Seattle

History

Exploration of the Seattle region began in 1792, with the British captain George Vancouver (whose name today graces cities in both Washington state and British Columbia). However, the first permanent European settlers didn't arrive until 1851, when a party of farmers from Illinois formed a community at the present-day site of Alki Point, west of the city. By the following year, they moved to the current site of downtown Seattle, east of Elliott Bay and gave it its present name in honor of Chief Sealth of the Suquamish Indians who were indigenous to the region.

City Fact Comparison
Indicator	Seattle	Cairo	Rome	Beijing
	(United States)	(Egypt)	(Italy)	(China)
Population of urban area1	2,084,000	10,772,000	2,688,000	12,033,000
Date the city was founded	1851	AD 969	753 BC	723 BC
Daily costs to visit the city2
Hotel (single occupancy)	$104	$193	$172	$129
Meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner)	$44	$56	$59	$62
Incidentals (laundry, dry cleaning, etc.)	$2	$14	$15	$16
Total daily costs	$150	$173	$246	$207
Major Newspapers3
Number of newspapers serving the city	3	13	20	11
Largest newspaper	The Seattle Times	Akhbar El Yom/Al Akhbar	La Repubblica	Renmin Ribao
Circulation of largest newspaper	227,715	1,159,339	754,930	3,000,000
Date largest newspaper was established	1896	1944	1976	1948
1United Nations population estimates for the year 2000.
2The maximum amount the U.S. Government reimburses its employees for business travel. The lodging portion of the allowance is based on the cost for a single room at a moderately-priced hotel. The meal portion is based on the costs of an average breakfast, lunch, and dinner including taxes, service charges, and customary tips. Incidental travel expenses include such things as laundry and dry cleaning.
3David Maddux, ed. Editor&Publisher International Year Book. New York: The Editor&Publisher Company, 1999.

Although the first settlers were farmers, it soon became apparent that the region's primary natural resource was lumber. Sawmills were built, and the city's fledging timber industry

found a ready market for its logs in San Francisco, which was enjoying a building boom following the 1849 gold rush. Seattle was incorporated in 1869. By 1889, it had a population of over 25,000 and was one of the major cities of the northwestern United States. However, that year disaster struck when the city's entire business district—a total of 25 city blocks—burned down in a fire. The rebuilding of the city proved to be not only a reconstruction effort but also a major improvement, as a large-scale regrading of the city's hills was done to resolve drainage and waste disposal problems, and the new streets were built on higher land. One of Seattle's original seven hills—Denny Hill—was leveled altogether; today its name graces the neighborhood where it once stood.

An important chapter in Seattle's history opened with the discovery of gold in Alaska's Yukon Valley (1898). The resulting Klondike gold rush brought new prosperity to Seattle, as prospectors stopped in the city to stock up on their way north and returned to spend much of their newfound wealth on their way back home. Seattle's population grew to 80,600 by 1900 and tripled within the next decade. Seattle's aerospace industry, which dominated the city's economy for much of the century, had its beginnings in 1916, with the launch of the first airplane produced by William Boeing, an event that laid the foundation for the eventual establishment of the Boeing Company, which is still Seattle's single-largest employer.

The world wars brought new bursts of economic activity to Seattle. The city's lumber resources were in demand during World War I (1914–18); during World War II (1939–45) Boeing won defense contracts for the B-17 and B-29 bombers and other weapons. Seattle's population grew rapidly as new residents arrived from other parts of the country, attracted by jobs in the aerospace and shipbuilding industries. By the end of World War II the city's population had reached almost half a million. In the post-war years, the growth of commercial aviation—Boeing once again at the forefront with the 707—provided an additional boost to Seattle's economy. A landmark in Seattle's twentieth-century history was the 1962 World's Fair, which drew almost ten million visitors and left the city with its dominant landmark, the Space Needle (as well as the Monorail).

The drawbacks of heavy dependence on a single economic sector were brought home in the 1970s, when reduced defense spending resulted in employment cutbacks at Boeing, leaving some 60,000 Seattle workers jobless and depressing the local economy for years. An increase in defense contracts

and a booming Asian market for aircraft triggered a rebound in the 1980s. By then a new high-tech field—computers—had also entered the picture. In the last decades of the twentieth century, Microsoft, located in nearby Redmond, and a multitude of other software and computer-related firms that sprang up in the area added a major new feature to Seattle's image and economy. As a new century dawned, Seattle found itself in the midst of a period of prosperity, growth, and development, as new technology helped it fulfill the futuristic promise plotted out years earlier.