Timeline Washington State
Return to home
ALH: http://www.usgennet.org/~alhnwaus/index.html
Facts: http://www.50states.com/washingt.htm
Government: http://access.wa.gov/
History: http://www.csrnet.org/csrnet/substitute/wahistory.html
Links & Resources: http://madison.ssd.k12.wa.us/wa_history.htm
Newspapers: http://ajr.newslink.org/wanews.html
Roadside: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/map/wa.html
State Hist. Soc: http://www.wshs.org/
Virtual Tourist: http://www.virtualtourist.com
The Makah are a Native tribe of this region.
(WSJ, 10/23/97, p.A1)
The Ephrata Fan of the Channeled Scablands is a fan of sand and
rocks deposited by channels of water flowing down a steep-walled chasm
of the Columbia River, where now the Grand Coulee Dam spans the river.
(SFC,12/5/97, p.A15)
15.5 Mil Southeastern Washington and
Oregon were covered by huge lava flows estimated at some 40,000 cubic
miles. Some beds were over a mile thick. The weight led to a sag in the
earth and the ancient Lake Vantage formed.
(ST, 7/29/04, NWW p.18)(SSFC, 9/12/04, p.D9)
40,000BP Mount St. Helens was born and intermittent
eruptions continued to about 500 BC.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
15k-13kBCE During the last Ice Age dams of glacial
meltwater repeatedly failed and eroded land in southeastern Washington
state and Oregon. This exposed petrified logs in what later became
Gingko Petrified Forest State Park. An ice dam, which blocked the Clark
Fork River in Montana and created lake Missoula, broke at least 40
times and caused cataclysmic floods. One Missoula flood left Portland
under 400 feet of water.
(CW, Fall ‘03, p.20)(SSFC, 9/12/04, p.D9)
7200 BC A skeleton of about this age was found in
July, 1996, by the Columbia River in Kennewick, Wa. It became known as
the "Kennewick Man" or "Richland Man." The 9,200 year old bones were
later studied and determined to be most closely related to Asian
people, particularly the Ainu of northern Japan. It was concluded in
2000 that he was an American Indian. The bones were dated to 7514-7324
BC.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A11)(SFC, 1/14/00, p.A7)(SFC,
9/26/00, p.A5)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.76)
3,600BC The Osceola mudflow from Mount Ranier covered
an area from Rainier to Puget Sound.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.A22)
c1400 The 6 yard deep Electron
Mudflow came down from Mount Rainier where the town of Orting was later
established.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.A22)
1550 Mount St. Helens began almost
nonstop eruptions that continued for a century.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1592 Juan de Fuca, a Greek sailing
for Spain, sailed into a strait that later became the border between
Canada’s Vancouver Island, BC, and the Olympic Peninsula of Washington
state. The waterway was later named the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
(NG, 7/04, p.66)
1778 Mar 22, Captain Cook sighted
Cape Flattery in Washington state.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1788 A sea captain named Mount
Olympus (7,965-ft.).
(SSFC, 11/25/01, p.C6)
1792 May 7, Capt. Robert Gray
discovered Gray's Harbor in Washington state.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1792 May 8, British Capt. George
Vancouver sighted and named Mt. Rainier, Wash.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1792 May 11, The Columbia River
was discovered and named by Captain Robert Gray.
(HN, 5/11/98)(MC, 5/11/02)
1792 Jun 4, Captain George
Vancouver claimed Puget Sound for Britain.
(HN, 6/4/98)
1807 The Congressional Cemetery
near Capital Hill was established.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.A1)
1811 Apr 12, First U.S. colonists
on Pacific coast arrived at Cape Disappointment, Washington.
(HN, 4/12/98)(MC, 4/12/02)
1825 The Hudson’s Bay Company
planted grapes at Fort Vancouver (Washington State).
(Econ, 5/20/06, p.37)
1834 A crippled Hojun-maru junk,
blown off course with 3 Japanese castaways, washed ashore on Cape
Flattery in Washington state. Makah Indians seized the cargo, enslaved
the sailors and then sold them to the Hudson’s Bay Company.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.64)
1842 Nov 22, Mount St Helen's in
Washington state erupted. Mount St. Helens began 15 years of
intermittent eruptions and then became relatively quiet for 123 years.
(MC, 11/22/01)(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1843 Nov 13, Mt. Rainier in
Washington State erupted.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1846 Jun 15, The United States and
Britain signed a treaty settling a boundary dispute between Canada and
the United States in the Pacific Northwest at the 49th parallel. Great
Britain and the U.S. agreed on a joint occupation of Oregon Territory.
President Polk agreed to a compromise border along the 49th parallel.
The debate over the northwestern border of the United States. The
campaign slogan "54-40 or fight" referred to the debate over the
northwestern border of the United States. The slogan "54-40 or fight"
refers to the north latitude degree and minute where many Americans
wanted to place the border between the U.S. and then Great Britain in
the Pacific Northwest.
(AP, 6/15/97)(HN, 6/15/98)(SFC, 1/25/99, p.A3)(HNQ,
3/28/00)
1846 Jun 15, Washington diplomats
established a straight line border between the US and Canada in the
northwest and thus established Point Roberts, Wa. as the westernmost
corner of the US. The enclave is 4.9 sq. miles.
(SFC, 5/20/96, p.A-6)
1846-1859 Ownership of the San Juan Islands was not
settled in the 1846 Oregon Treaty. The Pig War of 1859 forced an
arbitration under Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany. Six Royal Marines and 16
US soldiers died during the 13-year occupation from drownings, disease
and suicides.
(SFEC, 6/18/00, p.T8)
1850s Port Townsend was founded.
(SSFC, 11/25/01, p.C9)
1851 Andrew Jackson Pope and
Frederic Talbot of Maine built their 1st sawmill on Puget Sound, Wa.
Pope & Talbot were soon shipping lumber around the world.
(Ind, 6/7/03, p.5A)
1853 Mar 2, The Territory of
Washington was organized after separating from Oregon Territory.
(HN, 3/2/99)(SC, 3/2/02)
1853 Nov 28, Olympia was
established as capital of the Washington Territory.
(DT internet 11/28/97)
1855 The US government signed a
treaty with some American Indians that gave them permanent rights to
their existing lands. The Makah tribe of Washington secured a right to
hunt whales in exchange for ceding title to their land. In 1972 the
Marine Mammals Protection Act prohibited the slaughter of whales
without a permit.
(SFEC, 6/15/97, Par. p.5)(SFC,10/24/97, p.A9)(SSFC,
7/13/08, p.E4)
1855 Nez Perce elders agreed to
sell most of their land to the US government. They retained some 10
thousand square miles as a reservation in the area where Washington,
Oregon and Idaho meet. Gold was soon discovered in the area and in 1863
the US government called for a new deal.
(ON, 3/04, p.1)
1857 The New Dungeness Light
Station was built at the end of the Dungeness Spit in Dungeness Bay,
Washington state.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.G8)
1859 Aug 3, U.S. Army captain
George Edward Pickett faced the British in the Pacific Northwest.
Pickett had served with valor in the Mexican War right after his
graduation from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and
he had subsequently seen duty at several frontier posts. On August 3,
1859, the man whose name would be forever linked to the most famous of
all Civil War charges was the American commander on the scene as the
United States and Great Britain again stood on the brink of war in the
San Juan Islands Pig War.
(HNQ, 2/4/01)
1859 Lyman Cutlar, an American
farmer, shot and killed a Berkshire boar uprooting his potato patch and
the British threatened to put him into irons. The Pig War on San Juan
Island forced an arbitration under Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, who
awarded the San Juan islands off Washington state to the US. Six Royal
Marines and 16 US soldiers died during the 13-year occupation from
drownings, disease and suicides.
(SFEC, 6/18/00, p.T8)
1860 St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
was built in Port Townsend.
(SSFC, 11/25/01, p.C9)
1863 The Seattle
Post-Intelligencer was founded.
(WSJ, 3/3/00, p.B1)
1865-1890 Wars against the native American Indians
were fought during this period in the Pacific Northwest. In 2003 Peter
Cozzens edited: “Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars, 1865-1890: The Wars
for the Pacific Northwest.”
(AH, 6/03, p.62)
1866 Pres. Andrew Johnson signed
an executive order that removed the Shoalwater Bay Indians in
Washington state from their villages and onto a 1-sq. mile reservation.
By 2000 erosion took away over half the tribal land and miscarriages
stood at 4 times the expected rate.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, p.A8)
1867 In Washington state Croatian
immigrants founded the area that came to be known as Gig Harbor after
Captain Charles Wilkes brought in his small boat there for safety from
a storm.
(SSFC, 9/2/07, p.D8)
1869 The fishing port of La Conner
was founded on the Swinomish Channel in Washington’s Skagit Valley.
(SSFC, 3/27/05, p.F8)
1870 Aug 17, The 1st ascent of Mt.
Rainier in Washington state.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1875 Nov 4, "Pacific" collided
with "Orpheus" off Cape Flattery, Wash., and 236 people died.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1885 Nov 3, Tacoma, Wa.,
vigilantes drove out Chinese residents and burned their homes and
businesses.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1885 Joseph O’Neil, US Army
lieutenant, spent a month ascending from Port Angeles to Hurricane
Ridge in the Olympic Mountains of Washington state.
(NG, 7/04, p.66)
1885 Chief Joseph and his band of
Nez Perce were allowed to take up residence on the Colville reservation
in northern Washington.
(ON, 3/04, p.5)
1886 Feb 9, President Cleveland
declared a state of emergency in Seattle because of anti-Chinese
violence.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1889 Feb 22, President Cleveland
signed a bill to admit the Dakotas, Montana and Washington state to the
Union. The "omnibus bill" was an act dividing the Dakota Territory into
the states of North and South Dakota, and enabling the two Dakotas to
formulate constitutions. A constitutional convention was held at
Bismarck beginning July 4, 1889. A constitution was formulated and
submitted to a vote of the people of the State of North Dakota on
October 1, 1889, and was adopted.
(AP,
2/22/99)(www.court.state.nd.us/court/history/dakotaterritory.htm)
1889 Jul 4, Washington state
constitutional convention held 1st meeting.
(Maggio, 98)
1889 Nov 11, Washington became the
42nd state of the US.
(HFA, '96, p.18)(AP, 11/11/97)
1889 Seattle, Wa., burned to the
ground.
(WSJ, 9/19/95, p.A-1)(ST, 5/20/04, p.A1)
1889 Seattle-based Washington
Mutual Inc., was founded. During the economic crises in 2008 it became
the largest ever US bank to fail.
(AP, 9/26/08)
1890 The Snoqualmie Depot was
built by several rail companies.
(ST, 5/20/04, NWW p.7)
1891 The Gaches Mansion was built
in the fishing port of La Conner in Skagit Valley, Washington. It later
became home to the Northwest’s only quilt museum.
(SSFC, 3/27/05, p.F8)
1893 Jan 6, Great Northern Railway
connected Seattle with east coast.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1896 The Seattle Times was founded.
(WSJ, 3/3/00, p.B1)
1897 Jul 15, The gold-laden ship
Excelsior from Alaska landed in San Francisco. Seattle mayor W.D. Wood
was visiting and immediately resigned his job, hired a ship, and
organized an expedition from SF to the Yukon territory.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A20)
1897 Jul 17, The Steamer Portland
arrived into Seattle from Alaska with 68 prospectors carrying more than
a ton of gold. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced that men with
gold from Alaska were landing. This unleashed the Klondike gold rush
and tens of thousands headed for the Yukon. The Klondike gold rush gave
America and Canada a psychological boost in getting the economy moving
again after the terrible depression that followed the 1893 crash.
(CFA, ‘96, p.88)(Hem., 7/95, p.79)(CFA, ‘96,
p.89)(WSJ, 5/1/97, p.A16)(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A20)
1897 Pres. Grover Cleveland
established a forest reserve in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington
state with sharp restrictions on commercial logging. 3 years later
McKinley remanded a third of the reserve back to open logging.
(NG, 7/04, p.66)
1899 Mar 2, Congress established
Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state, the nation's 5th
national park.
(AP, 3/2/98)(SFC, 8/14/99, p.A6)
1899 The Anne Starrett Mansion was
built in Port Townsend.
(SSFC, 11/25/01, p.C9)
1900 Frederick Weyerhaeuser, a
German immigrant, and 15 partners purchased 900,000 acres of land from
a railway company in Washington state.
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.30)
1902 Sep 12, The Yacolt Fire
burned 238,000 acres in Oregon and Washington and killed 38 people.
(SFC, 10/30/03, p.A15)
1903 May 3, Bing Crosby (d.1977),
singer and actor, was born in Tacoma, Wa. The family soon moved to
Spokane where he grew up.
(HN, 5/3/98)(SSFC, 1/21/01, BR p.10)
1904 Sep 21, Exiled Nez Perce
leader Chief Joseph died in Washington state reportedly of a "broken
heart." In 1984 “Chief Joseph’s Own Story” was published.
(HN, 9/21/98)(SFC, 6/13/97, p.A13)
1907 Jun 27, John McIntire, actor
(Naked City, Wagon Train, Virginian), was born in Spokane, Wash.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1907 Aug 28, Two Seattle teenagers
began a telephone message service that grew to become the United Parcel
Service (UPS). Jim Casey (19) and Claude Ryan founded the American
Messenger Company in Seattle, Wash. In 1913 the company merged with
Evert McCabe and formed Merchants Parcel Delivery. In 1919 the company
expanded beyond Seattle and changed their name to United Parcel Service
(UPS).
(SFC, 7/22/99,
p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Parcel_Service)
1907 Mt. Rainier National Park
became the first national park opened to car traffic and attendance
soared.
(SFC, 8/14/99, p.A6)
1907 Sam Hill, railroad magnate,
purchased 6,000 acres along the Columbia River with plans for a Quaker
community. He called the area Maryhill after his daughter and
established a museum there.
(AM, 9/01, p.10)(AH, 6/02, p.14)
1908 May 23, Part of the Great
White Fleet arrived in Puget Sound, Washington.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1909 Jun 1, Pres. William Howard
Taft touched a key in Washington, DC, sending a signal to Seattle,
opening the Alaska-Yukon Pacific Expo at the Seattle World’s Fair, as
well as a signal to NYC initialing the New York to Seattle Automobile
Race.
(AH, 6/03, p.18)
1909 Jun 1, Guido Deiro, European
vaudeville star, introduced the "fizarmonica systema piano" at the
Alaskan Exposition in Seattle, Washington. He was contracted by the
Ranco Antonio Accordion Company of Italy and is credited with naming
the instrument " piano accordion." His brother Pietro Deiro was the
first to play the accordion in San Francisco.
(www.guidodeiro.com)
1909 Jun 23, A Ford Model T
crossed the finish line in the NYC to Seattle Automobile Race after 22
days and 55 minutes to claim the Guggenheim Cup and a $2,000 first
prize. A Shamut came in 17 hours later to win the 2nd-place prize of
$1500. An Acme car came in on June 29 to claim a $1000 3rd prize. The
Ford was later disqualified for having switched engines enroute.
(AH, 6/03, p.23)
1909 The Pergola in Pioneer Square
was built as a cable car stop. It was destroyed by a truck in 2001.
(SFC, 1/16/01, p.C2)
1910 Mar 1, An avalanche at
Wellington, Wa., pushed two Great Northern trains carrying 96 people
over a ledge at Stevens Pass.
(SSFC, 3/1/09, p.C10)
1910 Jun 16, The first Father's
Day was celebrated in Spokane Washington by Mrs. John Bruce Dodd. [see
Jun 19] Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, is credited with the
concept for Father's Day. Dodd sought a way to honor her own father,
who had raised her as a single parent. In 1924 the holiday was approved
by President Calvin Coolidge and, in 1972, President Richard Nixon
officially recognized the third Sunday in June as Father's Day.
(HN, 6/16/98)(HN, 6/20/99)
1910 Jun 19, Father's Day was
celebrated for the first time in Spokane Washington, initiated by Mrs.
John B. Dodd. [see June 16]
(AP, 6/19/98)
1910 The 15-story US Bank Building
was constructed in Spokane.
(SFC, 11/29/01, p.E1)
1910 Nils August Johanson founded
Swedish Hospital in Seattle. His daughter, Katherine, married Elmer
Nordstrom in 1934 and helped build the Nordstrom apparel chain.
(SFEC, 6/4/00, p.C15)
1910 In Seattle, Wa., a site on
the banks of Puget Sound was developed as a fuel storage facility. In
the 1990s it was cleaned up and then transformed into the 8½
acre Olympic Sculpture Park.
(SSFC, 3/25/07, p.G1)
1910 In Washington state Axel
Uddenberg opened Gig Harbor’s first general store. In the 1960s it
served as a dance and music hall. In 1973 Peter Stanley bought the
place and turned it into the Tides Tavern.
(SSFC, 9/2/07, p.D8)
1911 In Tacoma, Wa., Frank C. Mars
began his candy company with a circle of chocolate covered with a
crunchy coating. It was modeled after a British confection. His son,
Forrest, created M&Ms in 1940.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.A21)
1912 Mar 27, The first cherry
blossom trees, a gift from Japan, were planted in Washington, D.C.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1912 Chuck Jones (d.2002), cartoon
animator, was born in Spokane.
(SFC, 2/23/02, p.A2)
1913 Apr 7, The suffragists'
marched to the Capitol in Washington, D.C. By the second decade of the
20th century, woman suffrage--women's right to vote--had become an
issue of national importance in America. The growth in the numbers of
American working women and the valuable contributions women made in war
production during World War I further increased the suffragists'
support. On August 20, 1919, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was
ratified, giving women the right to vote.
(HNPD, 4/7/99)
1913 Philip H. Abelson (d.2004),
nuclear physicist, was born in Tacoma, Wa. In 1940 he and Edwin
McMillan discovered Neptunium, element No. 93.
(NH, 7/02, p.36)(SFC, 8/9/04, p.B6)
1914 Feb 9, Gypsy Rose Lee,
stripper, was born in Seattle Wash.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1916 Jul 15, The Boeing Co.,
originally known as Pacific Aero Products, was founded in Seattle by
William Boeing.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1916 The National Park Inn was
built in Longmire, Washington, as the first headquarters for Mount
Rainier National Park.
(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.G9)
1917 Mar 27, The Seattle
Metropolitans became the first US team to win the Stanley Cup as they
defeated the Montreal Canadiens.
(AP, 3/27/97)
1917 The Paradise Inn was built in
Washington state’s Mount Rainier National Park. In 2006 it was closed
for renovation.
(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.G9)
1917 The Church of Christ,
Scientist, was built in Yakima, Washington. In 2005 it re-opened as a
non-profit music hall called The Seasons.
(WSJ, 8/30/06, p.D8)
1919 Feb 6, The 1st day of 5-day
Seattle general strike, the first general strike in America, took
effect. During this period Washington was a center for the Industrial
Workers of the World, also known as the "Wobblies." Their agitation led
to the Centralia massacre and the Everett massacre.
(WSJ, 12/3/99, p.A14)(MC, 2/6/02)
1919 Mar 3, Boeing flew the first
U.S. international airmail from Vancouver, British Columbia to Seattle,
Wash.
(HN, 3/3/99)
1920 Mar 14, Hank Ketchum,
cartoonist (Dennis the Menace), was born in Seattle, Wa.
(MC, 3/14/02)(http://www.askart.com/Biography.asp)
1921 Jan 29, A hurricane hit
Washington and Oregon.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1921 May 29, James Clifton, actor
(Live & Let Die), was born in Spokane, WA.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1921 Sep
5, Roy Gardner (1886-1940), train and mail robber, made his escape from
McNeil Island in Washington state during an inmate baseball game. He
was probably the first and only man to escape from the Island, which
led the US Government to build another "escape proof" federal prison on
Alcatraz Island.
(www.cybersleuths.com/billkelly/bkbonuschap1.htm)
1921 The Hearst Corp. acquired the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1924 Sep 28, Two US Army planes
landed in Seattle, Wash., having completed the first round-the-world
flight in 175 days. Three U.S. Army aircraft arrived in Seattle,
Washington, after completing a 22 day round-the-world flight.
(AP, 9/28/97)(HN, 9/28/98)
1925 May 14, Patrice Munsel,
soprano (Met Opera, Patrice Munsel Show), was born in Spokane, Wash.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1926 Queen Marie of Romania spoke
at the dedication ceremony of the unfinished Maryhill Museum in
Washington state. Sam Hill, railroad magnate, built a replica of
Stonehenge as a monument to Klickitat County soldiers who lost their
lives in the World War on the premises. His nearby mansion later became
the Maryhill Museum of Art.
(AM, 9/01, p.10)
1928 The capitol building in
Olympia was completed.
(SSFC, 3/4/01, p.E1)
1930s Boeing’s P-26 Peashooter,
built in the 1930s, was the United States` first single-wing, all-metal
fighter. Boeing’s P-26 was a milestone in three respects. It was the
first U.S. Army Air Corps fighter to incorporate several important
design features that would become standard on aircraft subsequently
used in World War II. To placate conservative elements in the Air
Corps, however, the P-26`s designers were constrained to include
several anachronistic features in the airplane that hampered its
development potential. The Peashooter was also to be the last fighter
aircraft mass-produced by Boeing before the company went on to bigger
things.
(HNQ, 6/12/01)
1931 Oct 4, Aerial circus star
Clyde Pangborn and playboy Hugh Herndon, Jr. set off in Miss Veedol to
complete the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean from
Sabishiro Beach in Misawa City, Japan. A young boy gave Panghorn 5
apples from Misawa City.
(ON, 1/03,
p.10)(www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=7495)
1931 Oct 5, Clyde Pangborn and
Hugh Herndon, Jr. belly landed Miss Veedol, a Bellanca CH-200
monoplane, in Wenatchee, Wa., to complete the first nonstop flight
across the Pacific Ocean from Japan. They won a $25,000 prize from the
Japanese Ashi Shimbun newspaper. Panghorn sent apple cuttings from
Wenatchee's Richard Delicious apples to Japan which were soon
distributed across Japan.
(ON, 1/03,
p.10)(www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=7495)
1931 Sam Hill, railroad magnate,
died. His Maryhill Museum was dedicated on his birthday in 1940.
(AM, 9/01, p.10)(AH, 6/02, p.14)
1933 Dec, Excavation began for the
Grand Coulee Dam in Central Washington. The Columbia River dam was
completed in 1941. In 1954 Murray Morgan (1916-2000) authored “The
Dam,” a historical overview of the dam.
(www.users.owt.com/chubbard/gcdam/)
1934 Jul 29, The West Coast
longshoremen’s strike came to an end on its 82nd day when the dock
workers’ leaders accepted conditions proposed by the National
Longshoremen’s board, pending arbitration. Men returned to work on July
31.
(SSFC, 7/26/09, DB
p.42)(www.lib.washington.edu/exhibits/STRIKES!/exh.html)
1935 July 4, The re-designed
Peralta ferry from SF Bay was launched by Captain Alexander Peabody,
head of the Black Ball Line. He had the ship streamlined and sheathed
in aluminum. A curved lunch counter, Art Deco bar and dance floor was
added and the ship was renamed the Kalakala, "Flying Bird." The ship
was retired in 1967 and sold to an Alaskan firm which used it as a
floating crab processing plant. In 1998 it was returned to Seattle by
Peter Bevis and slated for refurbishing by the Kalakala Foundation.
(SFC, 12/26/98, p.A24)
1936 Jun 21, Pan Am and Boeing
signed a $3 million contract for 6 Model 314 aircraft, the largest ever
built in the US.
(SFEM, 2/13/00, p.38)
1937 Pres. Roosevelt paid a visit
to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. Some 3 thousand school
children gathered to urge him establish Olympic National Park.
(NG, 7/04, p.70)
1938 May 26, William Elden Bolcom,
composer (Oracles), was born in Seattle, Washington.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1938 Jun 29, Mesa Verde National
Park, Colorado, and Olympic National Park, Washington, were founded.
(HN, 6/29/01)
1938 Dec 29, Construction on Lake
Washington Floating Bridge, Seattle, began.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1938 Recreational Equipment Inc.
(REI) was founded as a basement co-op by Seattle area mountain-climbing
buddies. It was based in Kent, Wa. By 2006 it had 82 stores and cleared
$1 billion in 2005 sales.
(SFC, 2/11/03, p.B1)(SSFC, 3/26/06, p.C5)
1939 Mar 3, Eleanor Roosevelt
christened Pan Am's new Boeing built Yankee Clipper.
(SFEM, 2/13/00, p.38)
1939 May 1, Judy Collins, singer
(Send in the Clowns, Clouds), was born in Seattle, Wash.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1940 May 13, The completed
Maryhill Museum opened on founder Sam Hill’s (d.1931), birthday. Much
of the art collection was donated by Alma de Bretteville Spreckels,
wife of the California sugar magnate.
(AM, 9/01, p.10)
1940 Jul 1, The Tacoma Narrows
Bridge in Washington state opened to the public. The initial design by
Clark Eldridge had been redesigned by NYC consultant Leo Moisseiff, who
replaced a 25-foot deep stiffening truss with an 8-foot truss to reduce
costs.
(ON, 6/09, p.8)
1940 Jul 2, The Lake Washington
Floating bridge in Seattle was dedicated.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1940 Nov 7, The middle section of
the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state, nicknamed "Galloping
Gertie," collapsed during a windstorm. In 1950 a new fortified bridge
was built on the original piers.
(AP, 11/7/08)(ON, 6/09, p.9)
1941 Mar 22, The Grand Coulee Dam
in Washington state went into operation.
(AP, 3/22/01)
1942 Nov 27, Jimi Hendrix, rock
musician famous for "All Along the Watch Tower" and "Foxy Lady," was
born in Seattle, Wa.
(HN, 11/27/98)(SFC, 11/28/02, p.E13)
1943 The Hanford nuclear
reservation was constructed for the Manhattan Project. Hanford made
plutonium until the 1980s.
(SFC, 4/10/99, p.A7)
1943 Harold LeMay (d.2000 at 81)
founded his Pierce County Refuse Co. and built it into Lemay
Enterprises, the 10th largest trash removal company in the country. He
went on to collect some 2,400 vintage automobiles.
(SFC, 11/8/00, p.B7)
1944 Aug 14, In Seattle, Wa., a
riot took place at Fort Lawton, following a scuffle between an
Italian prisoner and a black soldier. POW Guglielmo Olivotto was found
hanged the next day. In an ensuing trial 28 men were convicted. In 2005
Jack Hamann and his wife Leslie authored “On American Soil,“ which
covered the riot and the subsequent events. The convictions of the
soldiers were overturned based largely on shortcomings in the
prosecution described in the book.
(SFC, 7/28/08,
p.A4)(www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=7378)
1944-1972 Radioactive releases from the Hanford
Nuclear Reservation were the heaviest over this period. The releases
were only acknowledged in 1987.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.A18)
1947 Jun 24, Flying saucers were
"sighted" over Mount Rainier by pilot Ken Arnold.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1948 Jan 7, Kenny Loggins, singer
(& Messina-This is it, Footloose), was born in Everett, WA.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1948 Clara Fraser (d.1998 at 74),
led a strike against Boeing and pressured the union to represent women
and minorities. After the strike she was blacklisted and hounded from
job to job by the FBI.
(SFC, 4/15/98, p.C3)
1949 Ray Charles made his debut
recording of "Confession Blues" in Seattle.
(SFC, 4/15/99, p.E9)
1950 Luke Williams (d.2004) and
his brother Chuck invented a time-temperature sign that later became
common on office buildings throughout the world. The 1st one was placed
on a bank in downtown Spokane, Wa. In 1951 they formed American Sign
and Indicator.
(ST, 4/6/04, p.B5)
1949 A 7.1 slab earthquake hit
beneath Olympia, Wa. It was the most damaging trembler of the century
but few lives were lost.
(SFC, 1/18/01, p.A15)
1950 Aug 14, Gary Larson,
cartoonist (Far Side), was born in Tacoma, Washington.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Larson)
1950 Oct 14, In Washington state
westbound traffic opened on the new fortified bridge over the Tacoma
Narrows. The new design was approved after a model passed wind tunnel
tests designed by engineering Prof. Frederick Burt Farquharson.
(ON, 6/09,
p.8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge)
1950 Edwin O. Guthman (1919-2008)
received the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for his stories in
the Seattle Times on the Washington legislature’s Un-American
Activities Committee.
(SFC, 9/2/08, p.B3)
1951 Jul 18, Pope Pius XII
established the Archdiocese of Seattle and named Rev. Thomas A.
Connolly as its 1st archbishop.
(SFC, 7/13/01, WBb p.6)
1952 Mar 14, An operator
accidentally opened an outlet tube gate valve at the Grand Coulee Dam.
Water entered the powerhouses and the dam was seriously threatened. Dam
operators managed to shut off the water and saved the dam.
(www.users.owt.com/chubbard/gcdam/)
1953 Jul 22, The Theodore Hamm
Brewing Co. of St. Paul, Minn., purchased the Rainier Brewing Co. at
1550 Bryant St., SF, for $1,809,937. The trade name had already been
sold to Sick Brewery Enterprises of Seattle.
(SFC, 7/18/03, p.E5)
1955 Mar 31, US Assay Office in
Seattle, Washington, closed.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1957 Mar 20, In Washington state
the Dalles Dam pushed back the Columbia River to reap the benefits of
hydroelectric power. In six hours the islands of Celilo Falls were gone
forever beneath a mockingly tranquil reservoir pool.
(AP, 3/3/07)
1957 Reporters William Lambert
(d.1998 at 78) and Wallace Turner won a Pulitzer Prize for
investigative reporting for their series on Dave Beck, the president of
the Int’l. Brotherhood of Teamsters. They exposed that Teamsters and
racketeers had combined forces to take over the Portland City
government. The articles in the Oregonian were later used by Robert
Kennedy for his probe on the Teamsters.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.A22)
1958 Sep, A Navy plane crashed
during a training mission in Washington’s Puget Sound. The plane
carried an unarmed nuclear weapon that was never found.
(SFEC, 11/22/98, Par p.22)
1961 May 22, The 1st revolving
restaurant, Top of The Needle in Seattle, opened.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1962 A World’s Fair opened in
Seattle under the theme "Century 21." The fair featured a 0ne-mile
monorail between downtown and the City Center.
(SFEC,12/797, p.A9)
1962 The Columbia Winery in
Woodinville was founded. It is the oldest winery in the state.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, p.T3)
1962 Monte Holm, a former hobo,
opened his House of Poverty Museum in Moses Lake. In 1999 he published
the autobiography "Once a Hobo…" with Dennis L. Clay.
(SFC, 11/29/99, p.A3,5)
1963 Feb 9, 1st flight of Boeing
727 jet.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1963 Aug 28, Evergreen Point
Floating Bridge connecting Seattle & Bellevue opened.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1963 William L. Dwyer, Seattle
trial lawyer, defended John Goldmark from accusations of being a
Communist. Dwyer later authored "The Goldmark Case: An American Liber
Trial."
(SFC, 2/18/02, p.B6)
1963 L.M. Boyd began a column of
odds and ends for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. It was picked up by
the SF Chronicle in 1968 and called "The Grab Bag." Boyd retired at the
end of 2000 after 40 years of writing.
(SFC, 12/30/00, p.D3)
1964 Bill Kirschner (1918-2006),
Washington state manufacturer of fiberglass products, began producing
the first fiberglass skis.
(SFC, 5/2/06, p.B5)
1965 Apr 29, Seattle experienced
an earthquake. 7 people were killed and damage was estimated at $12.5
million.
(http://neic.usgs.gov)
1966-1984 Henry Holt (d.1997 at 63) served as the
director of the Seattle Opera.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A23)
1967 Feb 20, Kurt Cobain, Nirvana
grunge band musician, was born in Aberdeen, Washington. He was found
dead at his Lake Washington home on April 8, 1994, of suicide committed
about April 5.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Cobain)
1967 Apr 9, The 1st Boeing 737-100
made its maiden flight.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737)
1968 Sep 30, The 1st Boeing 747
was rolled out of the Everett, Wa., assembly building.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747)
1968 Oct 2, Pres. Johnson signed a
bill establishing Washington state’s North Cascades National Park.
(SSFC, 7/18/04,
p.D7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Cascades_National_Park)
1968 Oct 2, The 2,650-mile Pacific
Crest Trail, spanning Mexico to Canada, was designated a National
Scenic Trail as part of the US National Trails System Act.
{USA, California, Oregon, Washington}
(SFC, 7/16/08,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Crest_Trail)
1969 Feb 9, The Boeing 747, the
world's largest airplane, made its 1st commercial flight.
(www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_milestones.html)
1969 Jul 25, Some 70,000 attended
the Seattle Pop Festival. The music festival, organized by Boyd
Grafmyrem, was held at the Gold Creek Park, Woodinville, Washington,
from July 25 to July 28, 1969.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Pop_Festival)
1969 A government clerk in the
Bureau of Indian Affairs dropped the Samish Indian nation from the list
of recognized tribes. In 2002 the tribe, native to the San Juan Islands
and western Skagit County of Washington state, sued for recognition and
damages.
(SFC, 10/18/02, p.J8)
1970 Jan 17, Silas Trim Bissell
(d.2002) and his wife Judith, Weathermen underground members, set a
homemade bomb under the steps of the ROTC building at Washington State
Univ. It failed to go off and both were caught. Bissel went underground
but was caught and served 17 months in Lompoc (1987-1988).
(SFC, 6/24/02, p.B6)
1970 The Seattle Pilots baseball
team after one season moved to Milwaukee and became the Brewers.
(WSJ, 4/7/99, p.B1)
1970 Jacob Lawrence (d.2000 at
82), painter of the African-American experience, became an art
professor at the Univ. of Washington.
(SFC, 6/10/00, p.A23)
1971 Jul 1, The state of
Washington became the 1st US state to ban sex discrimination.
(http://amiannoying.com/(S(01543u55fxileom1lbr04z2u))/view.aspx?ID=6957)
1971 Nov 24, On Thanksgiving eve
DB Cooper boarded Flight 305 in Portland, Or., and demanded $200,000
with the threat of a bomb. He parachuted from a Northwest Airlines 727
with the money over the Cascade Mountains near Ariel, Wash., and was
never seen again. FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach wrote the book
NORJAK that described the case. A packet containing $5,880 of the
ransom money was found in 1980 on the north shore of the Columbia
River, just west of the Washington city of Vancouver.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, Z1 p.5)(AP, 11/24/97)
1971 The Washington Senators, a
baseball expansion team, came to the nation’s capital. After the 1971
season, those Senators moved to Texas and became the Texas Rangers. In
the 30 years since then, Washington, D.C., has not had the Senators or
any other Major League baseball team.
(HNQ, 6/29/01)
1971 Starbucks began in Seattle as
a single coffee shop. Gordon Bowker, Zev Siegl and Jerry Baldwin,
former students of the Univ. of SF, opened Starbuck's Coffee, Tea and
Spice with coffee supplied from Peet's Coffee in Berkeley. Howard
Schultz, a marketing director hired in 1982, later published "Pour Your
Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time."
Schultz bought Starbucks in 1987. The company went public in 1992. By
1996 there were 1,115 stores. By 2006 there were 10,500 locations
around the world.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.C6)(SFEM, 8/1/99, p.8)(Econ,
2/25/06, p.72)
1972 Nov 2, In Seattle, Wa.,
ground was officially broken for the new Kingdome. It was completed in
1976. It was destroyed Mar 26, 2000.
(http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Field/3477/kingdome/history.htm)
1972 Alfred McKenzie, a former
Tuskegee Airman and current pressman for the Government Printing
Office, filed suit contending that he and fellow black employees had
long been passed over for promotions that went to whites. After many
appeals the suit was won and in 1987 the office agreed to pay $2.4
million in back wages to several hundred employees.
(SFC, 4/11/98, p.A15)
1972 Washington state’s Highway
72, dubbed the North Cascades Scenic Highway, opened.
(SSFC, 7/18/04, p.D8)
1973 The TV "Frugal Gourmet" show
began in Tacoma, Wa., with minister Jeff Smith (1939-2004) and then
went national on PBS.
(SFC, 7/30/01,
p.E1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Smith_(TV_personality))
1973 The Kronos Quartet was
founded in Seattle by violinist David Harrington. The original group
included, Harrington, violist Hank Dutt, violinist John Sherba, and
cellist Joan Jeanrenaud.
(SFC, 1/22/03, p.D1)
1973 The Picardo Farm P-Patch was
established north of the Univ. of Washington as a community garden.
(SFC, 1/24/00, p.A3)
1974 Feb 1, Lynda Ann Healy, 1st
Bundy murder victim, was abducted in Seattle.
(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6664381)
1974 Mar 12, Bundy victim
Donna Manson (b.1954) disappeared from Evergreen State College in
Olympia, Wa.
(www.doenetwork.org/cases/565dfwa.html)
1974 Apr 17, Ted Bundy victim
Susan Rancourt disappeared from CWU, Ellensburg, WA.
(www.real-crime.co.uk/Murder1/VICKR.HTML#Rancourt,%20Susan)
1974 Jun 11, Georgann Hawkins,
Bundy victim, disappeared from UW, in Seattle, Wash.
(www.charleyproject.org/cases/h/hawkins_georgeann.html)
1974 Jul 14, Bundy victims Janice
Ott and Denise Naslund disappeared at Lake Sammamish, WA.
(http://usersites.horrorfind.com/home/horror/drlarry/bundy3.htm)
1976 Mar 27, Washington, D.C.
opened its subway system.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1977 Apr 6, The Seattle Kingdome
opened and the Mariners lost their to Angels 7-0. The Seattle Mariners
baseball team were created following the 1970 departure of the
1-year-old Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee.
(SFC, 2/18/02, p.B6)(WSJ, 4/7/99, p.B1)(MC, 4/6/02)
1977-1981 Dixie Lee Ray served as the Democratic
governor.
(SFC, 11/22/99, p.A9)
1978 May 13, Henry Rono
(b.1952) of Kenya, running for Washington State Univ., set an NCAA
record for 3,000 meter steeplechase (8:05.4).
(www.lewrockwell.com/englund/englund39.html)
1978 Oct 12, Representatives of
Israel and Egypt opened talks in Washington.
(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/time70s.html#1978)
1979 Jan 12, Kenneth Bianchi, LA's
Hillside Strangler, was arrested in Bellingham, Wa. He and his cousin
Angelo Buono (d.2002 at 67) sexually assaulted and murdered as man as
13 young women (12-28) in 1977-1978, and dumping their bodies on
LA-area hillsides. Bianchi testified against Buono to escape the death
penalty. Buono was convicted on 9 of 10 murder counts and was sentenced
to life in prison
(SSFC, 9/22/02, p.A7)(SFC, 10/1/02, p.A17)
1979 Mar 4, Willi Unsoeld,
mountain climber, died in an avalanche on Mt. Rainier, Wa. In 2002
Robert Roper authored "Fatal Mountaineer: The High Altitude Life and
Death of Willi Unsoeld, American Himalayan Legend."
(SSFC, 3/29/02,
p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willi_Unsoeld)
1979 Sep 26, The body of a young
woman was found in Blackie’s Pasture in Tiburon, Ca., She had been
stabbed over 40 times with an ice pick and burned. In 2007 DNA evidence
identified her as Tammy Vincent (17). She had testified this year
against several people arrested during a raid in SeaTac, Wash., of 2
establishments believed to be prostitution fronts.
(SFC, 10/2/07, p.B2)
1980 Mar 20, Mount St. Helens was
shaken by a 4.0 earthquake.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1980 Mar 27, Mount St. Helens,
dormant for 123 years, erupted with ash and steam. A crater formed at
the summit and the north flank began to bulge.
(SFEC, 8/16/98,
p.A15)(http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2000/fs036-00/)
1980 Apr 3, A state of emergency
was declared in the area of Mount St. Helens as a 2nd crater formed and
the north slope began swelling.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1980 Apr 10, The north slope bulge
extended out 320 feet and grew at a rate of 5 feet per day.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1980 Apr 30, Gov. Dixie Lee Ray
closed the area within 10 miles of Mount St. Helens.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1980 May 18, At 8:32 a.m. Mount
Saint Helens, in Washington, erupted. It burst 3 times in 24 hours
after rumbling for two months and left 57 people dead or missing. The
mountain lost over 1,300 feet of elevation and gained a two-mile-long
and one mile-wide crater.
(AAM, 3/96, p.84)(AP, 5/18/97)(SFEC, 8/16/98,
p.A15)(HN, 5/18/02)
1980 May 25, Mount St. Helens
erupted again and deposited ash over western Washington and Oregon.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1980 Jun 12, A 3rd major eruption
occurred at Mount St. Helens. A lava dome began to form in the crater.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1980 Jun 14, A 4th eruption
blasted through the lava dome at Mount St. Helens.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1980 Aug 7, A 5th major eruption
occurred at Mount St. Helens. [see May 18]
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1980 Oct 17, Mt. St. Helens
erupted 3 times in 24 hours, in Washington. The eruptions had begun May
18.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1980 Oct 18, A 6th major eruption
occurred at Mount St. Helens and a new lava dome emerged that grew to
130 feet by the next day.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1980 The grunge rock group Alice
in Chains produced their debut album "Facelift." One track was titled
"We Die Young." In 2002 Layne Staley (34), lead singer for Alice in
Chains, was found dead in Seattle with obvious signs of drug use.
(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A28)
1981 Apr, Tim Paterson, who wrote
QDOS in 1980, quit Seattle Computer Products and began working at
Microsoft in May. He became best known as the original author of the
popular MS-DOS operating system (1981).
(http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa033099.htm)
1981 Sep 26, The twin-engine
Boeing 767 made its maiden flight in Everett, Wash.
(AP, 9/26/97)
1981 R.M. "Bob" Crane, a manly
florist, founded the Order of the Manly Men in Roslyn.
(WSJ, 6/15/99, p.B1)
1982 Feb 5, The US Forest Service
opened much of the damaged area around Mount St. Helens.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1982 Sep 1, The US Congress
created the 110,000 acre Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1982 Dec 5, The Univ. Baptist
Church in Seattle declared itself a sanctuary for Central American
refugees.
(http://tinyurl.com/3axzxr)
1982-1984 A series of female slayings began in the
Pacific Northwest that totaled as many as 49. 4 deaths were blamed on
the so-called Green River Killer. In 2001 police arrested Gary Ridgeway
(52) on DNA evidence that linked him to 3 dead women.
(SFC, 12/1/01, p.A1)(SSFC, 12/2/01, p.A16)
1983 Feb 13-1983 Feb 14, The
Americus and Altair fishing boats sank in the Bering Sea and 14
fishermen from Anacortes, Wa., died. In 1998 Patrick Dillon authored
"Lost At Sea," an account of the tragedy.
(WSJ, 11/13/98, p.W12)
1983 Feb 19, A shooting at the Wah
Mee gambling parlor in Seattle, Wa., left 13 men dead. Kwan-Fai Mak and
Benjamin Ng were later found guilty on 13 murder counts and sentenced
to life in prison.
(SFC, 7/6/98, p.A7)(SFC, 4/16/07, p.A8)(AP, 2/19/08)
1983 Jul 22, Washington Public
Power Supply System defaulted $2.25 billion.
(www.efsec.wa.gov/nuclearproj.shtml)
1983 Sep 1, Henry "Scoop" Jackson
(b.1912), Sen-D-Wash., died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_M._Jackson)
1983 A judge in Lincoln County,
Wa., adopted a rule that said a court appearance is not required in
uncontested divorces.
(SFC, 5/9/03, p.I7)
1984 Mar 19, The SS Mobil Oil
spilled 200,000 gallons of oil into the Columbia River near Longview.
(http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/96596_timeline21.shtml)
1984 Sep, The US Army Corp of
Engineers began an 8,000 foot tunnel to drain Spirit Lake, damned by
the debris of the eruption at Mount St. Helens.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1984 Dec 8, Robert Matthews
(b.1953), co-founder for the neo-Nazi called The Order, was shot and
killed by FBI agents on Whiebey Island, Washington. His “Silent
Brotherhood” was a small extremist far right group that engaged in a
multistate crime wave in this period. The group was also associated
with the Aryan Nations Church. His life was fictionalized in the TV
movie “Brotherhood of Murder” (1999).
(SFC, 2/20/98,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jay_Mathews)
1984 The Walla Walla Valley wine
appellation in Washington state was established.
(Econ, 5/20/06, p.37)
1985 In Seattle 10 members of a
white supremacist group called the Order were convicted of racketeering
and other charges. They were linked to the ideas of William Pierce in
West Virginia and his book "The Turner Diaries."
(SFC, 7/26/02, p.A26)
1985 In LA Sgt. George Arthur was
murdered in a suspected love triangle. In 1999 Ted Eugene Kirby was
found dead in Spokane after a police warrant was issued for his arrest.
DNA evidence had recently implicated him in the murder of Arthur.
(SFC, 7/15/99, p.A6)
1986 Aug 17, A bronze pig statue
was unveiled at Seattle's Pike Place Market.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1986 Nov 17, Pres. Reagan signed
the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act. It designated over
292,000 acres in Oregon and Washington states as federally regulated
land. Much of the work in getting the act passed was done by Nancy
Russell (d.2008).
(www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/111786a.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/nphxt8)
1986 Dec 12, A $5.3 million Mount
St. Helens National Monument Visitor’s Center opened near Castle Rock.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1987 Aug, Howard Shultz and a
group of investors bought Starbucks from Jerry Baldwin and merged it
with Il Giornale coffee bars. The was the beginning of a rapid
expansion. Baldwin kept Peet's Coffee and a proviso that Starbucks stay
out of the Bay Area until 1992. In 2007 Taylor Clark authored
“Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture.”
(SFEM, 8/1/99, p.8)(SSFC, 11/4/07, p.M1)
1988 Aug 31, A 5-day power
blackout of downtown Seattle began.
(YN, 8/31/99)
1989 Sep 22, The US Army Corp of
Engineers completed a $70 million, 184-foot-high sediment retention dam
across the Toutle River to stop mudflows and debris from Mount St.
Helens.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
1989 A Seattle ballot initiative
limited new buildings in the downtown core to 540 feet and to varying
heights in other parts of the city. In 2006 the City Council repealed
the limits.
(WSJ, 4/5/06, p.B4)
1990 May 5, Five people were
killed as 3 small fishing boats capsized in the Strait of Juan De Fuca,
along the northwest int’l. border between the US and Canada.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.D8)
1991 May 23, Holly Washa (22) of
Burien, Washington, was kidnapped, raped and soon murdered. Cal Coburn
Brown was convicted of murder in 1993 and sentenced to death in 1994.
In 2009 the Washington supreme Court granted a last minute reprieve and
postponed his execution, which would have been the state’s first since
2001.
(SFC, 3/13/09, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/alz33r)
1991 Nov 18, Peter Zeihen (40) was
shot to death by his mother-in-law, JoAnn Goldberg Peterson, in Spokane
a week before a custody trial over his 3-year-old daughter. Details of
the case were kept hidden until revealed in 2000 by Theil T. Goldberg,
Zeihen's brother-in-law.
(SFC, 1/27/00, p.A4)
1991 A new downtown building for
the Seattle Art Museum, designed by Robert Venturi, was completed for
$62 million. In 2004 it began an addition in partnership with
Washington Mutual.
(WSJ, 4/20/04, p.D8)(WSJ, 1/18/07, p.D10)
1991 Frank D. Stout II (d.1998 at
77) made a major donation of his Japanese art to the Seattle Asian Art
Museum.
(SFC, 7/1/98, p.A22)
1991 William L. Dwyer (d.2002),
federal district judge, ordered the government to stop permitting
logging on up to 60,000 acres of ancient forests a year on public land
because it endangered the habitat of the Northern spotted owl.
(SFC, 2/18/02, p.B6)
1992 Feb 10, Alex Haley, author of
"Roots" and co-writer of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," died in
Seattle at age 70. Much of his work was donated to the Univ. of
Tennessee, Knoxville.
(SFC, 12/6/96, p.C15)(AP, 2/10/97)
1992 Mar 1, Sen. Brock Adams
abandoned his re-election campaign after eight women accused him in a
Seattle Times report of sexual abuse and harassment.
(AP, 3/1/02)
1992 Jul 11, Owners approved the
sale of Seattle Mariners to a Japanese group.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1992 Oct 3, William Gates, the
college-dropout founder of Microsoft, headed the Forbes magazine 400
list of the richest Americans with a net worth of 6.3 billion dollars.
His assets reached 51 billion in 2005.
(http://tinyurl.com/8ex5w)(www.forbes.com/lists/2005/54/BH69.html)
1992 The film "Singles" featured
Ally Walker. It depicted friends in their 20s in Seattle.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Par p.14)
1992-1995 In the Pacific Northwest a series of arson
fires at abortion clinics that caused over $1 million in damage was
later attributed to Richard Thomas Andrews of Wenatchee, Wa. Andrews
was arrested Jun 26, 1996 and pleaded guilty in 1998.
(SFC, 2/11/98, p.A7)
1993 Jan 5, The state of
Washington executed Westley Allan Dodd, an admitted child sex killer,
in America's first legal hanging since 1965.
(AP, 1/5/98)
1993 Jul 7, Mia Zapata (27), a
rising punk-rock star, was last seen alive in Seattle. In 2003 Jesus C.
Mezquia (b.1965), who lived in Seattle at the time of the rape and
murder, was arrested in Florida on DNA evidence. On March 25, 2004, a
jury convicted Florida fisherman Jesus Mezquia of her murder and he was
sentenced to 36 years in prison.
(SSFC, 1/12/03,
p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mia_Zapata#Death)
1994 Apr 5, Kurt Cobain (b.1967),
singer-musician for the grunge band Nirvana, committed suicide in
Seattle. [see Apr 8]
(NW, 10/28/02,
p.68)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_)
1994 Apr 8, Kurt Cobain,
singer-musician for the grunge band Nirvana, was found dead in Seattle
of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound; he was 27.
(AP, 4/8/97)(SFEC, 2/2/97, DB. p.52)
1994 Jun 20, Former airman Dean
Allen Mellberg went on a shooting rampage at Fairchild Air Force Base
near Spokane, Wash., killing four people and wounding 22 others before
being killed by a military police sharpshooter.
(AP, 6/20/04)
1994 Former Gov. Dixie Lee Ray
died at age 79.
(SFC, 11/22/99, p.A9)
1994 The Tyee Fire burned 130,000
acres.
(WSJ, 8/6/01, p.A11)
1995 Jun, John Stanford, a retire
2-star Army general. Became the first black school superintendent in
Seattle.
(SFEC, 11/29/98, p.B6)
1995 Sep, In Wenatchee Manuel
Hidalgo Rodriguez (33) was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison for
alleged rape and child molestation. He was one of 43 people charged in
a series of cases that imprisoned 21 people based on charges by 2 girls
aged 10 and 12. Reversals to the convictions began in 1997 and
continued to 1999.
(WSJ, 9/21/99, p.A26)
1995 Jeremy Sagastegui killed
Melissa Sarbacher and raped, tortured and murdered her 3-year-old son.
He also killed a woman friend of Sarbacher. He was scheduled for
execution at Walla Walla in 1998.
(SFC, 10/12/98, p.A7)
1996 Apr 1, In Spokane, Wa., a US
Bank branch was robbed and bombed. In 1997 three members of an
anti-government militia were convicted for this and another robbery and
3 bombings.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.C3)
1996 Jul 12, In Spokane, Wa., a US
Bank branch was robbed a 2nd time and a Planned Parenthood office was
bombed. In 1997 three members of an anti-government militia were
convicted for the robberies and 3 bombings.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.C3)
1996 Jul, A 9,200 year-old
skeleton was found by the Columbia River in Kennewick, Wa. It became
known as the "Kennewick Man" or "Richland Man." A federal judge ruled
in 1998 that scientists be allowed to examine the remains held by the
US Army Corps of Engineers. Native American Indians wanted the remains
buried.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.B9)(SFC, 5/29/98, p.A3)(SFC,
1/14/00, p.A7)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.76)
1996 A worker was accidentally
killed at the Equilon Puget Sound Refining Co. in Anacortes
(SFC, 11/26/98, p.A3)
1997 May 14, There was an
explosion at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Wash. state. Plutonium
and other hazardous chemicals were released and emergency response
procedures broke down almost completely.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun, Voters narrowly approved
a huge public subsidy for Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, for a
new $425 million football stadium. Mr. Allen would pay 25% and the rest
would come from taxpayers.
(WSJ, 6/25/97, p.A22)
1997 Oct 1, The Center for
Nonverbal Studies (CNS), a private, nonprofit research center located
in Spokane, Washington, began operations. The Center's mission is to
advance the study of human communication in all its forms apart from
language. The Center's goal is to promote the scientific study of
nonverbal communication, which includes body movement, gesture, facial
expression, adornment and fashion, architecture, mass media, and
consumer-product design.
(http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/index.htm)
1997 Voters approved a ballot
measure in Seattle to build a $1 billion mass transit system.
(SFEC,12/797, p.A9)
1998 Feb 3, Mary Kay LeTourneau,
36, former Washington state teacher, violated probation with the 14
year-old father of her baby.
(http://tinyurl.com/7smjq)
1998 Feb 6, Washington became the
27th state to ban same-sex marriages.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A3)
1998 Apr 24, The American Health
for Women magazine reported that Seattle was the healthiest city for
women and that SF rated # 2 and Boston # 3.
(SFC, 4/25/98, p.A5)
1998 Apr 27, In Arlington a fire
at a 90-year-old building, used as a home for the elderly, killed 7
residents.
(SFC, 4/29/98, p.A3)
1998 Jun 13, At RFK Stadium a
2-day rock concert to advocate freedom for Tibet was halted due rain
and lightning. Lysa Selton (25) was struck by lightning.
(SFC, 6/15/98, p.A3)
1998 Jul 5, A gang shooting at the
Trang Dai Vietnamese restaurant in Tacoma left 5 people dead and 5
wounded.
(SFC, 7/6/98, p.A7)
1998 Sep, The new $118 million
Benaroya Hall, home for the Seattle Symphony, opened.
(SFC, 8/4/98, p.E1)(SFEC, 7/30/00, p.T8)
1998 Sep, Radioactive red
harvester ants were found underground near waste pipes in Richland.
(SFC, 10/22/98, p.A7)
1998 Oct 1, The Makah Indian gray
whale hunting season opened. The tribe had recently won the right to
kill up to 5 whales a year over the next 4 years. In 2000 a federal
appeals court overturned the ruling that allowed whale hunting.
(SFC, 10/2/98, p.A6)(SFC, 6/10/00, p.A3)
1998 Oct 12, A record 974-pound
pumpkin won the Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, Ca. It was
raised from an Atlantic Giant seed by Lincoln Mettler of Eatonville, Wa.
(SFC, 10/13/98, p.A16)
1998 Nov 24, Bill Gates, chairman
of Microsoft Corp., donated $20 million to the Seattle Public Library
system.
(SFC, 11/24/98, p.A3)
1998 Nov 25, An explosion at the
Equilon Puget Sound Refining Co. at Anacortes killed 6 people.
(SFC, 11/26/98, p.A3)
1998 Nov 27, Mark McLaughlin (44),
a Seattle, Wa., bus driver, was shot and killed while driving his bus
across the Aurora Ave. Bridge over Lake Union. A passenger responsible
for the shooting was also killed when the bus crashed. 29 passengers
were injured. The bus fell 50 feet from the expressway where 3 people
died. The killer, Silas Cool, committed suicide. In 1999 the event was
described by Ann Rule in her book "A Rage to Kill."
(SFC, 11/28/98, p.A3)(WSJ, 11/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 2, Bill Gates of
Microsoft announced a $100 million gift to deliver vaccines against 4
childhood diseases in developing countries. The Seattle non-profit
Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH) would receive the
money over a 10 year period.
(SFC, 12/2/98, p.A3)(WSJ, 12/2/98, p.B6)
1998 The Seattle Museum of Black
Velvet Painting was co-founded by David Price with a mobile collection
partly devoted to Leeteg's work. In 1933 Edgar Leeteg sold his first
painting for $4 and a sandwich.
(WSJ, 2/24/99, p.B1)
1999 Jan 13, A KC-135 refueling
tanker crashed while landing near Geilenkirchen, Germany, and 4 US
airmen were killed. They were attached to an Air national Guard unit
based in Spokane.
(WSJ, 1/14/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 10, The Energy Dept.
announced that 90,000 acres of the security buffer around the Hanford
nuclear reservation would be preserved as a wildlife refuge.
(SFC, 4/10/99, p.A7)
1999 Apr 12, The Snake River in
southeastern Washington state was named as the nation's most endangered
river because of 4 dams that have brought salmon runs to the brink of
extinction.
(SFC, 4/12/99, p.A19)
1999 Apr 22, Seattle teachers went
on a one-day strike and appealed to the Legislature for a 15% wage hike.
(SFC, 4/23/99, p.D4)
1999 May 17, In Neah Bay,
Washington state, Makah Indian hunters legally killed their first gray
whale in 75 years.
(SFC, 5/18/99, p.A3)
1999 May 28, In Shoreline a man
fled a hit-and-run freeway accident into a neighborhood where he killed
one elderly woman and broke the neck of another before he was killed by
a police sniper shot.
(SFC, 5/29/99, p.A3)
1999 May 30, The Waldorf Towers in
downtown Seattle were demolished by implosion. The 4th floor fell out
onto Pike St.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.A3)
1999 Jun 11, In Bellingham 88,000
gallons of gasoline from the Olympic spilled into a creek and exploded
after about 15 minutes. Two boys, Wade King (10) and Stephen Tsiorvas
(10), and Liam Wood (18) were killed in the resulting fireball. Wade
and Stephen ignited the fire while playing with a lighter.
(SFC, 6/12/99, p.A3)(SFC, 6/18/99, p.A3)
1999 Jul 15, The first baseball
game, Mariners vs. Padres, in the new $498 million SAFECO baseball park
was scheduled. The name was purchased for $1.8 million per year for 20
years by the Seattle-based insurance and financial services
corporation. Cost overruns raised the initial $250 estimate to $517
million.
(WSJ, 5/10/99, p.A21)(SFC, 7/15/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 16, A fire in Spokane
destroyed most of a downtown city block and left 108 people
homeless.
(SFC, 7/17/99, p.A2)
1999 Aug 8, The "Picardo Venus"
sculpture by Steve Anderson was unveiled at the Picardo Farm P-Patch.
The naked, pregnant, and dreadlocked Venus was soon called pornographic
and unfit for the location, which is near a children's play area.
(SFC, 1/24/00, p.A3)
1999 Aug, Mark Erickson, an
employee at the University of Washington, filed a suit alleging massive
overbilling of Medicare and Medicaid by UW doctors. In 2004 UW agreed
to pay the government $35 million to resolved the allegations.
(ST, 4/30/04, p.A1)
1999 Nov 3, In Seattle a gunman
killed 2 men, wounded 2 others at the Northlake Shipyard building and
then escaped into a nearby residential area. Kevin William Cruz, a
fired employee, was arrested Jan 4, 2000 for the murder.
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A3)(SFC, 1/800, p.A5)
1999 Nov 29, In Seattle as many as
50,000 protestors gathered to oppose "the march of corporate
globalization."
(WSJ, 11/30/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 30, In Seattle riot
police struggled with thousands of protestors who forced the World
Trade Organization to cancel the opening session of a 3-day summit
meeting. Mayor Paul Schell declared a state of emergency and a night
curfew and Gov. Gary Locke called in some 200 unarmed National Guard.
(SFC, 12/1/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 1, The WTO met in Seattle
for global trade talks to be known as the Seattle Round. A massive
"mobilization against globalization" was also planned by activists. The
134-nation WTO began meeting in Seattle for a round of global trade
talks under the proposed names "Millennium Round" or "Clinton Round."
The purpose of the talks was to reduce tariffs and subsidies and to
open markets. The last Uruguay Round lasted for nearly 8 years. Pres.
Clinton spoke and urged the WTO to listen to the demands of protestors.
Thousands demonstrated on labor and environmental issues and hundreds
were arrested.
(WSJ, 7/16/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/29/99, p.A1)(SFC,
12/2/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 3, The WTO negotiations
in Seattle collapsed with no agreement reached on an agenda for talks.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 7, Norm Stamper, police
chief, announced that he would resign so as to "de-politicize"
investigations over police actions during the WTO meeting.
(SFC, 12/8/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 14, In Seattle Ahmed
Ressam (32), an Algerian, was arrested after crossing the border at
Port Angeles from Canada with a car trunk with over 150 pounds of
bomb-making materials that included 200 pounds of urea, timing devices
and a bottle of RDX, cyclotrimethylene trinitramine. Canadian
authorities later issued an arrest warrant for Abdelmajed Dahoumane for
possessing or making explosives. Dahoumane was arrested in Algeria In
Oct, 2000. In 2001 Ressam admitted that he planned to detonate a bomb
at the LA Int’l. Airport. Mokhtar Haouari provided fake ID and $3,000
to Ressam. Haouari was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2002. In 2005
Ressam was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/20/99, p.D3)(SFC,
12/25/99, p.A3)(SFC, 12/30/99, p.A5)(SFC, 12/7/00, p.C10)(SFC, 5/30/01,
p.A5)(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A12)(SFC, 7/28/05, p.A3)
1999 Dec 22, An Algerian
accused of trying to smuggle nitroglycerin and other bomb-making
materials into the United States from Canada pleaded innocent in
Seattle to all five counts of a federal indictment. Ahmed Ressam was
convicted in April 2001 of terrorist conspiracy and eight other charges.
(AP, 12/22/04)
1999 Dec 28, Officials in Seattle
canceled a public New Year's Eve celebration due to security concerns.
(SFC, 12/29/99, p.A3)
2000 Jan 10, Authorities found 14
Chinese stowaways with 3 men dead hidden in a cargo ship container at
the Port of Seattle. Another 19 men were found the next day. A total of
203 people were caught over the last year hidden in containers in US
and Canadian ports.
(SFC, 1/12/00, p.A1,6)
2000 Jan 31, Alaska Airlines
Flight 261, an MD-83 jet with 88 people bound for Seattle from Puerto
Vallarta, Mexico, crashed about 2.7 miles north of Anacapa Island, Ca.
There were no survivors. A stop had been scheduled in SF.
(SFC, 2/1/00,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261)
2000 Feb 9, In Renton, Wa., some
17,000 Boeing engineers and technical workers went on strike in one of
the biggest white-collar strikes in US history.
(SFC, 2/10/00, p.A9)
2000 Mar 9, The Snake river was
declared the most endangered river in the US for the 2nd year in a row.
(SFC, 3/10/00, p.D2)
2000 Mar 17, Boeing Co. agreed to
settle a 38-day strike by its engineers. It was the largest
white-collar walkout in US history.
(SFC, 3/18/00, p.A2)
2000 Mar 26, The Seattle Kingdome
was blown up in a controlled implosion. The 7.9 acre roof collapsed in
less than 20 seconds.
(WSJ, 5/10/99, p.A21)(SFC, 3/27/00, p.A4)
2000 Apr 17, In Spokane, Wa.,
Robert L. Yates Jr., a National Guardsman and the father of 5, was
arrested for the murder of a 16-year-old prostitute and suspected in
the murder of as many as 17 other slayings in Washington state. On Oct
16 Yates agreed to plead guilty to 13 murders to avoid the death
penalty. He was sentenced to 408 years in prison.
(SFC, 4/20/00, p.A10)(SFC, 10/17/00, p.A12)(AP,
4/18/01)
2000 Jun 21, Alan Hovhaness,
composer, died at age 89. His over 400 works included 9 operas, 2
ballets and over 60 symphonies.
(SFC, 6/23/00, p.d6)
2000 Jun 23, The new $250 million,
140,000-sq.-foot Experience Music Project opened in Seattle. It was
funded by Paul G. Allen, designed by Frank Gehry and dedicated to the
celebration of creativity in music.
(SFC, 4/15/99, p.E8)(SFC, 6/22/00, p.A1)
2000 Jun 30, In Richland a 190,000
acre 4-day fire that raced across nearly half of the Hanford nuclear
complex was all but extinguished.
(SFC, 7/1/00, p.A3)
2000 Nov 21, Newspaper Guild
members of the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer went on
strike.
(SFC, 11/22/00, p.A3)
2000 Nov 22, Democrat Maria
Cantwell claimed victory for a Senate seat over Republican incumbent
Slade Gorton. This raised the next US Senate’s female count to 13.
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.A3)
2000 Nov 24, Striking workers
produced their 1st edition in competition with the Seattle Times and
Post-Intelligencer.
(SFC, 11/25/00, p.A7)
2000 Dec 6, Washington welcomed 2
young giant pandas on a 10-year loan from China, Mei Jiang (beautiful
fragrance) and Tian Tian (more and more).
(WSJ, 12/6/00, p.A1)
2000 Dec 20, It was reported that
four-fifths of the salmon spawning in the last free-flowing reach of
the Columbia River had reverted to female sex for unknown reasons.
Water temperature and environmental pollutants were suspect.
(SFC, 12/20/00, p.C3)
2000 Dec 28, Union employees of
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer accepted a contract following a 5-week
strike.
(SFC, 12/29/00, p.A3)
2001 Jan 4, The Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation announced a private scholarship program with $100
million to help low income students go to college.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.A6)
2001 Jan 4, Striking Seattle Times
employees agreed to a tentative settlement of their 45-day walkout.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.A2)
2001 Jan 15, In Seattle a truck
crashed into the Pergola in Pioneer Square and destroyed the 1909
landmark.
(SFC, 1/16/01, p.C2)
2001 Feb 26, Leo Kenney, a leading
artist of the Northwest School of Painters, died at age 75. He never
tried to reproduce reality except in a few portraits of friends and was
influenced by Dali’s autobiography and the poems of Andre Breton.
(SFC, 3/7/01, p.C2)
2001 Feb 28, In Washington state a
6.8 magnitude slab earthquake shook Seattle. It was centered 32.6 miles
below the surface along the boundary of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate
and the continental North American plate. Damages were later estimated
at $1.5-2 billion.
(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/2/01, p.A1)(SFC, 1/5/02,
p.A4)
2001 Mar 21, Boeing announced
plans to move its headquarters out of Seattle.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.E1)
2001 Apr 3, A US fishing boat, the
Arctic Rose out of Seattle, sank in the Bering Sea and all 15 aboard
were feared dead.
(WSJ, 4/4/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 14, The 21 men and 3
women crew of the US spy plane, detained in China for 11 days, returned
home to Washington state.
(SSFC, 4/15/01, p.A1)
2001 May 1, In Seattle Hindus
filed a suit against McDonald’s for nondisclosure of beef flavoring in
French fries.
(SSFC, 5/20/01, p.A9)
2001 May 24, A series of small
earthquakes began in Spokane and 75 were recorded by late November.
(SFC, 11/29/01, p.E1)
2001 Jul 10, In Seattle the
American League beat the National League 4:1 in the annual All-Star
game at Safeco Field.
(SFC, 7/11/01, p.A1)
2001 Jul 11, A wildfire killed 2
male and 2 female firefighters in the Chewuch River Valley of the north
Cascade Mountains.
(SFC, 7/12/01, p.A3)
2001 Sep 12, In Mexico a
twin-engine LET 410 plane crashed in the Yucatan and all 19 people
aboard were killed. The 16 passengers were all Seattle-area tourists on
a Holland America cruise.
(SFC, 9/13/01, p.C3)(SFC, 9/14/01, p.A32)
2001 Oct 11, Tom Wales (49), a
Seattle federal prosecutor, was gunned down in his home office.
(SFC, 10/20/01, p.A17)
2001 Nov 30, Gary Leon Ridgway
(b.1949) was arrested in connection with 4 of 7 Green River serial
killings in Washington state. Four murders were linked to him through
DNA and three through paint he used at his job. In 2003 he pleaded
guilty to 48 counts of aggravated murder, although the estimates ran
much higher. On December 18, 2003, King County Superior Court Judge
Richard Jones sentenced Ridgway to 48 life sentences with no
possibility of parole and one life sentence, to be served consecutively.
(AP,
11/30/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Ridgway#Victims)
2002 Mar 6, The Bush
administration announced an additional $450 million to speed the
cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation by 35-45 years.
(SFC, 3/7/02, p.A4)
2002 Mar 28, The last Boeing 307
Stratoline crash-landed in the water in Puget Sound near Seattle. 4
people aboard were rescued.
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A3)
2002 Apr 19, Layne Staley (34),
lead singer for Alice in Chains, was found dead in Seattle with obvious
signs of drug use.
(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A28)
2002 Jul 6, In Tacoma, Wa., the
new Museum of Glass: International Center for Contemporary Art opened.
It was designed by Arthur Erickson.
(WSJ, 7/23/02, p.D8)
2002 Sep 2, Consolidated
Freightways Corp. of Vancouver, Wa., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
and laid off 15,500 people nationwide.
(SFC, 9/3/02, p.A4)
2002 Sep 23, Rachel Burkheimer
(18) of Marysville, Wa., was shot to death by her boyfriend John
Anderson. On Oct 5 Matthew Durham led police to her body. 8 people were
later arrested for her murder. In 2004 Yusef Jihad, head of a gang
involved in the killing, was convicted of 1st degree murder. Anderson
was convicted of aggravated 1st degree murder on May 19, 2004. In 2004
Tony Williams (22) was sentenced to 9 years in prison and Maurice Rivas
(20) to 26 years.
(ST, 4/6/04, p.B5)(ST, 5/20/04, p.B1)(ST, 7/29/04,
p.B1)
2002 Oct 20, The Galaxy fishing
ship, ported in Seattle, exploded and burned 750 miles SW of Alaska. 1
man was killed and 2 were missing.
(WSJ, 10/22/02, p.A1)
2002 Nov 4, Eagle Scout Darrell
Lambert (19) of Port Orchard, Wa., was told to leave the Boy Scout
organization due to his atheist belief. "The Boy Scouts is a
faith-based organization and the issue of God is not negotiable." He
was given 1 week to declare belief in a higher power.
(SSFC, 11/3/02, p.A5)(SFC, 11/5/02, p.A5)
2002 Dec 19, Sen. Patty Murray of
Washington told high school students that Osama bin Laden was popular
in poor countries because of his charitable works and challenged the US
to do the same.
(SFC, 12/21/02, p.A3)
2002 Voters approved construction
of a 14-mile monorail for Seattle, Wa.
(Econ, 7/2/05, p.33)
2003 Mar 16, In the Gaza Strip
Rachel Corrie (23) of Washington State was crushed to death by and
Israeli Army bulldozer as she tried to block the demolition of
Palestinian homes.
(SFC, 3/17/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 26, In Washington state
Crystal Brame (35), the wife of Tacoma Police Chief David Brame (44),
was in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head after being
shot by her husband, who then turned the gun on himself.
(AP, 4/27/03)
2003 Sep 11, The Seattle
Archdiocese agreed to pay $7.87 million to settle lawsuits brought by
15 men who said they were molested by the same priest.
(SFC, 9/12/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 5, In Seattle, Wa., Gary
Leon Ridgeway pleaded guilty 48 consecutive times for the Green River
murders that began in 1982. On Dec 18 he was sentenced to 48
consecutive life terms and ordered to pay $480,000.
(SFC, 11/6/03, p.A1)(SFC, 12/19/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 9, Endpcnoise.com, a
Vancouver, Washington-based custom outlet, was reported to specialize
in creating nearly silent PCs. These PCs can drop their noise levels to
25 or 26 decibels, while a human's lowest hearing threshold is
generally considered to be about 20 decibels. A busy road is about 80
decibels and a quiet bedroom at night is about 30 decibels.
(Reuters, 11/9/03)(www.endpcnoise.com)
2003 Dec 18, A judge in Seattle
sentenced confessed Green River Killer Gary Ridgway to 48 consecutive
life terms.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2003 Dec 23, A cow, slaughtered in
Washington state on Dec 9, was reported to have tested positive for mad
cow disease, the 1st such US case. The $2.6 billion beef export
industry was hit as 7 nations quickly suspended imports of US beef:
Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and
Australia. The infected Holstein was imported into the United States
from Canada about two years ago. A US beef recall soon spread to 8
states and Guam.
(AP, 12/24/03)(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A1)(AP,
12/27/03)(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Paul Allen, co-founder of
Microsoft Corp., established the Allen Institute for Brain Science in
Seattle, Wa., with a $100 million gift.
(SFC, 9/27/06, p.A9)
2004 Feb 7, John Kerry scored
decisive wins in Michigan and Washington state.
(AP, 2/8/04)
2004 Mar 7, Seattle's mayor said
the city will begin recognizing the marriages of gay employees who tie
the knot elsewhere, although it will not conduct its own same-sex
weddings.
(AP, 3/8/04)
2004 May 23, Seattle’s new $165
million downtown Central Library, designed by Rem Koolhaas, officially
opened.
(SFC, 5/21/04, p.W1)(WSJ, 1/13/05, p.D8)
2004 Jul 8, Some 50 homeless
people abandoned a tent city in downtown Spokane after Mayor Jim West
ordered police to surround the encampment and arrest anyone who
wouldn’t leave.
(USAT, 7/9/04, p.3A)
2004 Jul 19, A 3-day meeting of
the US National Governors Association ended in Seattle.
(SFC, 7/19/04, p.A7)
2004 Aug 4, Former teacher Mary
Kay Letourneau, convicted of having sex with a sixth-grade pupil, was
released from a Washington state prison.
(AP, 8/4/05)
2004 Sep 4, San Francisco’s De La
Salle High School lost its 1st football game since 1992 to the Bellevue
High Wolverines in Washington State, ending a winning streak of 151
games.
(SFC, 9/6/04, p.B1)
2004 Oct 1, Mount St. Helens
quieted down after spewing a plume of steam and ash, but only briefly.
Within hours of the eruption, seismic readings suggested pressure was
building again inside the volcano, which had been dormant for 18 years.
(AP, 10/2/04)
2004 Oct 12, The Seattle Storm won
their first WNBA title with a 74-60 victory over the Connecticut Sun.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2004 Nov 17, In Washington state a
recount was ordered in the governor’s race between Christine Gregoire
and Dino Rossi. The Nov 2 balloting left them separated by just a few
of 2.8 million votes cast. A hand tally looked likely after a machine
recount showed Rossi 42 votes ahead. After three counts of the ballots,
Gregoire was declared the winner by just 129 votes out of 2.9 million
cast.
(SFC, 11/18/04, p.A5)(WSJ, 11/26/04, p.A1)(AP,
11/17/05)
2004 Dec 23, Washington state
election officials announced that Democratic candidate Christine
Gregoire was the winner in the governor’s race by 130 votes, out of 2.9
million ballots cast, over her Republican opponent Dino Rossi.
(SFC, 12/24/04, p.A3)(AP, 12/23/05)
2004 Dec 30, Washington Sec. of
State Sam Reed certified Democratic candidate Christine Gregoire as
winner in the governor’s race by 129 votes over Republican opponent
Dino Rossi.
(SFC, 12/31/04, p.A2)
2005 Jan 22, It was reported that
a mutant of the sudden oak pathogen was found in a nursery in
Washington state. Phytopthora ramorum was believed to be the result of
a union between California and European strains.
(SFC, 1/22/05, p.B1)
2005 May, The Spokane Review
printed online chats between Mayor Jim West (54), on record as opposing
gay rights and abortion, and an investigator posing as a teenage boy.
West admitted to the conversations and relations with young men, but
denied molestation charges.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.30)
2005 Aug 2, Seattle pitcher Ryan
Franklin was suspended 10 days for violating baseball's policy on
performance-enhancing drugs.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2005 Oct 10, In Half Moon Bay,
Ca., Joel Holland, a retired Washington state firefighter, won the
annual Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off, presenting a
gigantic pumpkin that weighed 1,229 pounds. This matched his winner in
2004. The contest here began in 1974.
(AP, 10/10/05)(SFC, 10/10/06, p.B3)
2005 Nov 15,The US government
declared the Puget Sound orcas an endangered species.
(SFC, 11/16/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 20, In Tacoma, Wash.,
Dominick Sergio Maldonado (20) went on a shooting spree at a crowded
shopping mall. 7 people were injured, one critically, before he was
arrested. Maldonado has been charged with attempted murder and
kidnapping.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2005 Nov 25, Nine inmates escaped
from the Yakima County Jail in Washington state; all were recaptured,
although one was at large for three weeks.
(AP, 11/25/06)
2005 Dec 6, In Spokane, Wash.,
voters said Mayor James E. West (1951-2006) must leave office this
month in a special election sparked by allegations he used a city
computer to woo gay men over the Internet. Certification of the vote
was expected on Dec 16.
(AP, 12/07/05)(SSFC, 7/23/06, p.B6)
2006 Jan 27, Lawmakers in
Washington state passed a gay rights bill and Gov. Chris Gregoire said
she will sign it on Jan 31.
(SFC, 1/28/06, p.A3)
2006 Feb 1, The Roman Catholic
Diocese of Spokane, Wa., offered a $45.7 million settlement to 75
people who said they were molested by priests.
(SFC, 2/2/06, p.A7)
2006 Mar 25, In Seattle, Wa.,
Aaron Kyle Huff (28) fatally shot 6 people at a party and then killed
himself.
(SFC, 3/27/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 18, Chinese President Hu
Jintao arrived in Washington state, toured the Redmond campus of
Microsoft and had dinner at the home of MS Corp. Chairman Bill Gates.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 May 23, Washington Mutual
Inc., the nation's largest savings and loan, notified 1,400 workers in
Washington and Florida that they will lose their jobs as part of the
company's cost-saving strategy.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 Jul 22, Former Spokane, Wa.,
Mayor James E. West (55), ousted by a sex scandal in 2005, died of
complications from recent cancer surgery.
(SSFC, 7/23/06, p.B6)
2006 Jul 26, The Washington state
Supreme Court upheld a ban on gay marriage, saying lawmakers have the
power to restrict marriage to unions between a man and woman.
(AP, 7/26/06)
2006 Jul 28, In Seattle, Wash.,
gunman Naveed Afzal Haq (30) killed Pam Waechter (58) of Seattle and
wounded five others at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. Haq
said he was "angry at Israel." On June 4, 2008, a jury found him not
guilty on one count of attempted murder (for victim Carol Goldman); on
the remaining counts, the jury declared itself to be hung. The judge
declared a mistrial.
(AFP, 7/29/06)(AP,
7/30/06)(http://tinyurl.com/6myx9k)
2006 Aug 5, Susan Butcher (51),
four-time Iditarod champion, died in Seattle, Wa. In 1986 she became
the Alaska race's second female winner and brought increased national
attention to its grueling competition.
(AP, 8/6/06)
2006 Jul 18, The Seattle Sonics
basketball team said a group of Oklahoma businessmen had purchased the
club for $350 million. The new ownership group said it plans to keep
the team in Seattle, if it can work out a deal for a new arena in the
next 12 months. Officials in Seattle said they planned to hold the
Sonics to their lease, which expires in 2010.
(Econ, 7/29/06, p.33)(http://tinyurl.com/qga3e)
2006 Aug 23, In Washington state
Gov. Gregoire declared a state of emergency due to a group of
southeastern wildfires that had covered 70 square miles near Dayton.
(SFC, 8/25/06, p.A3)
2006 Sep 26, Paul Allen,
co-founder of Microsoft Corp., announced a $41 million computerized
atlas of the 20,000 genes in the brain of a mouse. The atlas was made
available online at www.brainatlas.org.
(SFC, 9/27/06, p.A9)(Econ, 9/30/06, p.91)
2006 Nov 7, Voters in Seattle
rejected a measure that would have require erotic dancers to stay at
least four feet from patrons.
(Reuters, 11/11/06)
2006 Dec 15, About 1.5 million
homes and businesses in Washington and Oregon had no power after
howling windstorms and heavy rains caused at least three deaths, closed
two major bridges and sparked flooding.
(AP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 16, Residents of the US
Pacific Northwest struggled to stay warm after the worst windstorm in
more than a decade knocked out power to more than 1.5 million homes and
businesses. The storm killed at least 14 people, including 6 from
carbon monoxide.
(AP, 12/16/06)(WSJ, 12/19/06, p.A1)
2006 The Seattle Art Museum
planned to complete its 8.5-acre Olympic Sculpture Park.
(WSJ, 4/20/04, p.D8)
2007 Jan 21, Louis Malcolm Boyd
(b.1927), aka L.M. Boyd, master gatherer of random facts, died at his
home in Seattle, Wa. He began his column in 1963 at the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer using the pen name Mike Mailway. In SF the column
was titled Grab Bag.
(SSFC, 1/28/07, p.B3)
2007 May 1, Kenneth John Freeman
(44), a bodybuilder and computer expert from Benton County, Washington,
was arrested in Hong Kong. Freeman, who fled the US 13 months earlier,
was accused of raping his daughter and posting a video of the attack.
(www.usmarshals.gov/news/chron/2007/050207.htm)
2007 May 30, Robert Alan Soloway
(27), described as one of the world's most prolific spammers, was
arrested in Seattle, Wa. Federal authorities said computer users across
the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 Jun 27, William M. Jenkins
(b.1919), former CEO of Seattle-First National Bank, died on Bainbridge
Island, Wash. His term ended after the bank was forced into a merger
due to bad loans following the 1982 failure of Oklahoma’s Penn Square
Bank.
(WSJ, 1/14/07, p.A4)
2007 Jun 28, The US Supreme Court
in a 5-4 decision condemned race-based school enrollment plans in
Louisville, Ky., and Seattle, but stopped short of banning it. The
decision was denounced at a debate hours later by Democratic
presidential candidates. The court also struck down an anti-trust rule
nearly a century old, saying that it is no longer automatically
unlawful for manufacturers and distributors to agree on setting minimum
retail prices.
(SFC, 6/29/07, p.A1, D1)(AP, 6/28/08)
2007 Jun 28, Bruce Kennedy
(b.1938), former CEO of Alaska Airlines (1979-1991), was killed when
his Cessna 182 crashed in Cashmere, Wash.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.A4)
2007 Jul 15, In Washington state a
new 2nd bridge opened across the Tacoma Narrows.
(SSFC, 9/2/07, p.D8)
2007 Aug 2, In Washington state a
helicopter with four people aboard crashed and burst into flames on the
east slopes of the Cascade Range, starting a wildfire. By the next day
it spread through dry timber to cover 300 to 400 acres.
(AP, 8/3/07)
2007 Sep 8, In Washington state 5
members of the Makah tribe killed a California gray whale with harpoons
and a rifle without tribal approval. In October a federal grand jury
charged the 5 Makah men with misdemeanor counts.
(SFC, 9/10/07, p.A4)(SFC, 10/5/07, p.A4)
2007 Oct 7, A Cessna 208 Grand
Caravan crashed in the Cascade Mountains after it left Star, Idaho,
near Boise, en route to Shelton, Wash., northwest of Olympia. 9
skydivers and the pilot were killed. Searchers found the wreckage the
next day.
(AP, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 30, Washoe the chimp
(42), who had learned American sign Language, died at Central
Washington Univ. in Ellensburg, Wa. Cognitive researchers had adopted
the 10-month-old chimp from military researchers in 1966
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.A2)
2007 Dec 4, The governors of
Washington and Oregon declared states of emergency after a severe storm
smacked the region with hurricane-force winds and several inches of
rain. At least four people were killed by the storm.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 10, Seattle-based
Washington Mutual said it will lay off over 3,000 workers and close 190
offices in response to loan losses in the mortgage market.
(SFC, 12/10/07, p.B1)
2007 Dec 25, In King County,
Washington, six people, 3 generations of one family, were killed.
Carnation police the next day arrested Michele Kristen Anderson (29)
and Joseph McEnroe (29), the property owners' daughter and her
boyfriend.
(AP, 12/27/07)(SFC, 12/28/07, p.A5)
2008 Jan 4, Flights were grounded
and trucks overturned in Northern California as wind gusted to 80 mph
during the second wave of the arctic storm that has sent trees crashing
onto houses, cars and roads. Hundreds of thousands of customers lost
power from central California into Oregon and Washington. An estimated
1.9-2.1 million PG&E customers lost power.
(AP, 1/5/08)(SFC, 1/8/08, p.A1)
2008 Feb 9, Sen. Barack Obama
swept the Louisiana primary and caucuses in Nebraska and Washington
state, slicing into Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's slender delegate lead
in their historic race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Obama also won almost 90% in the Virgin Islands. McCain narrowly won
Washington while Huckabee took Kansas along with a narrow win in
Louisiana.
(AP, 2/10/08)(SSFC, 2/10/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 3, In Washington state 3
new expensive homes went up in flames in the Seattle suburb of
Woodinville. A spray painted sign was marked ELF, the initials of the
Earth Liberation Front. 2 other homes had minor fire or smoke damage.
(SFC, 3/4/08, p.A3)
2008 Mar 14, Robert Soloway (28),
dubbed "the King of Spam," faced a possible 26-year jail sentence after
pleading guilty in Seattle to charges of fraud and tax evasion.
(www.pcworld.com/article/id,143483-c,spam/article.html)
2008 Jun 25, Jerry Brown,
California’s attorney general, sued Countrywide Financial for unfair
business practices relating to home loan mortgages. Lisa madigan, the
attorney general of Illinois, also filed suit against Countrywide,
which is being acquired by Bank of America. The Washington State Dept.
of Financial Institutions filed an administrative action against
Countrywide alleging discriminatory lending practices.
(SFC, 6/26/08, p.C1)(WSJ, 6/26/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 1, Starbucks, the
Seattle-based coffee retailer, said it would close another 500 stores
in America and reduce its work force by about 7%. The closure of 100
stores had been announced earlier this year. 70% of the stores to close
were opened after 2005.
(Econ, 7/5/08, p.74)
2008 Sep 2, In Washington state a
shooting rampage in Skagit County left 6 people dead. The suspect,
Isaac Zamora (28), was described as a person with a mental illness. He
turned himself in at the sheriff’s office in Mount Vernon. Mental
health experts later found Zamora to be incompetent to stand trial.
(SFC, 9/3/08, p.A4)(SFC, 9/4/08, p.A7)(WSJ,
11/28/08, p.A10)
2008 Sep 17, The Bush
administration released $100 million in disaster relief to West coast
salmon fisherman, $70 million less that was approved by Congress. About
$63 million will go to California, $25 million to Oregon and $12
million to Washington state.
(SFC, 9/18/08, p.A8)
2008 Sep 20, In Washington state
Shawn Roe (36) killed police officer Kristine Fairbanks (51)
during a traffic stop. He has also killed Richard Ziegler (59), a
retired California corrections employee, whose pickup he was driving.
Roe was killed in a shootout with sheriff’s deputies.
(SFC, 9/22/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 25, The Federal Deposit
Insurance Corp. seized Seattle-based Washington Mutual Inc., and then
sold the thrift's banking assets to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9
billion. WaMu, founded in 1889, became the largest bank to fail by far
in the country's history. Its $307 billion in assets eclipse the $40
billion of Continental Illinois National Bank, which failed in 1984.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Nov 1, Members of the
Machinists Union, representing some 27,000 workers in Washington,
Oregon, and Kansas, ratified a new contract with the Boeing Co. ending
an 8-week strike.
(SSFC, 11/2/08, p.A4)
2008 Nov 4, Washington voted for
Barack Obama and became the 2nd state after Oregon to legalize assisted
suicide.
(Econ, 11/8/08, p.48)
2009 Jan 8, Flooding in the US
Pacific Northwest led to mudslides and avalanches and closed 20 miles
of I-5 between Olympia, Wa., and the Oregon line.
(SFC, 1/9/09, p.A2)
2009 Feb 15, In Washington state a
16-year-old girl was found dead and another teenage girl was discovered
unconscious in a barracks at Fort Lewis Army base south of Tacoma. In
March Army authorities charged Pvt. Timothy E. Bennitt (19) if the drug
overdose of his girlfriend.
(AP, 2/16/09)(SFC, 3/11/09, p.A8)
2009 Mar 11, VP Biden announced
that Pres. Obama has chosen Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske as the
nation’s new drug czar.
(WSJ, 3/12/09, p.A1)
2009 Mar 17, The Seattle Post
Intelligencer, owned by the Hearst Corp., printed its last newspaper
edition. It will become exclusively Web-based as Seattlepi.com, making
it the nation’s largest daily newspaper to move to online only.
(SFC, 3/17/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 4, In Washington state
Pierce County deputies 15 miles southeast of Tacoma found four children
murdered in their beds and the fifth slain in the bathroom. The four
girls and the youngest child, a 7-year-old boy, apparently had been
shot. Earlier in the day police found there father, James Harrison (34)
dead in his still-running car near the Muckleshoot Casino in Auburn,
about 30 miles south of Seattle. Harrison had just discovered that his
wife was leaving him for another man.
(AP, 4/5/09)(SFC, 4/6/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 20, In Washington state
former Tacoma elementary school teacher Jennifer Rice (33) was
convicted of having sex with a student (10) and his brother (15).
(SFC, 4/21/09, p.A6)
2009 May 3, In Thailand an
American identified as Jill St. Onge (27) a bartender and artist from
Seattle, died while staying at a popular destination for budget
travelers. Norwegian Julie Michelle Bergheim (22) died the next day.
Both died after suddenly falling ill within hours of each other at the
Laleena guesthouse on Koh Phi Phi in southern Thailand.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 21, Linda Fleming (66), a
woman with late-stage pancreatic cancer, became the first person to
kill herself under Washington state's new assisted suicide law, known
as "death with dignity."
(AP, 5/23/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Washington state
federal agents said they have arrested 31 people and busted a drug
trafficking ring that was directed by a cartel in Jalisco, Mexico. The
2-week Operation Arctic Chill seized 23 guns including a .50 Desert
Eagle pistol and an AK-47-type assault rifle.
(SFC, 7/4/09, p.A5)
2009 Jul 24, Isaiah M.K. Kalebu
(23) was arrested for breaking into a Seattle home and stabbing 2
women, one fatally. Kalebu had a history of mental illness.
(SSFC, 7/26/09, p.A12)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Washington
Return to home