Seattle... What Happened?

Content Highlights

Segment One: Seattle’s early history to the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exhibition to WWI (1918)

·       The natural history of the Puget Sound region

·       Early indigenous inhabitants and their way of life

·       The 1792 arrival of Captain Vancouver

·       The Denny Party arrival in 1852; other early pioneers

·       First industries including timber, fishing, coal and rail

·       The Klondike Gold Rush

·       Early immigrants; growth and impact on the region’s native peoples

·       The Great Seattle Fire

·       Building the University of Washington; the city’s first infrastructure

·       The 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exhibition

Chloe Lamour

Segment Two: Seattle becomes region’s largest city; ushers in the sixties with second World’s Fair (1962)

·       Emerging industries; shipbuilding and manufacturing

·       The Great Depression and its impact

·       Seattle’s role in World War II

·       The rise of Boeing and dependence on aerospace

·       Post-war prosperity

·       Seattle’s second World’s Fair 

·       How did the city’s prophecy of Century 21 play out?

·       Urban growth and sprawl

·       Metro and Forward Thrust

·       Boeing Bust and the SST program

·       Major league sports: fans, stadiums and politics

·       Microsoft leads tech-industry boom

·       Counterculture, the arts, environmentalism and WTO protests

·       Traffic and growth woes: what can be sustained?

·       Tacoma invests in downtown

·       Seattle becomes fastest-growing U.S. city

·       What the future holds for our region