on August 17, 1907. The market is located in the heart of downtown Seattle, on the waterfront of Elliott Bay. It is home to over 250 farmers, merchants, and craftspeople who sell a wide variety of goods, including fresh produce, seafood, flowers, meats, cheeses, prepared foods, and souvenirs.

Vegetable vendors selling from Main Arcade daystalls, 1917

William Edward Boeing first formed Pacific Aero Products in Seattle, in 1916. It later became the Boeing Aircraft company.

Seattle was the site of a mass collective delusion in the 1950s, when thousands of people thought their cars were being pitted by cosmic rays or sand fleas.

The Seattle Center Monorail was constructed for the 1962 Century 21 Exposition, a world's fair hosted at the Seattle Center. The system still uses its original fleet of two Alweg trains that each carry up to 450 people and were designated as a historic landmark by the city in 2003.

In the 1970s Boeing fired 60,000 employees following the failure of their Concorde knock-off and a downturn in general aviation. So many people left the city there was a billboard that read "Will the last person leaving Seattle turn out the lights"

Thirteen people died and one was seriously injured in the Wah Mee massacre in Seattle on February 18, 1983.  Kwan Fai "Willie" Mak, Wai-Chiu "Tony" Ng, and Benjamin Ng gunned down fourteen people in the Wah Mee gambling club at the Louisa Hotel in Chinatown-International District, Seattle. It is said to be the largest robbery-motivated mass-murder in U.S. history.

Seattle is the home of the Space Needle and a monorail, both of which were built for the 1962 World's Fair.

Kurt Cobain formed Nirvana with Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1985 and established it as part of the Seattle rock music scene. Other grunge music artists like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden from the city also became popular in the early 1990s.

FUN SEATTLE FACTS 

Seattle's official nickname is the "Emerald City", the result of a contest held in 1981; the reference is to the lush evergreen forests of the area.

With an estimated 704,352 residents as of 2016, Seattle is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America.

In July 2016, Seattle was the fastest-growing major U.S. city, with a 3.1% annual growth rate.

Nearly a third of deployed US nuclear weapons are based near downtown Seattle.

Since 2015, throwing away food is illegal in Seattle.

Despite its rainy image, Seattle actually gets less rain than almost every city on the East Coast. It does, however, have quite a few cloudy days and days with light precipitation, particularly in the wintertime.

Downtown Seattle averages 71 completely sunny days a year, with most of those days occurring between May and September.

Seattle has few African Americans downtown due to racial restrictive covenants which lasted well into the 1960 preventing minorities from owning homes in certain neighborhoods.

The American headquarters of Internet retailer Amazon, coffee chain Starbucks, department store Nordstrom, freight forwarder Expeditors International of Washington and Weyerhaeuser, the forest products company are all located in Seattle.

Amazon.com headquarters building in the Denny Triangle. By Adamajreynolds

The comedy TV series Frasier was very influential on Seattle. Newly wealthy software millionaires asked real-estate agents for apartments with a view of the Space Needle like what Frasier Crane has. The show helped the city's culture to change from manufacturing and grunge to what it is today.

Source Mental Floss