Topic: Audio/Video
Seattle-born actress Frances Farmer, a rising star in the 1930s, is remembered today more for her unfortunate life story than for her once promising career. Talented and beautiful, Farmer was also wil...
For more than a century, ferryboat captains on Puget Sound have used the distinctive docking signal made up of a long blast on the boat's whistle followed by two short ones. In maritime terms, this is...
Fishermen's Terminal on Seattle's Salmon Bay has served as the home port for the Puget Sound-based fishing fleet since it opened in 1914. The Port of Seattle developed the site soon after King County ...
The great-grandson of Oregon Trail emigrants, Donald Isle Foster hailed from a solid line of Pacific Northwest pioneers. He first came to prominence in the business community as the Director of Exhibi...
The Fremont Bridge, the first double-leaf bascule drawbridge spanning the Lake Washington Ship Canal, opened June 15, 1917, 19 days before the Government Locks at Ballard were officially dedicated. Th...
Patrick Goldsworthy's initial entry into hiking was through the original Sierra Club Chapter in his hometown of Berkeley, California, where he realized it took citizens' active participation to protec...
Grand Coulee Dam, hailed as the "Eighth Wonder of the World" when it was completed in 1941, is as confounding to the human eye as an elephant might be to an ant. It girdles the Columbia River with 12 ...
R. R. "Bob" Greive was a political force in Washington state for more than 40 years, first as a state senator and then as a member of the King County Council. He was a tireless fundraiser, an astute t...
Woody Guthrie was a Dust Bowl refugee from Oklahoma. A wandering troubadour. He was also a natural-born populist whose guitar was bravely emblazoned with the in-your-face slogan: "This Machine Kills F...
The Hanford Reach National Monument -- one of the most important wildlife refuges in Washington state -- is an inadvertent legacy of the United States' nuclear weapons program. Lands within the monume...
Cecile Ann Hansen -- a descendant within the family of Chief Si 'ahl ("Chief Seattle") -- has served as the elected chair of her people since 1975. During those decades the Duwamish (or in the Salish ...
Despite a late start in politics and competing in a field dominated by men at the time, Jeannette C. Hayner became one of Washington's most powerful state legislators. In 1972 -- 30 years after gettin...
In a remarkable show of personal courage, Auburn native Gordon Hirabayashi was one of handful of Japanese Americans nationwide to defy U.S. government curfew and "evacuation" orders issued in 1942 (in...
For more than 50 years, some of the world's most spectacular fireworks came from a collection of sheds on a hill in Columbia City, home to a pharmaceutical chemist with a genius for pyrotechnics, a ta...
The Northwest Artist Paul Horiuchi is renowned for the Zen-like spontaneity of his collage paintings, along with an abstract expressionist command of flat space. The layered paintings carry overtones ...
Ecologist, trails advocate, hiking legend, tireless volunteer, author, and University of Washington public policy administrator, Ruth Ittner is most remembered for her work with Volunteers for Outdoor...
Henry M. (Scoop) Jackson was one of the most successful and powerful politicians in the history of Washington state. Jackson was born and died in Everett, Snohomish County, the rough-edged industrial ...
Aki Kurose, Seattle teacher and peace activist, spent her adult life translating the lofty ideals of pacifism and social justice into practice. Her work spanned six decades and included housing desegr...
The Lake Washington Ship Canal's opening was celebrated on July 4, 1917, exactly 63 years after Seattle pioneer Thomas Mercer (1813-1898) first proposed the idea of connecting the saltwater of Puget S...
Leo Lassen was a sportswriter and publicist who became a living legend as a baseball radio broadcaster in his hometown of Seattle. He covered the city's Pacific Coast League teams from 1931 to 1960. H...
The Latona Bridge, built in 1891 for Seattle pioneer and investor David T. Denny (1832-1903), carried the first streetcar line across Lake Union and was the first substantial bridge to cross the lake ...
The first book written by Betty MacDonald, The Egg and I, rocketed to the top of the national bestseller list in 1945. Translations followed in more than 30 languages, and the book was made into a ser...
Roberto Maestas, raised by grandparents in rural New Mexico in subsistence circumstances and a migrant worker in his teens, was a Mexican American activist and politician. He led the occupation of a b...