Seattle’s Top 10 : Moments in History

1. Native American Roots

   Archaeological
   records date the first inhabitants of the Seattle region to
   11,000-12,000 years ago. Tribes included the Suquamish, Duwamish,
   Nisqually, Snoqualmie, and Muckleshoot, who, despite their harsh
   environment, evolved into complex societies that traded with other
   tribes.

2. Denny Party

   In
   1851, Chief Sealth of the Duwamish Tribe greeted Arthur A. Denny and
   his group of European settlers at West Seattle’s Alki Point .
   Subsequently, Denny served as a delegate to the Monticello convention,
   which gave rise to the states of Oregon and Washington.

3. Northern Pacific Railroad

   Seattle’s
   neighbor, Tacoma, was the original terminus of 1873’s Northern Pacific
   Railroad, linking the region to the rest of the country. By 1893,
   another transcontinental railroad, the Great Northern Railway, extended
   into Seattle, eventually supplanting Tacoma as the Puget Sound region’s
   main rail depot.

4. Lumber Mills

   When
   timber baron Frederick Weyerhaeuser purchased nearly a million acres of
   railroad land in 1900, Seattle’s mushrooming logging industry turned a
   corner for even more rapid growth and exploitation of natural resources.
   Until then, entrepreneurs such as Henry Yesler ruled the wharf, and
   erected the pioneer town out of lumber from ancient old growth forests.

5. Great Fire of 1889

   Natural
   resources created a boomtown whose rapid growth drew more than 1,000
   new residents every month. Seattleites learned the impermanence of
   wooden structures in 1889, after a catastrophic fire destroyed much of
   the downtown area.

6. Klondike Gold Rush

   The Alaska Gold Rush 
   officially kicked off in 1897 after a gold-filled steamship docked at
   Seattle’s waterfront. As the last gas for prospectors and suppliers
   bound for the gold fields, this city prospered as never before.

   
   

   
   
   

   Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park

7. Boeing’s Beginnings

   Recognizing
   the need for airplanes as the United States entered World War I in
   1917, William E. Boeing hired pilot Herb Munter to design a seaplane for
   the Navy. The rest of the giant Boeing Corporation’s success is
   history.

8. Rise of Microsoft

   In
   1975, Harvard dropout Bill Gates and his high school friend Paul Allen
   founded Microsoft. From the suburb of Redmond, they launched a personal
   computer revolution and have never looked back. Today, Microsoft’s
   Windows operating system is the dominant computer platform, and the
   company employs more than 50,000 people worldwide.

9. Nisqually Earthquake

   If
   Seattle is a boom and bust town, it certainly felt the boom in a
   magnitude 6.8 earthquake on the morning of February 28, 2001 .
   Workers escaped their offices, if they could, to see the earth rolling,
   pavements cracking, and cars violently swaying. The region suffered
   more than $1 billion in damages.

10. Green River Killer Caught

    The
    Seattle area lived under a dark shadow of brutal serial killings as
    dozens of women became victims of the Green River Killer. Twenty years
    of intense investigation led to the capture of Gary Ridgeway in 2001. He
    was convicted in 2003.

Top 10 Famous Seattleites