This story was originally published at HistoryLink.org. Subscribe to their weekly newsletter. Italian Americans in Washington October is Italian American Heritage Month, and this week HistoryLink looks at some of the contributions Italian Americans have made in Washington. One of the first Italians to visit the Northwest was explorer Alessandro Malaspina, who sailed here under the Spanish…

This story was originally published at HistoryLink.org. Subscribe to their weekly newsletter. Planting a Seed On September 27, 1876, Thurston County pioneer William Owen Bush won a top prize for grain at the nation’s centennial exposition in Philadelphia, and he would later attend three other American expositions, winning prizes at each. Bush’s interest in agronomy took root at…

This story was originally published at HistoryLink.org. Subscribe to their weekly newsletter. Cities Start to Grow Four King County cities share a birthday this week on August 31. On that day in 1995 Shoreline incorporated. Homesteaded in the 1890s, the community grew slowly over the years until the completion of Interstate 5. The resulting growth led its…

This story was originally published at HistoryLink.org. Subscribe to their weekly newsletter. Fires Below One hundred and twenty-five years ago this week, on August 24, 1894, fire broke out in the Oregon Improvement Company’s coal mine at Franklin, a small coal town southeast of Black Diamond. The men working below rushed to the main shaft, desperate to…

This story was originally published at HistoryLink.org. Subscribe to their weekly newsletter. Power and Light Seventy years ago this week, on August 18, 1949, Seattle City Light completed work on Ross Dam, located on the Skagit River in Whatcom County. The dam and Ross Lake, which was created by rising waters behind the structure, were named in…

President Warren G. Harding in motorcade on First Avenue, Seattle in 1923

This story was originally published at HistoryLink.org. Subscribe to their weekly newsletter. Walking on the Moon Fifty years ago this week, on July 20, 1969, the world looked on in amazement as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. In Washington, Boeing workers took pride in helping the astronauts achieve…

University Bridge, 1927

Snoqualmie, home of “Twin Peaks,” turns 116 this week

This story was originally published at HistoryLink.org. Subscribe to their weekly newsletter. Champion Team Forty years ago this week, on June 1, 1979, the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Washington Bullets 97-93 in Washington, D.C., and brought home the team’s first (and only) NBA championship. It was the city’s first major professional-sports trophy since the Seattle Metropolitans hockey…

This story was originally published at HistoryLink.org. Subscribe to their weekly newsletter. Giving a Hoot On May 23, 1991, U.S. District Court Judge William Dwyer blocked timber sales in national forests to protect the northern spotted owl, after the National Audubon Society and the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund challenged the U.S. Forest Service’s 1986 Forest Management…

This story was originally published at HistoryLink.org. Subscribe to their weekly newsletter. Campus Sights In 1895 the University of Washington moved from downtown Seattle to its present location, which at the time was heavily forested and undeveloped. The campus took root on the northern portion of the property, but as the university grew its regents sought ways…