Washington's History, Revised Edition

Harry Ritter

Description

Now with a new design and updated content, including three brand-new chapters plus a new preface and a postscript from the author.

An anything-but-dry history textbook in a take-it-with-you package, Washington’s History is a fascinating walk through the sweeping story of a place and its people.

For centuries, the natural beauty and riches of the Northwest have excited the human imagination, from its first peoples to seafaring explorers, to westward-thinking pioneers, to technological thinkers and giants.

A Washington resident himself, author Harry Ritter offers fifty-five vignettes illustrated with rare archival photographs that comprise an entertaining and informative picture of life in the Far Northwest.

Learn about the Natives, explorers, traders, missionaries, loggers, farmers, inventors, and politicians. From Chief Seattle to Dr. John McLoughlin, William E. Boeing, Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos, these are the people at the epicenter of events that shaped the Evergreen State.

Prologue: The Northwest of the Imagination

Native Cultures

Maritime and Overland Exploration of the Northwest

Fur Traders, Pathfinders, and Missionaries

Pioneer Settlement

From BIg Trees to Big Sky: The Early Days of Washington Territory

The Iron Horse and the Vision of Economic Empire

The Twentieth Century and Beyond

Related Reading

Index

Sujets

• historical
• Histoire
• Mount Rainier
• Native Americans
• The Evergreen State College
• State
• Pacific Northwest
• United States
• Bill Gates
• History
• Local
• John McLoughlin
• Jeff Bezos
• Starbucks
• Mont Rainier
• Amazon
• Boeing
• Microsoft

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781513261782
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

WASHINGTON S HISTORY

Work crew, Grand Coulee Dam, late 1930s .
WASHINGTON S HISTORY
The People, Land, and Events of the Far Northwest
REVISED EDITION
HARRY RITTER
Text 2018 by Harry Ritter
Copyright to archival photographs and illustrations as credited on pages 152 - 153
First Printing of Revised Edition 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ritter, Harry, author.
Title: Washington s history : the people, land, and events of the far Northwest / Harry Ritter.
Description: Revised edition. | Berkeley, CA : WestWinds Press, an imprint of Graphic Arts Books, [2018] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018028689 (print) | LCCN 2018030723 (ebook) | ISBN 9781513261782 (ebook) | ISBN 9781513261690 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781513261775 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Washington (State)--History. | Natural history--Washington (State)
Classification: LCC F891 (ebook) | LCC F891 .R58 2018 (print) | DDC 979.7--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018028689
Cartographer: Gray Mouse Graphics
Index: Sheila Ryan
Proudly distributed by Ingram Publisher Services.
Printed in the U.S.A.
WestWinds Press
is an imprint of

GraphicArtsBooks.com
GRAPHIC ARTS BOOKS
Publishing Director: Jennifer Newens
Marketing Manager: Angela Zbornik
Editor: Olivia Ngai
Design Production: Rachel Lopez Metzger
C ONTENTS

Women hikers along Middle Fork Trail, Cascade Mountains, about 1910 .
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MAP OF WASHINGTON
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
PROLOGUE: THE NORTHWEST OF THE IMAGINATION
F UTURES P AST
B EGINNINGS
NATIVE CULTURES
I NDIANS OF THE P LATEAU
I NDIANS OF THE C OAST
E UROPEAN C ONTACT AND I TS I MPACT
MARITIME AND OVERLAND EXPLORATION OF THE NORTHWEST
S PANISH AND R USSIAN I NCURSIONS
I N THE G OLDEN H IND S W AKE
F ROM N OOTKA TO P UGET S OUND
L EWIS AND C LARK
FUR TRADERS, PATHFINDERS, AND MISSIONARIES
T HE M ARITIME F UR T RADE
T HE N OR W ESTERS AND S POKANE H OUSE
T HE H UDSON S B AY C OMPANY
T HE A STORIANS
H ERALDS OF M ANIFEST D ESTINY
E RRAND INTO THE W ILDERNESS
T HE B LACK R OBES
PIONEER SETTLEMENT
I MPERIAL T UG-OF -W AR
F ROM THE O REGON T RAIL TO E LLIOTT B AY
T HE B IRTH OF W ASHINGTON T ERRITORY
H ENRY S MITH , G OVERNOR S TEVENS, AND C HIEF S EATTLE
B LACK P IONEERS
FROM BIG TREES TO BIG SKY: THE EARLY DAYS OF WASHINGTON TERRITORY
T HE P IG W AR
T HE M INING F RONTIER
T HE S TEAMBOAT E RA
C HINESE P IONEERS
T HE M OSQUITO F LEET
THE IRON HORSE AND THE VISION OF ECONOMIC EMPIRE
E MPIRE B UILDERS
G REAT E XPECTATIONS
E VENTFUL 1889
F ISHERIES AND C ANNERIES
T HE T IMBER H ARVEST
T HE G OOD E ARTH
O F F IRE AND F ORESTS
M OUNTAINEERING ON THE P ACIFIC
N ORTH TO A LASKA !
S ENSE AND S ENSIBILITY
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND BEYOND
T HE W ORKMAN S F RONTIER
B OEING AND THE A VIATION R EVOLUTION
T HE W ASHINGTON S TATE F ERRIES
M IXED B LESSING : T AMING THE C OLUMBIA
A D ESERT T RANSFORMED
W ORLD W AR II: T HE S TATE IN A C RUCIBLE
T HE J APANESE I NTERNMENT
T HE S TORY OF H ANFORD
G O E AST , Y OUNG M AN !
N OT S O B ENIGN N ATURE
S COOP AND M AGGIE
T HE B OLDT D ECISION
WPPSS!
O F O WLS AND O LD -G ROWTH F ORESTS
T HE G ATES OF M ICROSOFT
J AVA J IVE
A MAZON S E MPIRE
B RAVE N EW W ORLD
T OWARD THE F UTURE
POSTSCRIPT, 2018 A TIME OF CHANGE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
PHOTO CREDITS

The romance of flight, Graham s Airfield, Bellingham, 1928 .
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to many people for helping bring this book to publication. Ellen Wheat, formerly with Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company, first suggested that I write a short history of Washington state. Tricia Brown was my kind editorial liaison with Graphic Arts and made crucial suggestions for trimming the book s first draft. Don Graydon read the entire text in its final stages and helped bring clarity and precision to the manuscript. Special help in finding pictures for the book was supplied by Tammy Belts of Wilson Library s Special Collections Division at Western Washington University, Jeff Jewell of the Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Judy Quill of the Grand Coulee Dam photo archives, Mike Vouri of San Juan Island National Historical Park, Gary K. Miller of Energy Northwest, and Kirk Rudy of the Edward S. Curtis Gallery, McCloud, California. I also wish to thank Lisa Pirkkala of the Spokane House Interpretive Center, Joshua Binus of Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, my friends and neighbors Catherine and Bill Ouweneel, my colleague Marc Richards, and Marilyn Darke and Gary Busselman of the Columbia River Exhibition of History, Science, and Technology in Richland.
Lastly I wish to thank my wife Marian, my son Alan, and my sister Gloria for their support and encouragement.

P REFACE TO THE S ECOND E DITION
I wish to thank Jennifer Newens and the Ingram Content Group for inviting me to prepare a second edition of Washington s History . I m delighted that the first edition s success warrants a revision and updates. The book s small, take-it-with-you format, retained here and originally suggested for its first edition by Ellen Wheat of Westwinds Press, presents the author with some special and rewarding challenges. Divided into short essays or chapters limited to two facing pages, it requires the author to reduce sweeping, multilayered topics to some meaningful aspect of the gist of things. Trying to find the right word and organizing conception is truly an exciting adventure.
It is no exaggeration to say that in the past fifteen years, since the first edition s appearance, some dramatic changes have occurred in Washington State, and I have added three new chapters on Amazon, Starbucks, and Artificial Intelligence research to discuss these developments. I ve also added a new postscript. Where needed, I have made changes and updates throughout the text-as, for instance, in the essays on the Kennewick Man archaeological find and the Hanford Reservation clean-up problem. As in the first edition, I want to thank my wife Marian for her encouragement and suggestions in preparing this second edition, and I also want to credit Bill Frier for a valuable tip about an information source and Geoff Middaugh for permission to use a quotation.
PROLOGUE: THE NORTHWEST OF THE IMAGINATION

Mount Baker and Cascade Range from Whidbey Island by John Mix Stanley, 1853 .

F UTURES P AST

Near the mouth of Whatcom Creek, Bellingham Bay, about 1885 .
The past is a foreign country, novelist L. P. Hartley once wrote. They do things differently there.
They not only do things differently, they think otherwise as well. Gazing south in 1868 from Whatcom Creek on Bellingham Bay, Victorian artist Edmund T. Coleman pondered the vista with painterly flair. When standing here at early morn, he mused, looking out upon the tranquil scene, in the distance the Olympian Mountains bathed in mist, and nearer the grand outline of Orcas Island looming up like some great fortification, imagination pictures the future When these silent shores shall be lined with wharves and resonant with the throng of busy multitudes.
Such fancies arouse mixed emotions today, when we sometimes fret over too many people and too much growth. They were common among early visitors to the soil that became Washington state in 1889. Newcomers imagined the Northwest as a fresh tablet, ready for new inscriptions. Theirs was an age of great expectations and new beginnings, but their minds were furnished with notions inspired by European and East Coast experiences. For Coleman, Whatcom Creek was like a Welsh mountain stream. A glacial valley he viewed from Mount Baker wanted only a chalet or two, a flock of goats descending the hill-side, with the sound of tinkling bells, to make me believe that I was in Switzerland. The Lummi and Nooksack Indians belief in forest spirits reminded him of German folktales. It s difficult to say how early Indians imagined their own landscape, or their first encounters with aliens like Coleman. Missionaries were already working to change things, but Indian minds in the mid-1800s were furnished differently from those of newcomers-and even from those of today s Native Americans.
History includes changes that occur inside people s minds over time, as well as actions and events. This book aims to supply a compact and readable account of Washington s history, revolving around changing visions of its regions and its pasts and futures. Those visions have wrought stunning improvements but also unexpected consequences. One thinks of epidemics among the Indians, inadvertently introduced by settlers who envisioned a promised land in bloom; of engineering the wild Columbia to (in Woody Guthrie s words) turn darkness into dawn, and of destroying fisheries in the process; of the Hanford project, whose plutonium helped win World War II but whose toxins remain. Pondering those imaginings and their results is instructive, often exciting, and always interesting.
Twenty years after Coleman imagined the future, on the eve of Washington s statehood, naturalist John Muir could still write: To many, especially in the Atlantic States, Washington is regarded as being yet a far wild west-a dim, nebulous expanse of woods. Those people, Muir declared, do not know that railroads and steamers have brought the country out of the wilderness and abolished the old distances. It is now near to all the world and is in possession of a share of the best of all that civilization has to offer, while on some of the lines of advancement it is at the front.
A few years later, the discovery of Klondike gold made Seattle the staging point for the Yukon and Alaska gold