Topic: Maritime
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...
Located in Houghton (now part of Kirkland), the Lake Washington Shipyards began in the 1870s as a small boat landing owned by boat builder Frank Curtis, who launched his first steamship there in 1901....
From the 1890s to 1910, when he retired, Maxwell Levy was the "king of the crimpers" in the booming port of Port Townsend. A crimp or crimper is one who forces or entraps sailors into service against ...
Despite the Columbia River's breadth where it spills into the Pacific Ocean, early European and American explorers often missed it. Later mariners struggling to find the mouth sometimes wrecked in the...
From 1898 to 1971, lightships were important elements in the system of navigation aids along the Washington coast. On May 22, 1898, Light Vessel No. 67 became the first on Washington's coast. She arri...
There are two lighthouses located on San Juan Island, the second-largest island in the San Juan archipelago. The Lime Kiln Light Station, built in 1919, is located in Lime Kiln State Park, on the west...
This story about Vern Nordstrand (1918-2009) and his job locating and returning stray logs to their log booms on Seattle's Lake Union and Lake Washington was contributed by Vern's widow, Dorothea Nord...
Lopez Island, surrounded by the cold waters of the Salish Sea, is at 29.5 square miles the third-largest island in San Juan County. It is the first scheduled stop on the Washington State Ferry route f...
The Marrowstone Point Lighthouse, built in 1918 by the Lighthouse Service, is the smallest lighthouse on Puget Sound, marking the low sandy shoal on the northeast end of Marrowstone Island and the ent...
John Martinis served Everett and Snohomish County in a number of public offices between 1967 and 1991. His early roots in commercial and sports fishing instilled in him a desire to protect natural res...
Horace Winslow ("H. W.") McCurdy was a shipbuilder, bridge builder, civic leader, native Washingtonian, and most enduringly a supporter of maritime research and maritime collecting in the Pacific Nort...
McNeil Island, located in southern Puget Sound, was named in 1841 by Lt. Charles Wilkes of the United States Exploring Expedition in honor of William Henry McNeill. McNeill (the name, but not the isla...
This is a brief chronology of the milestones of Washington history. Part 1 begins at prehistorical times and goes to 1850. Search the HistoryLink.org database for detailed essays on these events.
Robert Moran arrived in Seattle in 1875 at age 18, alone, with just pennies in his pocket. By 1900, he was one of the city's wealthiest and most-respected businessmen, head of a major shipbuilding com...
Morest L. (Morey) Skaret (b. 1913), a 1932 graduate of West Seattle High School who retired in 1981 after careers with both the Seattle Police Department and the Coast Guard, had several other interes...
Between the 1880s and 1920s, an armada of steamships known as the Mosquito Fleet was a main means of transportation on Puget Sound. Often jerry rigged, usually reliable, occasionally less seaworthy th...
The Mukilteo Light Station, located in the small waterfront community of Mukilteo, is situated on Point Elliott, a Puget Sound headland in southwest Snohomish County, approximately three miles south o...
Municipal ownership or close regulation of essential utilities and urban services was a central tenet of the Progressive Movement from the late 1800s through much of the twentieth century. Beginning w...
The New Dungeness Light Station, built in 1857 is the second oldest lighthouse in Washington state. It marks the end of Dungeness Spit, the longest natural sand spit in the world, extending approximat...
The Northwest Fisheries Science Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has been a landmark in Seattle's Montlake neighborhood since its original building was compl...
Lynn Moen interviewed and Morris Moen videotaped Arnold Reinholdtsen (b. 1928) on July 17, 2000 for the Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Oral History Project. Arnold, of Norwegian heritage,...
Naomie Bulloch speaks with Gudmundur Jacobsen (b. 1935) in this Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Oral History Project interview that took place on May 2, 2000 in the Seattle neighborhood of...
Holger Leander Berg, of Finnish heritage, grew up in Ballard and tells tales of his rambunctious childhood: harassing streetcar drivers with his Scout Troop, "creative" fishing around the Puget Sound,...
Ted Beck interviewed Johann Johnson (b. 1915) on June 22, 2000 for the Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Oral History Project. Johann, of Icelandic heritage, describes the various jobs he's ...