Seniors know all about American history. Juniors know all about European history. Sophomores know all about world history. Freshmen know all about middle school. So who knows about Seattle history? Maybe bits and pieces of Seattle’s past have come up in some stories you have read. But haven’t you always wondered about how our city came to be? Kudos if you’ve gone on the Underground Tour. More kudos if you’re reading this.

The Settling of Seattle

The founding of Seattle can be attributed to the Denny Party (not to be confused with the cannibalistic westerners, the Donner Party), who arrived at Alki (originally named New York) in 1851. They eventually moved inland and settled a village they named Duwamps. David Swinson Maynard, one of the original Duwamps settlers, wanted to rename the village “Seattle” after Chief Sealth of the Duwamish tribe.

Battle of Seattle

In the 1850s, Seattle was merely a settlement in the Washington Territory. The Puget Sound War had started in 1855, complete with a series of battles between the U.S. army and the natives who were angry with the imposing treaties. The governor, Isaac Stevens, had declared a “war of extermination” upon the natives, and five days later, on January 26, 1856, native tribes attacked Seattle. Witnesses repotted anywhere from 200 to 2,000 attacking natives, though historians believe there were only around 150. Only two settlers died during the battle, and the death toll of the natives is unknown.

The Great Seattle Fire

By the 1890s, most of the buildings in Seattle were still made of wood due to easy access to so much lumber. Many buildings and streets were built on wooden stilts, since the city was either at or below sea level depending on the location. Hollowed logs were also often used as sewer and water pipes. In short, Seattle was a firetrap. In 1889, John Back, a worker in a cabinet-making shop, was heating glue over a gasoline stove when it boiled over and caught fire. Because of this, June 6 became the most destructive day in Seattle’s history. Seattle’s volunteer fire department was unable to put out the fire, and by the morning of the next day, it had burned four piers, the railroad terminals, and the entire business district. A total of 25 blocks of Seattle had been destroyed, causing losses of nearly $20 million. Only one young boy died in the fire, but there were a number of fatalities during the reconstruction. An influx of 20,000 to 40,000 people flooded into Seattle to help with the reconstruction, making it the largest city in Washington. Thanks to the fire, most of the rats in the city were killed, and we now have wondrous stone and brick buildings as opposed to buildings made of trees.

Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition

1909 marked Seattle’s first world’s fair, held at the University of Washington (a campus of merely three buildings at the time). Many of the buildings which were built for the exposition weren’t meant to be permanent, yet many are still in use on the UW campus today. Geyser Basin, more commonly known as Frosh Pond to all the current and aspiring Huskies, was built as the focal point of the exposition and is one of the more prominent remnants of the exposition today.

The Founding of Garfield

Our illustrious doghouse was built in 1920, a small wooden building comprising of only 12 rooms. The school wasn’t always named after our oft-forgotten 20th president; it was originally called East High School, Its first graduating class consisted of around 280 students, who transferred from Broadway High School (now the Broadway Performance Hall on Capitol Hill). One secret Garfield still has to offer for many people are the terracotta figures which are built into the top of the south, east, and west sides of the school (I guess the school has always had a vendetta against the north end). They are six emblems, representing botany, trades, arts and crafts, industry, intelligences, and sciences, six prized school subjects. Too bad football didn’t make the cut.

Century-21 Exposition

Most people already know that the Space Needle wasn’t built to contact space, nor was it built as Santa’s landing spot (despite what I was told). We can enjoy Folklife, Bumbershoot, Hempfest and all the other happenings at the Seattle Center, but we rarely attribute them to the Century 21 Exposition. The Century 21 Exposition was a world’s fair that occurred in Seattle for six months in 1962. It was supposed to mark the 50th anniversary of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, but because of the “Space Race” booming in the ’50s and ’60s, the theme for the world’s fair was easily determined: space. Not only was the Space Needle built for it, but nearly everything else at the Seattle Center was also, the monorail, Pacific Science Center, and Key Arena included. The 1962 world’s fair was also the setting for Elvis’ movie “It Happened at the World’s Fair,” which came out a year later.

Bumbershoot Begins

Bumbershoot began in 1971 as a donation-only festival originally known as “Mayor’s Arts Festival.” The festival was similar to what Folklife is now (dance, folk music, and arts) but added light shows, motorcycle races, and computer graphics. Two years later in 1973 the fair committee changed the name to Bumbershoot, and a year later, Bumbershoot started running for 10 days, but in 1977 the length was cut and scheduled to Labor Day weekend. One Reel started producing Bumbershoot in 1980 and with this came an admission fee of $2.50 a day (except on Fridays, which were known as “Free Fridays” for ten years), and since then the price has grown to $50 a day.

Wah Mee Massacre

On Maynard Alley, in Chinatown, one can find a pair of graffiti-tagged padlocked doors, remnants of a once bustling business. Thirty years ago, these doors led into the Wah Mee club, an up and running (and illegal) gambling den. On February 18, 1983, Willie Mak, Tony Ng and Benjamin Ng entered the club through the security system of multiple successive doors, intending to rob it. They proceeded to gun down 14 people, killing 13 of them, creating a massacre dubbed the worst mass murder in all of Washington’s history. The resulting trial was one of the most high-profile ones in Seattle’s history, made possible by the three’s failure to kill all the witnesses.

Rattle in Seattle

In 2001 we were all either in a kindergarten, first grade, second grade, or third grade class when suddenly we had to dive under our tables and cover our heads. This was the effect of the Nisqually Earthquake, also known as the “Rattle in Seattle.” When I was in second grade, I was excited by the idea of being under a table during an earthquake. It was one of the most exhilarating times of my short life, besides when I won a game of tetherball (which was very rarely). What I didn’t realize was that around 400 people were injured because of it. The idea of another earthquake still excites me, though the next one that we’ll experience will probably separate California from the continent.