Everything about Seattle Washington totally explained
Seattle is a coastal port city and the largest city in the
Pacific Northwest region of the
United States. It is located in the
state of
Washington between an arm of the
Pacific Ocean called
Puget Sound and
Lake Washington, about south of the
Canada – United States border in
King County, of which it's the
county seat.
The Seattle area has been inhabited for at least 4,000 years, but European settlement began only in the mid-19th century. The first permanent white settlers—
Arthur A. Denny and those subsequently known as the Denny party—arrived
November 13,
1851. Early settlements in the area were called "New York-Alki" ("Alki" meaning "by and by" in the local
Chinook Jargon) and "Duwamps". In 1853,
Doc Maynard suggested that the main settlement be renamed "Seattle," an anglicized rendition of the name of
Sealth, the chief of the two local tribes. In 2006, the city had an estimated population of 582,174 Seattle's current official nickname is the "Emerald City," the result of a contest held in the early 1980s; the reference is to the lush evergreen trees in the surrounding area. Seattle is also referred to informally as the "Gateway to Alaska," "Rain City" (although stolen from Vancouver), "Coffee Town", and "Jet City," the latter from the local influence of
Boeing. Seattle residents are known as
Seattleites.
Seattle is the birthplace of
grunge music, and has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption; coffee companies founded or based in Seattle include
Starbucks,
Seattle's Best Coffee, and
Tully's. There are also many successful independent artisanal espresso roasters and cafes. Moreover, analysis conducted in 2004 by the United States Census Bureau of 2002 survey data indicated that Seattle was the most educated large city in the U.S. with 48.8 percent of residents 25 and older having at least bachelor degrees. Based on
per capita income, in 2006 the Seattle metropolitan area ranked 17th out of 363 metropolitan areas in a study by the Census Bureau.
Seattle was the site of the
1999 meeting of the
World Trade Organization, and the
attendant demonstrations by
anti-globalization activists. The city is also home to the Pride Foundation, which became the best-funded
LGBT rights organization in the US when
Ric Weiland, one of the first five Microsoft employees, bequeathed $65 million to the foundation as well as ten other organizations.
History
Founding
What is now Seattle has been inhabited since the end of the last
ice age. Archaeological excavations at
West Point in
Discovery Park,
Magnolia, confirm that the Seattle area has been inhabited by humans for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived in the area, the
Dkhw'Duw'Absh and
Xachua'Bsh people (now called the
Duwamish Tribe) occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around
Elliott Bay.
The first Europeans to attempt settlement in the area were the Collins Party, who filed legal claim to land at the mouth of the Duwamish River on
September 14,
1851. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party were on the way to their claim when they passed the scouts of the group of settlers that would eventually found Seattle, the
Denny Party. The scouts for the Denny Party, Terry Lee, David Denny, and John Low, would lay claim to land on
Alki Point on
September 28,
1851, with Terry Low returning to
Portland, Oregon carrying a message from David Denny telling his brother,
Arthur Denny, to "Come at once." Following the instructions of David Denny, the rest of the Denny Party set sail from Portland and landed on Alki during a rainstorm on
November 13,
1851. The landing party's first sight of their new
homestead was the roofless cabin that David had been unable to complete because of a fever. The villages of New York-Alki and Duwamps would compete for dominance in the area for the next few years, but in time Alki was abandoned and its residents moved across the bay to join the rest of the settlers.
David Swinson ("Doc") Maynard, one of the village's founders, was the primary advocate for renaming the village to "Seattle" after
Chief Sealth (
si'áb Si'ahl) of the Duwamish and
Suquamish tribes. Doc Maynard's advocacy bore fruit, because when the first
plats for village were filed on
May 23,
1853, it was for the Town of Seattle. In 1855, nominal legal land settlement were established and the city was incorporated in 1865 and again in 1869, after having existed as an unincorporated town from 1867 to 1869.
Major events
Major events in Seattle's history include:
Economic history
Seattle has a history of boom and bust cycles, common in cities of its size. Seattle has several times risen as a
company town or through economic specialization, then gone into precipitous decline, but it has typically used those periods to successfully rebuild infrastructure.
The first such boom, covering the early years of the city, was fueled by the lumber industry. (During this period the road now known as Yesler Way was nicknamed "Skid Road" after the timber skidding down the hill to
Henry Yesler's sawmill. The term later entered the wider American vocabulary as
Skid Row.) This boom was followed by the construction of an
Olmsted-designed park system. The boom lasted well into the early part of the 20th century and funded many new Seattle companies and products. Finance company Washington Mutual was founded in 1889, in an attempt to save Seattle's economy after the Great Seattle fire. In 1907, 19-year-old
James E. Casey borrowed $100 from a friend and founded the American Messenger Company (later
UPS). Other Seattle companies founded during this period include
Nordstrom and
Eddie Bauer.
Next came the shipbuilding boom in the early part of the 20th century, followed by the unused city development plan of
Virgil Bogue. Seattle was the major point of departure during World War II for troops heading to the
North Pacific, and Boeing manufactured many of the war's bombers.
The local economy dipped after the war, but rose again with the expansion of Boeing, fueled by the growth of the commercial aviation industry. When this particular cycle went into a major downturn in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many left the area to look for work elsewhere, and two local real estate agents put up a billboard reading "Will the last person leaving Seattle – Turn out the lights."
Seattle remained the corporate headquarters of Boeing until 2001, when the company announced a desire to separate its headquarters from its major production facilities. Following a bidding war among a number of major cities, Boeing moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago. The Seattle area is still home to Boeing's
Renton narrow-body plant (where the
707, 720,
727, and
757 were assembled, and the
737 is assembled today) and
Everett wide-body plant (assembly plant for the
747,
767,
777 and the upcoming
787 Dreamliner), as well as
BECU, formerly the Boeing Employees Credit Union.
Next, technology companies, including
Microsoft,
Amazon.com,
RealNetworks, McCaw Cellular (now part of
AT&T Mobility), VoiceStream (now
T-Mobile USA), and
biomedical corporations such as HeartStream (later purchased by
Philips), Heart Technologies (later purchased by
Boston Scientific), Physio-Control (later purchased by
Medtronic),
ZymoGenetics, ICOS (later purchased by
Eli Lilly & Co.) and Immunex (later purchased by
Amgen), found homes in Seattle and its suburbs. This success brought an influx of new citizens with a population increase within city limits of almost 50,000 between the 1990 and 2000
Census and saw Seattle's real estate become some of the most expensive in the country. Many of these companies remain relatively strong, but the frenzied
dot-com boom years ended in early 2001.
Geography
Topography
Seattle is located between an inlet of the Pacific Ocean to the west called Puget Sound and Lake Washington to the east at the mouth of the Duwamish River, which empties into the city's chief harbor, Elliott Bay, an inlet of the Sound. West beyond the Sound are the Kitsap Peninsula and
Olympic Mountains, on the Olympic Peninsula; east beyond Lake Washington and the
eastside suburbs are
Lake Sammamish and the Cascade Range. The sea, rivers, forests, lakes, and fields were once rich enough to support one of the world's few sedentary hunter-gatherer societies. Opportunities for sailing, skiing, bicycling, camping, and hiking are nearby and accessible almost year-round.
The city itself is hilly, though not uniformly so. Like Rome, the city is said to lie on
seven hills; the lists vary, but typically include Capitol Hill, First Hill, West Seattle, Beacon Hill, Queen Anne, Magnolia, and the former Denny Hill. The Wallingford and Mount Baker neighbourhoods are technically located on hills as well. Many of the hilliest areas are near the city center, with Capitol Hill, First Hill, and Beacon Hill collectively constituting something of a ridge along an isthmus between Elliott Bay and Lake Washington. The topography of the city center has been reshaped by
regrading projects, a seawall, and the construction of an artificial island,
Harbor Island (completed 1909), at the mouth of the city's industrial
Duwamish Waterway.
The man-made
Lake Washington Ship Canal incorporates four natural bodies of water:
Lake Union, Salmon Bay, Portage Bay, and
Union Bay, connecting Puget Sound to Lake Washington.
Seattle is in an earthquake zone and has experienced a number of significant quakes, most recently (as of 2007) the
magnitude 6.8 Nisqually Earthquake,
February 28,
2001, which did significant architectural damage, especially in the Pioneer Square area (built on
reclaimed land, as are the Industrial District and part of the city center), but caused no fatalities.
Other strong quakes occurred on
December 14,
1872 (estimated at 7.3 or 7.4 magnitude),
April 13,
1949 (7.1), and
April 29,
1965 (6.5). The 1949 quake caused eight known deaths, all in Seattle; nor the
Cascadia subduction zone has caused an earthquake since the city's founding. The Cascadia subduction zone poses the threat of an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 or greater, capable of seriously damaging the city and collapsing many buildings, especially in zones built on fill.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 369.2 km² (142.5
mi²), 217.2 km² (83.9 mi²) of which is land and 152.0 km² (58.7 mi²) water. The total area is 41.16% water.
Climate
Seattle's mild climate is usually classified as
Marine west coast (Cfb). However, its wet-winter/dry-summer pattern shows some characteristics of a
Mediterranean climate (Csb), and it's sometimes classified this way. Temperature extremes are moderated by adjacent Puget Sound, the greater Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington. The region is partially protected from Pacific storms by the Olympic Mountains and from Arctic air by the
Cascade Range. Despite being on the margin of the
rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, the city has a reputation for frequent rain. Despite its relatively frequent rainfall, the so-called "rainy city" receives a smaller quantity of actual precipitation annually, at
Seattle has grown through a series of annexations of smaller neighboring communities. On
May 3,
1891, Magnolia,
Wallingford,
Green Lake, and the
University District (then known as Brooklyn) were annexed. The town of South Seattle was annexed on
October 20 1905. Between
January 7 and
September 12,
1907, Seattle nearly doubled its land area by annexing six incorporated towns and areas of unincorporated King County, including Southeast Seattle,
Ravenna,
South Park,
Columbia,
Ballard, and
West Seattle. Three years later, after having difficulties paying a $10,000 bill from the county, the town of
Georgetown merged with Seattle. Finally, on
January 4,
1954, the area between N. 85th Street and N. 145th Street was annexed, including the neighborhoods of
Maple Leaf,
Lake City, and
Northgate.
Seattle mayor Greg Nickels is among those who have called Seattle "a city of neighborhoods," although the boundaries (and even names) of those neighborhoods are often open to dispute. For example, a Department of Neighborhoods spokeswoman reported that her own neighborhood has gone from "the 'CD' (
Central District) to 'Madrona' to 'Greater Madison Valley' and now 'Madrona Park.'" and many having street fairs and parades during the summer months.
The largest of the city's street fairs feature hundreds of craft and food booths and multiple stages with live entertainment, and draw more than 100,000 people over the course of a weekend. In addition, at least half a dozen neighborhoods have weekly farmers' markets, some with as many as fifty vendors.
The residents of
White Center, an unincorporated neighborhood between Seattle and
Burien, are in the process of deciding by which of the two cities that'll be annexed.
Cityscape
Landmarks
Space Needle, dating from the Century 21 Exposition (1962), is Seattle's most recognizable landmark, having been featured in the logo of the television show
Frasier and the backgrounds of the television series
Grey's Anatomy and
iCarly, and films such as
Sleepless in Seattle. The fairgrounds surrounding the Needle have been converted into
Seattle Center, which remains the site of many local civic and cultural events, such as Bumbershoot,
Folklife, and the
Bite of Seattle. Seattle Center plays multiple roles in the city, ranging from a public fair grounds to a civic center, though recent economic losses have called its viability and future into question. The
Seattle Center Monorail was also constructed for Century 21 and still runs from Seattle Center to
Westlake Center, a Downtown shopping mall, a little over a mile to the southeast.
The
Smith Tower was the tallest building on the West Coast from its completion in 1914 until the Space Needle overtook it in 1962. The late 1980s saw the construction of Seattle's two tallest skyscrapers: the 76 story
Columbia Center (completed 1985) is the tallest building in the Pacific Northwest and the fourth tallest building west of the Mississippi River; the
Washington Mutual Tower (completed 1988) is Seattle's second tallest building. Other notable Seattle landmarks include
Pike Place Market, the
Fremont Troll, the
Experience Music Project (at Seattle Center), and the
Seattle Central Library.
Starbucks has been at Pike Place Market since the coffee company was founded there in 1971. The first store is still operating a block south of its original location.
Starbucks Center, the company's current headquarters, is the largest building in Seattle by volume at just over . The building, once
Sears' Northwest catalog distribution center, also contains a Sears and an
OfficeMax store.
The
National Register of Historic Places has over a hundred and fifty Seattle listings.
Culture
Seattle has been a regional center for the
performing arts for many years. The century-old
Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded and performs primarily at
Benaroya Hall. The
Seattle Opera and
Pacific Northwest Ballet, which perform at
McCaw Hall (opened 2003 on the site of the former Seattle Opera House at Seattle Center), are comparably distinguished, with the Opera being particularly known for its performances of the works of
Richard Wagner and the PNB School (founded in 1974) ranking as one of the top three ballet training institutions in the United States.
The
5th Avenue Theatre, built in 1926, stages Broadway-style musical shows featuring both local talent and international stars. Seattle has "around 100" theatrical production companies and over two dozen live theatre venues, many of them associated with
fringe theatre; Seattle is probably second only to New York for number of
equity theaters(28 Seattle theater companies have some sort of
Actors' Equity contract.
Seattle is considered the home of grunge music The city is also home to such varied musicians as
avant-garde jazz musicians
Bill Frisell and
Wayne Horvitz,
rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot,
smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G,
Heart,
heavy metal band
Nevermore, underground rap duos Blue Scholars and Common Market, and such
poppier rock bands as
Harvey Danger,
Goodness and the
Presidents of the United States of America. Such musicians as
Jimi Hendrix,
Duff McKagan,
Nikki Sixx, and
Quincy Jones spent their formative years in Seattle.
Anis Mojgani, two-time National Poetry Slam Champ; and Danny Sherrard, 2007 National Poetry Slam Champ. Seattle also hosted the 2001 national Poetry Slam Tournament. The Seattle Poetry Festival is a biennial poetry festival that (launched first as the Poetry Circus in 1997) has featured local, regional, national, and international names in poetry.
The city also has a large number of movie houses showing both
Hollywood productions and works by
independent filmmakers. Among these, the
Seattle Cinerama stands out as one of only three movie theaters in the world still capable of showing three-panel
Cinerama films.
Tourism
Among Seattle's known annual cultural events and fairs are the 24-day
Seattle International Film Festival,
Northwest Folklife over the
Memorial Day week, numerous
Seafair events throughout July and August (ranging from a
Bon Odori celebration to
hydroplane races), and the Bite of Seattle.
Bumbershoot programs music over the
Labor Day weekend, as well as other arts and entertainment. All are typically attended by 100,000 people annually, as are
Hempfest and two separate
Independence Day celebrations.
Other significant events include numerous
Native American powwows, a Greek Festival hosted by
St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in
Montlake, and numerous ethnic festivals (many associated with
Festál at Seattle Center).
There are other annual events, ranging from the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair & Book Arts Show; an
anime convention,
Sakura-Con;
Penny Arcade Expo, a gaming convention; and specialized
film festivals, such as the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, to a two-day, 9,000-rider
Seattle to Portland bicycle ride and a
Gay Pride parade and festival. In the past, the Gay Pride parade and festival have been centred on Capitol Hill. Since 2006, festivities have been held city-wide, and the parade has followed a route in Downtown to the Seattle Center amusement park.
The
Henry Art Gallery opened in 1927, the first public art museum in Washington. The
Seattle Art Museum (SAM) opened in 1933; SAM opened a museum downtown in 1991 (expanded and reopened 2007); since 1991, the 1933 building has been SAM's
Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM). SAM also operates the
Olympic Sculpture Park (opened 2007) on the waterfront north of the downtown piers. The
Frye Art Museum is a free museum on
First Hill.
Regional history collections are at the Loghouse Museum in Alki,
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, the
Museum of History and Industry and the
Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Industry collections are at the
Center for Wooden Boats, the
Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum, and the
Museum of Flight. Regional ethnic collections include the
Nordic Heritage Museum and the
Wing Luke Asian Museum.
Seattle has artist-run galleries, including 10-year veteran
Soil Art Gallery, and the newer Crawl Space Gallery.
Woodland Park Zoo opened as a private
menagerie in 1889, but was sold to the city in 1899. The
Seattle Aquarium has been open on the downtown waterfront since 1977 (undergoing a renovation 2006). The
Seattle Underground Tour, an exhibit of places that existed before the Great Fire, is also popular. There are also many
community centers for recreation, including Rainier Beach, Van Asselt, Rainier, and Jefferson south of the Ship Canal and Green Lake, Laurelhurst, Loyal Heights north of the Canal, and Meadowbrook.
Sports
PCHA's
Seattle Metropolitans, which in 1917 became the first American hockey team to win the
Stanley Cup. Today Seattle has teams in nearly every major professional sport. The
four major professional teams are the 1979
National Basketball Association champions
Seattle SuperSonics, the
National Football League's
Seattle Seahawks,
Major League Baseball's
Seattle Mariners, and the 2004
Women's National Basketball Association champions,
Seattle Storm. However, the ownership of the SuperSonics is currently
trying to move the team to
Oklahoma City. The
Seattle Sounders currently play in the
United Soccer League, but will be replaced by
Seattle Sounders FC, which will play in
Major League Soccer in 2009. The
Seattle Thunderbirds are a major-junior hockey team that plays in the one of the Canadian major-junior hockey leagues, the WHL (Western Hockey League). The Thunderbirds currently play in the
KeyArena, but beginning in the 2008–2009 season will play in nearby
Kent, Washington.
Seattle also boasts a strong history in collegiate sports, the
NCAA Division I school University of Washington and the NCAA
Division II schools Seattle Pacific University and Seattle University. The Major League Baseball All-Star game was held in Seattle twice, first at the Kingdome in 1979 and again at Safeco Field in 2001. The NBA All-Star game was also held in Seattle twice, the first in 1974 at the Seattle Center Coliseum and the second in 1987 at the Kingdome.
In 2006, the new
Qwest Field (Seattle Seahawks Stadium) hosted the
2005-06 NFC Championship. In 2008, Qwest Field hosted the first game of the
2007-08 NFL playoffs, in which the hometown Seahawks defeated the Washington Redskins, 35 - 14.
Outdoor activities
Seattle's cool mild climate allows outdoor recreation including walking, cycling, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, boating, team sports, and swimming. In town many people walk around Green Lake, through the forests and along the bluffs and beaches of Discovery Park (the largest park in the city) in Magnolia, along the shores of Myrtle Edwards Park on the Downtown waterfront, or along Alki Beach in West Seattle. Also popular are hikes and skiing in the nearby Cascade or Olympic Mountains and kayaking and sailing in the waters of Puget Sound, the
Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the
Strait of Georgia.
Media
Seattle's two major daily newspapers—the
Seattle Times and
Seattle Post-Intelligencer—share their advertising, circulation, and business departments under a
Joint Operating Agreement. There is also a
Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce,, and the University of Washington publishes
The Daily, a daily (when school is in session) student run publication. The most prominent weeklies are the
Seattle Weekly and
The Stranger. Both consider themselves
"alternative" papers.
Real Change is a weekly
street newspaper that's sold mainly by
homeless persons as an alternative to
panhandling. There are also several ethnic newspapers, including the
Northwest Asian Weekly, and numerous neighborhood newspapers, including the
North Seattle Journal.
Seattle is also well served by television and radio, with all major U.S. networks represented, along with at least five other English-language stations and two Spanish-language stations. Seattle cable viewers also receive
CBUT 2 (
CBC) from
Vancouver, British Columbia.
Leading radio stations include
NPR affiliates
KUOW-FM 94.9 and
KPLU-FM 88.5 (Tacoma). Other notable stations include
KEXP-FM 90.3 (affiliated with EMP),
KBCS-FM 91.3 (affiliated with
Bellevue Community College), and
KNHC-FM 89.5, which broadcasts an
electronic music format and is owned by the public school system and operated by students of Nathan Hale High School. Many Seattle radio stations are also available through
Internet radio, with KEXP in particular being a pioneer of Internet radio. Seattle also has numerous commercial radio stations, including
KING-FM, one of the last commercial classical music stations in the United States. Other Fortune 500 companies popularly associated with Seattle are based in nearby Puget Sound cities. Warehouse club chain
Costco Wholesale Corp. (#28), the largest company in Washington, is based in
Issaquah. Microsoft (#48),
Nintendo of America, and cellular telephone pioneer
McCaw Cellular (part of AT&T Wireless until it was acquired by Cingular Wireless and finally merged into the new AT&T), are all located in
Redmond.
Weyerhaeuser, the forest products company (#90), is based in Federal Way. Finally,
Renton is home to truck manufacturer
PACCAR (#157) as is Bellevue to international mobile telephony giant T-Mobile's U.S. subsidiary T-Mobile USA.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced a desire to spark a new economic boom driven by the
biotechnology industry in 2006. Major redevelopment of the
South Lake Union neighborhood is underway in an effort to attract new and established biotech companies to the city, joining biotech companies
Corixa (acquired by
GlaxoSmithKline), Immunex (now part of Amgen), and ZymoGenetics.
Vulcan Inc., the holding company of billionaire
Paul Allen, is behind most of the development projects in the region. While some see the new development as an economic boon, others have criticized Nickels and the Seattle City Council for pandering to Allen's interests at taxpayers' expense. Also in 2006,
Expansion Magazine ranked Seattle among the top 10 metropolitan areas in the nation for climates favorable to business expansion.
In 2005,
Forbes ranked Seattle as the most expensive American city for buying a house based on the local income levels.
Alaska Airlines, operating a hub at
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, maintains headquarters in the city of
SeaTac, next to the airport.
Demographics
Further Information
Get more info on 'Seattle Washington'.
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