Junius Rochester, whose family has shaped the city for many generations, is an award-winning Northwest historian and author of numerous books about Seattle and other places.
Why was Mt. Rainier regarded as a female god? What started the bitterness between Whites and Indians? Why did revivalists work so well in the Pacific Northwest?
Even Thomas Jefferson, in late life and after Meriwether Lewis reported otherwise, believed that rivers and lakes could combine to whisk traders from one coast to the other.
The Second World War brought many migrants to the Pacific Northwest, including large numbers of African Americans and Asians working at Boeing, the shipyards, fishing, and timber. Those desperate newcomers needed shelter.
In 1889, the five-person Press Expedition (named for the Seattle Press, a statewide newspaper), led by James Christie, crossed the Olympic Peninsula from the Elwha River to the Quinault Valley.
"The fair was Seattle’s debut among the cities of earth, and Seattle cleaned house so thoroughly that it was never again the roaring city of gold rush days.”
The burgeoning waterfront development included a boathouse, piers, a wooden promenade and twin bandstands offshore with shoreline seating. Beer was sold to audiences while they listened to Wagner’s Band play Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. Later came a racetrack near Broadmoor.
Carlson’s rise to prominence in Seattle's business establishment was a combination of native intelligence, an enthusiastic demeanor, very hard work, and a willingness to do a dozen things at one time.