[ Music ] >> In the post war boom times, Seattle hosted a visionary, somewhat audacious event called Century 21.

And visitors flocked here to glimpse the future.

What they saw on the fairgrounds was exciting.

What they saw just beyond, was exhilarating and a warning.

Lake Washington with no swimming signs, dying salmon runs, virgin forests, clear cut.

Was this the price of progress?

It was time to rethink, recharge and reinvent.

[ Music ] >> The gates to the Century 21 Exposition opened at am on April 21, 1962.

The fairgrounds sparkled, buzzed with optimism and futurism.

After various speeches and a musical salute, the packed crowds at Memorial Stadium went quiet as President John F. Kennedy's voice came over the loudspeakers.

>> I'm honored to open the Seattle World's Fair today.

May we open not only a great world's fair, may we open an era of peace and understanding among all mankind.

Let the fair begin.

>> He pushed a button and bells rang, flags unfurled and a bank of howitzers blasted off a 20-gun salute.

Seattle's second World's Fair had begun.

The fair was a feast for the imagination.

Visitors rode the space age monorail, the Bubbleator, the Sky Ride, and lounged by the magical International Fountain.

Lines formed at the Space Needle for a memorable ride to the top.

Cool exhibits filled the Science Center while the Colosseum housed the World of Tomorrow, a glimpse into the future.

The fair brought together amazing foreign exhibits as well as IBM, General Electric and Ford.

Picturephones, robots, computers, jetpacks, moving sidewalks, air cars, lunar colonies, cordless phones.

It was all there.

And for pure fun, there were amusement park rides, stage venues, a food circus, even a risque show street which offered up adult entertainment.

The fair captivated visitors for six months and attracted more celebrities than Seattle had ever seen before.

Astronaut John Glenn received a hero's welcome with his Project Mercury space capsule.

Other guests included Prince Philip of England, comedian Bob Hope, Richard Nixon, Igor Stravinsky, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Ed Sullivan and Walt Disney.

But some of the biggest crowds came in September to see Elvis Presley film scenes from "It Happened at the World's Fair."

[ Music ] On October 21, 1962, thousands filled Memorial Stadium for the closing ceremonies.

President Kennedy was supposed to attend, but he canceled due to a cold.

Unbeknownst to the fair goers, he was actually dealing with the Cuban missile crisis.

>> I now officially commit the Seattle World's Fair to history.

>> Almost 10 million visitors experienced Seattle's and America's vision for the 21st century.

Afterward, the city was left with 75-acres of civic pride: The Seattle Center.

The iconic Space Needle, the Monorail, the Science Center and the Coliseum, now the Climate Pledge Arena, are still with us.

All a legacy to Seattle's leap into the future.

>> When Seattle hotel executive Eddie Carlson dined in a revolving restaurant nearly 500 ft above Stuttgart, he grabbed a napkin and sketched an idea.

A slender space needle pointing toward the stars.

Fair planners dismissed Carlson's idea as too costly and impractical.

But Seattle's business leaders knew the fair needed a symbol.

With no public funds and no available land, they hunted for space near the fairgrounds until they found a tiny 120 by 120-foot lot.

Price, $75,000.

Carlson enlisted a team to create a 605-foot tripod, crowned by a saucer-shaped top with a revolving restaurant.

Five investors raised $4.5 million.

Construction began in April 1961, barely a year before the fair.

The needle required nearly 6,000 tons of concrete to anchor it to the ground.

Crews worked nonstop, hoisting the top into place by December, a remarkable achievement.

When Century 21 opened, the skeptics were silenced.

Born from a napkin sketch and sheer audacity, the Space Needle rose as Seattle's enduring icon.

>> In the mid-20th century, Washington regularly reelected two of the nation's most powerful senators.

Their nicknames were Scoop and Maggie.

Together they passed legislation that benefited all of the Northwest.

Scoop was Senator Henry Jackson, born in Everett in 1912.

Maggie was Senator Warren G. Magnuson, born in Minnesota in 1905, who came west to attend the UW Law School.

Both witnessed and made history.

Jackson passed important environmental legislation before environmentalists were even a term.

He stood for support of civil rights, tribal rights, international human rights and Scoop ran for president in 1972 and in 1976 but failed to secure the nomination.

He was a global statesman, served on the Armed Services Committee and was a strong supporter of the military.

Upon his death in 1983, the UW Board of Regents renamed the School of International Studies in his honor.

Maggie was more liberal than Scoop.

He was also the more powerful, serving as chair of the Appropriations and Commerce Committees.

Maggie had a close relationship with Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Carter.

When Maggie remarried in 1964, LBJ was his best man.

Magnuson delivered the National Institutes of Health, the UW Medical Center, public television, Amtrak and a ban on supertankers in Puget Sound.

Maggie passed away in 1989.

Magnuson Park was named in his honor.

Scoop served in the Senate for 31 years, Maggie for 36.

Two statesmen who roamed the halls of power, bringing opportunities, social justice and leadership to the people of Washington, the country and the world.

[ Music ] >> In the 1950s, Seattle began to awaken to the costs of the city's rapid growth.

Alarmingly, people couldn't swim at Seattle's beaches because of unchecked pollution.

Locals began calling Lake Washington "Lake Stinko" due to the 20 million gallons of raw sewage dumped daily into the lake by the surrounding suburbs.

Seattle and the other local governments decided to act.

Metro was formed.

But in their rush to clean up Lake Washington, the Duwamish River, home to most of the city's industries, absorbed even more of the region's pollution.

Some of the sewage and stormwater fouling Lake Washington was rerouted to the Duwamish, leaving the river as a sacrifice zone that many assumed would never again be used for swimming and fishing.

People living near the river carried the burden of highly polluted water as well as fouled air and soils, with a life expectancy eight years shorter than the city average.

Residents began to take matters into their own hands.

Residents began to clean up trash from the river and its creeks and to restore native habitat for salmon.

Leading the effort, Duwamish Valley resident John Beal teamed up with the Duwamish tribal leader, James Rasmussen.

Together, they inspired a volunteer movement that led the river to be listed for superfund cleanup in 2001.

Today, toxic pollution in the river bottom has been reduced by half.

Cleanup is ongoing with the goal of restoring the health of the Duwamish and the people who fish and swim in its waters by 2034.

Success will depend on sustaining the political will to clean up the Duwamish River the way Seattle cleaned up Lake Washington.

Our history shows us it's possible.

[ Music ] >> In 1910, Seattle was booming and rotting from the inside out.

Mayor Hiram Gill and police chief Charles "Wappy" Wappenstein had turned the city into an open town, where gambling and prostitution thrived under official protection.

When Wappy's kickbacks and his plan for a 500-room brothel came to light, public outrage was electric.

In response, reform-minded citizens organized the Municipal League of Seattle.

Its mission was simple: facts before politics.

League members rated candidates, investigated graft and published their findings.

A radical breath of fresh air in an age of smoke-filled backrooms.

The league helped spearhead the creation of the port of Seattle in 1911, wresting control of the city's waterfront from private monopolies and placing it in public hands.

It was a bold experiment in civic stewardship, and it worked.

The port became an engine of trade and an enduring symbol of what reform could achieve.

Through the creation of Metro to clean up Lake Washington and the forward thrust initiatives of the 60s, the league championed clean water, parks, housing and transit, a blueprint for a greener, fairer city.

In the 70s, league leaders pressed for landmark ethics and disclosure laws that helped restore public trust.

They also stood for social progress, supporting school desegregation and pioneering campaign finance transparency long before it became fashionable.

For more than a century, the Municipal League has served as Seattle's civic conscience, evaluating candidates, spotlighting waste and corruption, and reminding citizens that democracy demands vigilance.

>> Good government doesn't happen by accident.

It happens when citizens roll up their sleeves and make it so.

>> Jim Ellis was born in 1921.

His life was shaped by adventures with his brother Bob in the forests and waters of the Pacific Northwest.

Both men served in World War II: Jim in the Air Force, Bob just out of high school on the front lines in Europe when he was killed in the Battle of the Bulge.

Jim was devastated.

His new bride, Marilu, encouraged him to harness his grief and anger to make his life count for Bob's.

Her words and partnership shaped their lives and left an indelible mark on the region.

After law school at the UW, Jim worked for a respected local firm and began volunteering with the Municipal League in the early 50s.

He came to understand the importance of civic engagement and bringing people of differing views together to solve big challenges.

Jim's first major project was very personal.

In the summer of 1958, Lake Washington, one of his favorite places to swim as a child, was closed to swimming due to a record algae bloom fueled by untreated sewage flowing into the lake.

Similar issues plagued the waterfront as industrial runoff and raw sewage poured into Puget Sound.

Jim brought together a broad coalition of leaders, creating the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle, Metro.

In 1958, voters approved funding for regional sewage treatment and planning began.

Over ten years, construction of ten sewage treatment plants was completed and untreated discharges into Lake Washington went from 20 million gallons a day to zero.

People swam in the lake again.

By the mid-60s, the economy was booming.

The public infrastructure was strained.

Ellis stepped up to lead an ambitious initiative named Forward Thrust, calling for roads, rapid transit, new parks, modern airport, convention center and more.

Voters enthusiastically approved most of Forward Thrust.

Unfortunately, Rapid Transit failed to get the super majority needed for passage, missing out on major federal funding for the project's $1.2 billion price tag.

Present day Sound Transit's final tab will exceed $100 billion.

Mary Lou Ellis brought balance to Jim's life, raising their four children while being his sounding board and serving the community despite fighting diabetes, a battle she lost in 1982.

Jim again channeled his grief into service, championing Freeway Park and the Washington State Convention Center.

Then in 1990, Ellis assembled a broad coalition to create the Mountains to Sound Greenway, balancing rapid growth with preserving the region's rich cultural history, ecology, wildlife and recreational opportunities, earning designation as a National Heritage Area.

A mentor to me and many others, Jim Ellis, who passed in 2019, had a will to serve, inspiring us to patiently work together through ups and downs to create a shared vision for our future.

>> Black settlers arrived in Seattle within a decade of its founding.

The African American population remained small for almost a century.

When thousands of African Americans moved to the city during World War II to work in the defense industry, they encountered a highly segregated society.

Most white property owners refused to rent apartments to African Americans, and many deeds included legal requirements which prevented homeowners from selling to nonwhite buyers.

This led to most of Seattle's new African American residents to settle in the Central District where they collaborated with the neighborhood's longstanding black residents to establish a thriving nexus of culture, community networks and activism.

As Seattle hosted the World's Fair in 1962 to celebrate the region's technological and scientific achievements, black activists implemented public campaigns that emphasized their exclusion from this progress.

Homegrown civil rights organizations like the Central Area Civil Rights Committee and local leaders like Edwin Pratt, director of the Seattle Urban League, led efforts to contest racially restrictive housing policies, hiring discrimination and overcrowded public schools.

Their efforts led the city to pass stronger open housing laws, implement educational integration policies, and compelled employers to begin hiring black workers.

Despite some gains, racial inequality remained rampant.

The Central Area Committee for Peace and Improvement, led by Les McIntosh, fought for increased community control over neighborhood schools.

In 1968, the University of Washington's black Student Union staged a sit in, in the president's office, leading to a major increase in black student enrollment at the university.

Tragically, backlash to black activism resulted in the assassination of Edwin Pratt outside his home in 1969.

New black political leaders came to prominence after the radicalism of the late 60s.

Social worker Peggy Joan Maxie became the first black woman to serve in the state House of Representatives and Norm Rice became the first African American mayor, serving two terms from 1990 to 1998.

Even though black residents had more opportunities in housing, employment and social mobility, rising housing costs forced many black Seattleites to move farther south.

Black Activists, then and now, have continued to build upon the foundations of their predecessors to build a more equitable city.

>> Seattle, a young, remote city, is hardly a hotbed for arts and culture, such as places like New York, London or Vienna.

But after almost 10 million visitors attended the second World's Fair, the arts took off.

>> Nineteen-sixty-two was really the beginning of the flourishing of the arts in Seattle.

Yes, we had a symphony since 1903, but in '62, there was an exhibition hall at the World's Fair.

All of a sudden, what happened in 1962 was we had a symphony orchestra.

>> It was led by legendary music director, Milton Katims, in a civic auditorium he called the Opera House, even though Seattle Opera didn't start until 1963.

Pacific Northwest Ballet would follow in 1972.

>> I can't imagine a life without music, without visual arts, without dance.

And we wanted to give that to the people of Seattle.

>> Major companies in major cities aren't as important as major cultural institutions are, or for that matter, major educational institutions.

>> As the region evolved, the arts organizations flourished, driven by community leaders and philanthropists.

The scope and scale was impressive, with unique and innovative facilities created to host artists from all over the world.

>> We became one of the great cultural centers in the country with a great ballet, great opera, great symphony hall, wonderful theater.

That's the story of how this city was meant to be.

>> Will tech savvy Seattle continue to support the arts?

Will it find new audiences?

Who will step up to lead arts and culture into the future?

>> Namu, the captive killer whale, was the toast of Seattle.

When Ted Griffin arrived in Elliott Bay with Namu in tow in June 1965, he was given a key to the city, and thousands of city residents turned out to greet him.

Griffin had desperately wanted a killer whale for his aquarium on the Seattle waterfront.

When he heard a killer whale had accidentally been caught in a fisherman's net in Namu Bay, British Columbia, he headed north with a backpack full of cash to buy him.

Namu was the world's first captive performing killer whale, and he sparked a craze for more performing orcas all over the world.

Puget Sound and the Salish Sea were the primary source of supply.

Seattle rooted for Griffin as he chased the whales by helicopter and speedboat, using seal bombs to herd them into coves and bays he would net off to make his selection from the captives.

He preferentially targeted the young, the cheapest to ship and easiest to train, sending them all over the world.

Lolita was the last Puget Sound killer whale still left in captivity.

She died in a concrete tank in Miami's Seaquarium in 2023 after more than 50 years in captivity, despite many efforts to save her.

Ironically, it was the capture era that opened people's eyes to the true nature of killer whales, once thought of as vermin and shot by fishermen.

Seeing their intelligence and gentleness up close changed everything for the whale called killer, now protected and even revered.

The capture of killer whales was outlawed in Puget Sound for good in 1976.

But by then, the captures had taken a third of the pods.

Today, they remain at grave risk of extinction.

>> Washington spent most of the 20th century as a political battleground, sometimes red, sometimes blue, often purple.

It unseated Democratic Governor Al Rosellini in favor of Republican Dan Evans in 1964.

Ronald Reagan captured the state's electoral votes in 1980 and '84, the last Republican to carry the state.

There's not been a GOP governor in over 40 years.

The changing political complexion has coincided with changes in how the state lives and works.

Some of it is just math.

Washington state has over 8 million people, with nearly 5 million residing in the central Puget Sound core.

Over 70% of the state's economic activity comes from this area.

Money plus people equals power at the ballot box.

Gone are the days when Boeing workers and loggers ruled the voting booth.

Washington is now a high-tech center, home to Microsoft, Amazon, and Starbucks.

Its younger workforce leans left, very left.

Less than 30% of King County voters voted for President Trump.

In 2025, Seattle elected a Democratic socialist mayor.

Think of it this way.

Before 1970, the officially nonpartisan Seattle City Council was overwhelmingly Republican.

Since that time, the population has grown by 2.3 million people.

The Seattle area is younger by almost five years, way more educated, wealthier, and more diverse than the United States average, all contributing to political leanings.

Except for Evans governorship and the 1994 Republican Revolution in Congress, the D's dominance has left moderate, mainstream Republicans, long part of the state's political ecosystem, as endangered as the spotted owl.

Some Republicans in eastern Washington are so distraught, they want to secede from the state and join Idaho.

Seattle hasn't had a Republican mayor in 56 years.

Both U.S.

senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray have been in office for at least 25 years.

And before that, Democratic Senators Magnuson and Jackson held their seats for 36 and 30 years, respectively.

Another 1.8 million people, mostly young and ambitious, are expected in the Seattle area by 2050.

Will the state become a political battleground again?

Will long streaks of Democratic dominance continue or be broken?

Is another big shift coming?

[ Music ] >> Born in 1926, the Reverend Dr.

Samuel Berry McKinney was much more than a prominent Christian pastor and a leading figure in the civil rights movement.

>> And when they get voting rights in Alabama, they'll be further ahead than we are here.

>> He was also my father and my pastor.

My father's impact spanned more than seven decades and extended beyond the pulpit of Mount Zion Baptist Church.

He championed human equality and participated in pivotal marches such as Selma to Montgomery and the march on Washington.

I remember how the realities of his public life spilled into our private life.

Our telephone lines were tapped.

I witnessed guns pointed at my father.

Even our church was bombed.

Once, I was held at gunpoint for nearly nine hours.

Despite the threats, a deep belief in my father's mission and in God's wisdom instilled in me a sense of safety, men like Andrew Young, Martin Luther King, and my father were propelled by a purpose larger than themselves.

For his congregation, he was a shepherd to the world, a civil rights giant.

To me, he was the father who let me stand on his shoes to learn the waltz.

Seattle honored him by renaming a portion of 19th Avenue near Mount Zion Baptist Church as Reverend Dr.

S. McKinney Avenue.

My father passed away in 2018 at the age of 91.

A mountain of a man who worked to make Seattle a place of greater justice, dignity, and opportunity.

So, what's next?

Doing the work, living with purpose, telling the story, passing the lessons along.

>> Look at a map of the United States.

From New York to Seattle, it's almost 3,000 miles.

And from Washington, D.C.

to Seattle, about the same.

Seattle's way up here in the corner.

Distant from the cultural and political centers of American life.

Far from the influences of tradition and convention, the northwest has long attracted free thinkers and dissenters, people who want to leave behind the shackles of normalcy and pursue unbounded lives.

Some came as early as 1880 and set up colonies in experimental living in Port Angeles, near Bellingham, and elsewhere in western Washington.

Many of these colonies were founded on socialist principles.

Political thought drove much of the region's radicalism, but social and cultural forces were at work as well.

The free love movement flourished.

Its guiding principle was tolerance for every way of life.

Inevitably, though, it was economic circumstances that fomented the most dissent.

As Seattle and environs industrialized, unions grew in strength, and so did demand for better wages and better hours.

The Industrial Workers of the World, a union otherwise known as the Wobblies, successfully organized strikes and protests.

Sometimes violence ensued.

The Depression era saw a deepening and strong strengthening of radical activism in Seattle.

In the late 1940s though, the Red Scare put radicals under suspicion and scrutiny, culminating in hearings undertaken by State Representative Albert Canwell's fact-finding committee on un-American activities.

Radicalism rose again, though.

In the 60s and the 70s, anti-war activists known as the Seattle Seven were charged with conspiracy to incite a riot.

Members of the United Indian People's Council occupied Fort Lawton to assert indigenous claims to the land there.

And members of Seattle's Latino Latina community occupied a deserted elementary school to create El Centro de la Raza, the Center for People of All Races.

Seattle garnered international attention in 1999 when 40,000 protesters sought to shut down a World Trade Organization convention.

Hundreds of anti-globalization activists were arrested in what came to be known as the Battle of Seattle.

Unrest flared again in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd.

In June, a swath of Seattle's Capitol Hill was declared autonomous by protesters.

And once again, dissent in Seattle made national news.

[ Music ] >> Seattle stepped onto the international stage after our second World's Fair in a city changing race to invent the future.

Along the way, some of our memorable local icons got exploded.

Characters and institutions got run over by new highways, or they just got pushed away or faded into memories.

It was the early days of local television.

>> Hi there, boys and girls.

>> I'm a Puget Sound sailor on the old Windberg Four.

[ Music ] >> Stores large and small.

We still smile warmly at some of our unique characters.

>> Hi, I'm Dick Balch.

How many more to go?

>> Here we go.

>> I saw Bill the Beer Man at every Seattle game I went to.

Yep, a live gorilla in a store in Tacoma.

Quirky landmarks and icons didn't escape either.

[ Music ] The media landscape changed as well.

Some disappeared.

Some went online.

And who can forget a Seattle original?

Man, I'm much better looking now.

Time marches on and the tide waits for no one.

Something is surely lost.

Something is surely gained.

What we leave behind says a lot about who we were and who we will be.

That is an ice cream dish those guys are running around with.

>> One more thing to say to you.

Smooth sailing and bye for now.

[ Music ] >> Seattle has always been a boom and bust town that has punched above its weight, with aspirations to become a global economic force and attain the coveted status of world class city.

In the 1960s and 70s, civic leaders promoted growth, tourism and urban renewal, including a plan to redevelop Pike Place Market into office and apartment towers, hotels and parking garages.

Prominent journalist Emmett Watson, whose career spanned over 50 years, penned biting commentaries on Seattle's changing social landscape.

A supporter of the countercultural and antiwar movements and the pool halls and cheap diners of downtown, Watson became especially known for his Lesser Seattle effort, skewering what he considered to be self-serving business establishment proposals to sanitize the city of its gritty qualities and remake it into something more swanky and out of reach of common working people.

For Watson, lesser was better.

Fast forward to the mid-2000s.

The city is experiencing its second tech boom and quickly becoming an Amazon company town.

Like in previous boom periods, global attention and capital flood in, bringing explosive growth and growing pains.

The past is torn down to make way for the future.

As longtime landmarks, homes and gathering places are shuttered or bulldozed for upscale development, the grunge of a funky maritime blue-collar town seems virtually overnight to morph into a code worshipping corporate techtropolis of tomorrow.

The nation's fastest growing city sees skyrocketing rents, a growing gulf between the haves and have nots, and entire communities transformed.

Neighborhoods like the historically black Central District, Scandinavian Ballard and queer and artistic Capitol Hill experience swift and severe gentrification as residents and local businesses are displaced.

With echoes of Emmett, many fear that Seattle's social fabric is being unraveled, losing its come as you are character and sense of place.

Perhaps the spirit of Lesser Seattle and Emmett Watson will continue to be invoked as long as Seattle grapples with what kind of city it wants to be and how much or how little we allow the past to inform our future.

>> In the late 1960s to early 70s, the old historic buildings of Pioneer Square were slated to be bulldozed for condominiums and parking lots.

Most of these buildings dated from just after the Great Seattle fire of 1889.

My father, Alan Black, was determined to save these vintage buildings.

Along with architect Ralph Anderson and gallery owner Richard White, they envisioned a revitalized district with historic low-rise buildings and open spaces for both locals and tourists.

>> Around the same time, my father, architect Victor Steinbrook, led efforts to save the iconic Pike Place Market from Seattle's powerful financial and political leaders who wanted it demolished.

They envisioned a glitzy new development of luxury high rise condominiums and upscale shops.

For over a century, the market has hosted generations of family-owned stalls, many operated by immigrants including Japanese and Italian farmers and merchants who brought unique foods and crafts to the city.

My dad called it Seattle's heart and soul.

>> The 70s were a dicey time to borrow money and take risks with prime interest rates at 18%.

One of the first buildings to ignite the revitalization of Pioneer Square was the Grand Central on the Park.

Elliot Bay Books and art galleries like Foster White opened their doors.

Many other buildings were restored, and the Pioneer Square Historic District was created to preserve the neighborhood.

>> But just how was the market saved?

Beginning in 1964, a scrappy group known as the Friends of the Market was organized to campaign, agitate and protest the developers and their political allies at City Hall.

Grassroots volunteers spent eight years resisting.

It wasn't an easy fight, but in November 1971, Seattle voters resoundingly approved Proposition 1, which saved the Pike Place Market forever.

>> Both of our dads are remembered as preservationists.

>> They helped save both Pioneer Square and the Pike Place Market.

Today they are historic -- >> And important places -- >> [In unison] -- for all of us to enjoy.

>> On [foreign name] a long time ago, my grandmother, Topshablue Vi Hilbert [phonetic] was born on the Skagit River.

She devoted her life to Lushootseed, the indigenous language of this land.

Her family lived in the traditional ways of our Skagit people.

And unlike many other children, she was never punished for speaking Lushootseed.

Her family often welcomed visiting scholars who wanted to learn about our culture.

One linguist, Tom Hess, recognized how fluent she was in both English and Lushootseed.

He showed her how to write the language and then handed over his University of Washington class to her.

She continued teaching for 15 years.

She studied old recordings from the 1950s and consulted with tribal elders to help keep the language alive.

My grandmother spoke at a variety of events where she would always speak in Lushootseed.

She became a renowned storyteller and received the National Heritage Fellowship award.

She created books and videos and later digital materials.

Though she passed away in 2008, we continue her work through Lushootseed research and host an annual conference at Seattle University in her honor.

[Foreign language spoken] We miss her dearly.

>> Seattle's long history as a home for innovative thinking has reached really been a matter of economic survival.

It kept us relevant.

Seattle has always attracted innovators, people who didn't quite fit in and wanted to do something new and different.

And isolation hadn't mattered to the first entrepreneurs drawn by natural resources and ready markets in California.

The next economic wave built on our position on the Pacific Rim as Seattle became the largest west coast port and shipbuilding center.

But resources and shipping would plateau by midcentury, and Seattle needed new economic drivers.

For many growing industries, distance was irrelevant.

Airplanes and software delivered themselves.

The region became a center for medical research, architecture, engineering, and other brainy and creative fields that can be done from anywhere.

Local key companies focused on quality and innovation.

Make the best stuff and your customers won't worry about shipping costs.

Kenworth made the finest Class A trucks in the country.

Delta Marine built super yachts found around the world.

Medical ultrasound was pioneered at the University of Washington, giving rise to a large medical device industry.

How cool is that?

Quality and innovation drove another mainstay of Seattle's economy: retail and hospitality.

John Nordstrom invested his take from the Klondike gold rush in a shoe store that became a national leader in service-driven retailing.

Costco focused on high quality merchandise in bulk.

Starbucks saw the appeal of a great cup of coffee and the magic of providing a convivial third place to enjoy that coffee with friends.

Innovation extended to the public sector with Seattle deploying the nation's first bicycle police and medic one emergency services.

Seattle has sustained its success because innovators stick around.

Bill Boeing didn't go to Long Beach.

Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Jeff Bezos didn't go to Silicon Valley.

Seattle has built something quite remarkable.

An environment that attracts innovators with a stickiness that keeps them here to reinvent over and over.

>> The 1974 Boldt decision changed everything for local Native Americans.

Up until that time, the state of Washington had generally treated salmon fishing as if it was theirs and theirs alone, casting local Native Americans aside.

But the Medicine Creek treaty of 1854, which seeded over 2 million acres of land in South Puget Sound of the state, gave tribal nations in western Washington the right of taking fish at all usual and occasionally accustomed grounds and stations.

However, when tribes exercised their treaty rights, they were regularly arrested by state game wardens.

>> We fished every day.

We continued to fish.

We'd fought them every day.

We never gave up.

>> Back in the 1960s, the state of Washington said, "Indians, you have to stay on your reservation and fish."

And for us here, we knew that in that treaty it gave us the right to fish, hunt and gather in all of our usual and accustomed grounds.

>> The fish wars took place in the 1960s and 70s on the Nisqually River at Frank's Landing, where there were fish ins, standoffs, warning shots, arrests and ongoing threats as state authorities and native fishermen faced off.

The tribes refused to back down.

The conflict headed to court and eventually Judge George Hugo Boldt ruled against Washington state's claims.

>> What Judge Boldt decided was 50% went to the tribes, 50% went to the state, which leading up to Boldt in -- in this case, it was a 98% to the state, 2% to the tribes.

>> The importance of the Boldt decision, one, it recognized tribes as sovereign nations and as governments, but it also, it made us co-managers with the state of Washington.

And for us as Indian tribes, this river, the salmon, the air, the water, everything that mother earth gives us, that's who we are.

>> Determination was the key to their long fight.

Others like Willie's father, Billy, as well as Al Bridges, Herman Johns, and Don and Jack McLeod, demanded their treaty rights again and again.

So, did Janet McLeod, a descendant of Chief Seattle and Puyallup activist Ramona Bennett.

In the face of repeated arrests and fines, they refused to back off.

Billy Frank Jr.

became the leader and public face.

>> He dealt with seeing the struggle that our people went through.

And he'd always tell me, "Son, as long as this river is still running and flowing, we have a chance to bring balance back."

>> This helped get us on a better track to honoring the treaty, protecting the resource that is critical to all of us.

>> Billy Frank Jr.

passed away in 2014.

His statue now graces the halls of Congress in Washington D.C.

where he represents the state of Washington, a testament to his courage and determination.

>> The river free flows for a reason since the beginning of time.

The creeks, the habitat, that's the beginning.

It's alive.

[ Music ] >> In the late 1970s, Seattle was best known for airplanes, timber, and rain.

That was about to change.

When Microsoft relocated from Albuquerque to the Puget Sound region in 1979, it was still a small, ambitious software company.

Returning to Seattle was a homecoming for the two founders.

Paul Allen had grown up in north Seattle's Wedgwood neighborhood, the son of a librarian and a schoolteacher.

Bill Gates grew up in nearby Laurel Hearst.

They both attended the exclusive Lakeside School.

What attracted Bill and Paul wasn't just geography.

It was possibility.

Seattle offered access to technical talent, proximity to major universities, and a culture open to experimentation.

It would become the soil in which one of the world's most influential companies would grow.

>> We had no idea exactly how fast the rocket of home computers was going to take off and how our software was going to become an amazing part of that.

>> As Microsoft expanded through the 1980s and 1990s, its impact on Seattle deepened.

The company's software, MS DOS, Windows and Office became standard tools in homes, schools and workplaces around the world.

Rapid growth followed.

Thousands of engineers, coders and researchers moved to the region, transforming suburban communities like Redmond and reshaping the local economy.

At a time when Seattle was vulnerable to Boeing's economic downturns, Microsoft provided stability and growth.

Economists began to describe a multiplier effect.

Each Microsoft job supported many more, across construction, retail, education, and services.

The company didn't just create wealth.

It anchored an ecosystem.

>> From the beginning, Microsoft's vision was expansive.

>> Well, a computer on every desk and in every home.

>> That vision aligned with Seattle's emerging identity as a city of innovation.

As Microsoft matured, it attracted other technology companies, from startups to global giants.

Amazon, located in Seattle in 1994, so it could access Microsoft talent.

Seattle turned into an international tech hub, one defined not just by products, but by ideas.

Microsoft's influence also extended into civic life.

Through philanthropy, volunteerism, and partnerships with schools and nonprofits, the company and its employees invested heavily in the community.

Today, Seattle's global reputation as a center for technology and innovation cannot be separated from Microsoft's rise.

The company helped redefine the city economically, culturally, and globally.

What began as a small software firm, became a catalyst for transformation.

And in growing alongside Seattle, Microsoft helped shape the whole region into the future it now inhabits.

>> Seattle's rich cultural diversity is on display in the Chinatown International District.

Generations of immigrants from China, Japan and the Philippines helped build a vibrant community here for more than a century.

But this multicultural expansion was not without controversy, beginning with its name.

This neighborhood has always been called Chinatown.

>> There's more than Chinese living here.

>> For decades, community leaders fiercely disagreed about how they to reflect the many ethnic enclaves living here.

The city's urban growth plan finally settled the feud in 1999, naming the neighborhood the Chinatown International District, or the CID.

The region continued to grow in prominence as the 1960's civil rights movement paved the way for Asian American activism in Seattle.

Through the years, Asian Americans with roots in the CID, won the right to represent their communities and make a mark in history.

Another great source of pride, legendary actor Bruce Lee.

In the early 60s, he attended the University of Washington and taught martial arts in the community.

That same decade also brought major controversy as growth and construction ramped up.

The city built I5 through the middle of the neighborhood, splitting it in half and creating what is now known as Little Saigon.

The community was up in arms again in the 70s after Seattle citizens voted to build the new Kingdome right next to the CID.

>> That public attention really spurred the rebirth of the neighborhood in the 70s.

And we see that even today, that each period, there's a renaissance and then there's a lack of attention, other downside, impacts.

And then community has to rise up again.

>> The community's troubles continue today.

Racism during the COVID pandemic led to multiple attacks on Asian Americans.

>> Stereotypes began to emerge about Chinese carrying this thing called Kung Flu.

And so, a lot of folks started avoiding neighborhood.

>> Little Saigon continues to battle the impact of being cut off from the rest of the CID.

>> The concentration of, I think homelessness and drug activity is more visibly seen in Little Saigon.

>> These public safety challenges led Seattle's CID to be named as one of the country's most endangered places in 2023.

But activists remain resilient.

>> For Little Saigon, even though we're dealing with a lot of redevelopment challenges, I see those as also opportunities.

>> I have faith that there's a bright future ahead.

>> Will it be enough to save this historic community?

[ Music ] >> As prosperity came to Seattle from the railroads, the Klondike Gold Rush and World War II, the developments provided a value more than money.

It brought time, time to enjoy this rare part of the globe and time to enjoy each other.

For a long time, Seattle had minor league baseball teams, the Indians and the Rainiers.

A minor league hockey team, the Totems, warmed many winter nights.

But when the NBA opened its season in 1967 with an expansion franchise called the Super Sonics, it could finally be said Seattle was a big-league city.

In 1968, voters authorized $40 million to build a dome stadium called the Kingdome.

When it opened in '76, the stadium rocked with the brand-new Seahawks.

Baseball finally took hold with the Mariners in 1977.

The Sonics moved in too, and under coach Lenny Wilkens, won Seattle's first big-time pro championship in 1979.

>> Three, two, one.

And the Super Sonics win their first ever NBA championship.

>> For a few years, all the teams flourished in the concrete shed.

At the University of Washington, the football team under coach Don James in 1991 shared a national college football championship.

In 2004, the WNBA Storm won the first of four championships led by Hall of Fame point guard Sue Bird.

The Sounders won championships in 2016 and 2019.

And the Kraken arrived in 2021.

In 1995, the Mariners beat the legendary New York Yankees in the playoffs.

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner blamed the raucous indoor crowds for the defeat.

The Mariners leveraged superstar Ken Griffey Jr.

's popularity to build Safeco Field, now known as T Mobile Park.

The Seahawks made their first Super Bowl appearance in 2006.

Supported by the rowdy fan base called the 12s, they returned in 2013 to the big game with a legendary Legion of Boom.

The Denver Broncos stood no chance, losing 43 to 8.

On a frosty February morning, two days later, more than 700,000 people poured into downtown streets to celebrate the city's pinnacle sports achievement.

And in 2026, they did it again.

Build a better franchise.

Build a better stadium.

Yes, Seattle will come.

Perhaps no other city comes together for its team so intensely.

If the Mariners ever get to a World Series, 50 years and counting.

>> My, oh, my.

>> Fort Lawton was a military installation in Seattle that became surplus property in the late 1960s.

Senator Henry Jackson proposed a public park.

But when news broke that the land would be transferred to the city without its original inhabitants, the Duwamish, having the opportunity to reclaim it, Seattle's Native community mobilized in protest.

Led by activists Bernie Whitebear and Bob Satiacum, negotiations with the city initially failed, prompting them to turn to direct action.

On March 8, 1970, Native activists took over Fort Lawton, entering from multiple directions by climbing fences and scaling the western bluff overlooking Puget Sound.

They raised a tepee and campsite inside the fort.

In front of a raucous crowd, Whitebear proclaimed -- >> We, the Native Americans, reclaim the land known as Fort Lawton in the name of all American Indians by the right of discovery.

>> Despite the presence of military police in riot gear, Resurrection City lasted three weeks and received strong support from local Native organizations, particularly the American Indian Women's Service League.

Supporters provided food, supplies and visibility for the cause.

On April 2, following arrests and mounting pressure, the activists shifted tactics from occupation to negotiation.

These negotiations proved successful.

Joyce Reyes and Bernie Whitebear, representing what became the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, persuaded the city to recognize the importance of this land for Seattle's native community.

Twenty acres were carved out of the 534-acre property and led to the creation of the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural center, which opened in 1977 in Discovery Park.

Still active today, Daybreak Star hosts annual events like the Seafair Indian Days Powwow and remains a lasting symbol of Seattle's Native American activism.

The battle for Fort Lawton put Seattle on the national map for Native political action.

>> My father, George Tsutakawa, was a Japanese American Nisei, born in Seattle in 1910, the son of a businessman.

He's well remembered for his fountain sculptures, which he felt embodied the natural cycle of water falling as rain, rising as mist.

George attended school in Seattle until age 7, when his family moved to Japan.

He spent ten years in Okayama, near the Inland Sea, which he loved for swimming and fishing, much like the Puget Sound waters he later enjoyed.

My father preferred drawing and art rather than the family's import-export business.

So, at age 16, he was disowned and sent back to Seattle.

He studied art at Broadway High School and the University of Washington while working and living in his relative's produce stand at Rainier Avenue and Jackson Street.

As he was an American citizen, he was drafted into the U.S.

army in World War II and taught Japanese language in the military intelligence school.

He visited his sister's family, incarcerated at Tule Lake Camp in California, and was introduced to Ayame Iwasa, a noted student of Japanese traditional dance.

She came to Seattle in 1947 to marry my father.

It was an arranged marriage.

Dad taught at the UW School of Art for more than 35 years.

My parents had four children, Gerard, Deems, Marcus and me, all of whom entered the arts, and they settled in a large home overlooking Lake Washington.

Here he designed and built more than 75 fountain sculptures found in the U.S., Canada and Japan, as well as creating oil and sumi-e paintings of mountains, forests and the sea.

My father passed away in 1997, but his fascination with water, rain and mist lives on forever in his art.

>> Talented people have always flocked to Seattle for jobs in aerospace and technology, driven by new challenges and the freedom to invent the future.

Some were misfits and rebels, people who trusted their crazy ideas and wanted to do things their way.

A creative explosion followed, but it didn't stop there.

In architecture, Callison and NBBJ reimagined how stadiums and public spaces could better serve fans and citizens.

Paul Allen unleashed Frank Gehry to boldly redefine what a museum looks like.

Dale Chihuly wowed the glassblowing world.

The city was full of what-ifs.

A tiny gaming company, Nintendo, created a character named Mario and changed the world.

Others followed.

Art Wolfe built on a great Northwest photography tradition, showing people nature as never before.

An inspired German named Trimpin integrated sculpture and music, creating exhibits that delighted young and old.

In graphic design, Tim Girvin artfully created new calligraphy and packaging concepts that wowed Hollywood and the world.

Gary Larson and Lynda Barry reinvented cartooning with biting commentary on modern life.

In advertising, who could ever forget Roger Livingston's quirky Alaska Airlines commercials?

>> I got a 9 a.m.

flight.

>> No problem.

>> Good.

>> What airline?

>> Alaska.

>> Alaska?

>> Or the work of Terry Heckler, who created beer ads that are still talked about and imitated to this day.

TV could use more of them.

Many others contributed to this creative explosion.

Tom Robbins, Mark Morris, Octavia Butler feeding off the energy and freedom in the air.

People have always moved here to explore not only the vast wilderness and waterways, but their own passions and ideas.

What are you waiting for?

[ Music ] >> The history of a city can shift suddenly or hang on to a status quo, unable to find the leadership or community consensus to shake it up.

Sometimes it takes an earthquake.

Like the shattering Nisqually quake in the winter of 2001 that damaged the Alaskan Way viaduct.

The destruction that day was the spark for dramatic change.

Seattle tore down that damaged viaduct and replaced it with an underground tunnel carved by a massive boring machine called Bertha and created finally an extraordinary new waterfront.

A rebirth of our city's front porch.

The new overlook walk from Pike Place Market to an expanded aquarium gives us one of the city's best views.

And it's free.

But as in much of urban history, there were also frustrations, blunders and political campaign promises that failed.

Major misses on Seattle's calendar.

See the Commons.

That dream of a central park in South Lake Union.

Rejected twice by Seattle voters.

And before that, the chance for a comprehensive rapid transit system, north and south, out to Ballard and West Seattle and across to Bellevue.

All 75% funded with federal money was also turned down twice in 1968, again in 1970.

Major defeats for Jim Ellis and other city leaders.

It would be another quarter century and hundreds of gridlock commutes before local voters would finally say yes to a rapid transit system in 2008.

This time with only 10% federal funding.

Waiting costs us.

The system now will take over 35 years to build and cost over $100 billion.

But let's close with an upbeat note.

Where the Commons might have been, we find MOHI, the Museum of History and Industry, and a transformed South Lake Union neighborhood, now the heart of Seattle's technology boom.

And though forward thrust flopped on rapid transit, it gave us new parklands, a new Seattle Aquarium, improvements at Sea-Tac Airport.

Evidence that taxes, properly handled, can fund investments that build communities and a better civic future.

>> As Seattle grew into an urban metropolis, its relationship with the surrounding environment evolved.

Early settlers exploited coal, timber and salmon for huge profits.

An approach to nature very different from the sustainable practices of the Coast Salish people.

Later in the 20th century, as the settlement became a city, Seattleites' appreciation for the natural world began to surpass the drive to misuse the bounty around them, giving Seattle an unusual distinction as a city where people moved to in order to become closer to nature.

The natural wonders of Mount Rainier in the North Cascades, Puget Sound and its islands, the Olympics and innumerable rivers, lakes and streams gave rise to growing communities of outdoors people who developed a lifestyle around nature.

After its founding in 1906, the mountaineers grew rapidly.

In 1935, they co-opted their money to purchase high quality outdoor gear directly from Europe.

And REI was born, joining local outfitters Eddie Bauer and Filson in supplying the region's hikers, campers, skiers, hunters and fishermen.

Other retailers followed.

K2 getting started on Vashon Island in 1961, JanSport in '67, Outdoor Research in '81.

Since the islands, hills and forests were dotted with summer camps, campgrounds and ski slopes, state and national park systems and organizations like the Washington Trails Association emerged to care for the shared spaces.

In 1978, Outdoors for All began its work to expand accessibility to anyone who wanted to connect with nature.

At the same time, local schools increasingly began to require outdoor experiences in education as part of the curriculum.

Nearby urban parks provided opportunities to get lost in the woods, to swim, fish, or launch a canoe without ever leaving the city.

The result?

A thriving metropolis in a vast forest nestled between water and mountains, where people defined themselves not by the work they did, but by the trails they walked.

>> September 1966.

The Seattle Times headline warned, "Seattle Homosexual Problem Out of Hand."

The police chief reported crimes, gay bars surging in Pioneer Square and an influx of homosexuals.

Mayor Dorm Braman responded.

>> A certain amount of harassment might discourage the inflow of these people to Seattle.

By whatever means, this we must accomplish.

>> For decades, Seattle's lesbians, gays and transgenders had suffered two labels.

An 1893 state law called them criminals for certain sexual behaviors deemed against nature.

And a city ordinance banned anyone appearing in the dress of the other sex.

Psychiatry turned them mentally ill.

Even being suspected could risk a job or a family.

True, a vibrant bar life had developed by 1966, but it was hidden.

The Times article would help launch that hidden community in an open movement.

It would target changes in government, medical practices, schools, churches, the recognition of families, sports, the arts, celebrations of pride, even city geography as different neighborhoods became safer LGBTQ spaces.

By the 1970s, lesbians would be creating bookstores and food co-ops.

>> It was just such an exciting time for lesbian women.

>> One activist, Jan Denali, recalled.

Two gay men also launched Seattle Gay News in 1974.

The criminal and commitment laws fell.

Cal Anderson became the state's first openly gay legislator.

And the AIDS epidemic would produce even more organizing, especially in people of color communities.

Others challenged marriage laws.

It would take 16 years, but in 1994, Seattle's Domestic Partnership ordinance would finally offer legal protection to LGBTQ couples.

>> Congratulations.

>> Thank you so much.

>> The state followed with same sex marriage recognition in 20112.

National figures emerged in sports and the arts.

Resistance always remained.

The 1978 initiative overturned Seattle's civil rights protections.

There was a Vatican punishment for Seattle archbishop who welcomed LGBTQ Catholics and a referendum to cancel the new marriage law.

And in perhaps its most ironic rebuke to Mayor Braman's order to discriminate, in 2014, Seattle would elect its first openly gay mayor, followed by its first openly lesbian mayor.

The LGBTQ movement had changed Seattle forever.

>> The great Northwest has always been a hotbed of musical talent and innovation.

Jazz, folk, rock, hip hop.

Maybe it's the rainy days and the long winter nights, but as the saying goes, when words fail, music speaks.

So, it's no surprise that out of nowhere in 1959, a new local company, Dalton Records, emerged and quickly scored huge radio hits by several local teenage groups.

The Fleetwoods, the Frantics, the Blue Notes and Adventures.

Then in 1960, the Wailers recorded "Louie Louie," which became the Northwest's signature rock and roll song.

And to this day, fans still have fun debating the mysterious muffled lyrics.

Now, Northwest rock was really on a roll.

And more hits followed by the Kingsmen, the Sonics, Merrilee Rush and the Turnabouts.

And Paul Revere and the Raiders.

Not to mention the 1960s iconic rock guitarist, Seattle's own Jimi Hendrix, one of the greatest guitar players of all times.

Along with me.

The 1970s and 80s brought exciting changes.

New professional recording studios, new record companies, and lots of big hit songs by Seattle rockers.

Heart, I know those guys, and Queensryche, the folk singer Danny O'Keefe, and Tacoma's blues band, Robert Cray.

Successful new record companies also arose.

Nastymix Records broke through with hip hop hits by Sir Mix a Lot, while Sub Pop Records sparked the grunge rock era with key records by Nirvana and Soundgarden.

Also gaining fame were Seattle's Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains.

The Crocodile Cafe in Belltown became the center of the music universe.

More recent times have seen a steady stream of Northwest talents finding widespread success, including Macklemore, Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie.

The Fleet Foxes, Brandi Carlile, and others.

While every regional music scene experiences the usual ups and downs and the Pacific Northwest has seen them both over time, the teenage spirit of rock and roll itself never dies.

[ Music ] >> Some cities grow up, others grow out.

In the 1960s and 70s, the Seattle region chose out.

It spread out like a latte spilled across a table.

New freeways sliced through forests and farmland.

I5 connected Seattle, Tacoma and Everett, 405 cut through Bellevue.

A second floating bridge jumped across Lake Washington.

Now, people could live far from work.

Suburbs popped up everywhere.

Shopping malls covered old farms.

Housing developments and schools paved over forests.

You needed a car to get around.

Many neighborhoods blocked black families and minorities from buying homes.

Only white people could buy.

The region wasn't just divided by distance; it was divided by race.

That kind of discrimination is illegal now, but the effects remain.

For those who could buy, this was the American dream.

Cheap houses, a commute by car, and steady work.

Over the decades, all those cars created massive traffic jams.

And as the region kept spreading, people watched farms and forests disappear.

Paradise was being paved over.

In 1990, leaders implemented the Growth Management Act.

They drew a line around the metro region.

Inside the line, cities from Bremerton to Sammamish, Marysville to Tacoma.

New homes and businesses had to go there.

Outside, farms, forests and parks, mostly off limits to developers.

Protecting those forests came with a catch.

As more people moved here, the region had to build up instead of out.

That meant taller buildings squeezed inside the boundary.

It didn't go as planned.

Many people liked their neighborhoods the way they were, and they passed rules that made it harder to build new homes quickly.

So, for many years, developers built fewer homes.

Demand exceeded supply, prices skyrocketed, and housing got wildly expensive.

Recently, leaders tried something different.

They made it easier to build small apartment buildings, townhomes, and backyard cottages.

And then there's Sound Transit's light rail.

Put housing near train stations, and people can get around without cars.

So, where do we go from here?

Do we change land use laws so more housing gets built?

Protect neighborhoods, protect nature, make room for everyone?

There's no easy answer in a region surrounded by mountains, rivers, and big bodies of water.

How this region looks in the future depends on what today's young people decide matters most.

>> Seattle's first gold rush started in 1899, when a ship full of gold arrived from the Klondike.

Everything changed overnight.

The second gold rush started almost a hundred years later.

As is often the case, Amazon was founded in a garage in Bellevue.

In less than 20 years, it became Seattle's best-known company, beyond Boeing, Starbucks, Costco, and Microsoft.

Founder Jeff Bezos left his New York investment firm job in 1994 for the Internet gold rush in the Northwest, hoping to snag some of Microsoft's tech talent.

>> Time is the most precious commodity in the late 20th century.

>> There were seven employees in '95.

Over 200 by '97.

Online orders poured into their Seattle warehouse, which soon shipped more than 10,000 books daily.

If they could sell books that way, why not sell every everything from A to Z?

Amazon transformed the way people bought everything.

For some, their Kindles were as popular as books.

Amazon Prime offered same day delivery.

People talked to Alexa like it was a member of the family.

By 2021, Amazon was the state's largest employer.

A thousand dollars' worth of Amazon stock in 1997 turned into roughly $2.25 million by 2025.

Over a thousand people a week started moving into the area.

Seattle's average home price nearly doubled between 2007 and 2025.

Parking lots turned into high rises and old warehousy South Lake Union became Amazon town.

Bezos became worth more than 250 billion by 2025.

It's a remarkable ongoing gold rush.

It changed Seattle and the world in many ways.

Some good, some bad.

Revolutions never go backward.

>> Techtown blues?

Seriously?

Seattle, city of relentless optimism, is somehow singing the blues?

From an airplane window or a ferry crisscrossing Elliot Bay, Seattle appears its usual showy self.

Behold, new buildings set against stunning scenery.

A town of gleam and glass.

A picture of prosperity.

Who can imagine a sad, bluesy tune when strolling the new waterfront?

For more than a century, city leaders dreamed up new ways to put Seattle on the map.

It was the ultimate, "Be careful what you wish for."

We got bigger, bolder and bruised.

During the 2010s, a thousand people a week moved in for jobs at Amazon, Microsoft and other companies.

Startups spun off spectacularly.

By 2026, the city had jumped too far out in front of its paddle board.

Layoffs by the thousands of companies that once couldn't scoop up talent fast enough, swept the region.

All those high-paid tech bros boosted businesses and government coffers and contributed mightily to income inequality.

Housing, rideshare, restaurant prices soared.

A generation of Seattleites doubted a future in their expensive hometown.

Boxy new apartment buildings overwhelmed leafy neighborhoods.

Traffic gridlock marred livability.

From the pandemic onward, tents filled, then spotted parks and sidewalks.

Businesses boarded up, rusted, busted RVs lined city streets.

Homelessness became third highest in the nation.

Crime rose significantly, before a recent dip.

Seattle has always had its ups and downs.

Tech is cyclical too.

One moment of reckoning came in 2018, when Seattle's leaders tried to not only find someone to blame for growth, homelessness and lack of affordability, but someone to tax.

The city slapped new taxes on large businesses.

Amazon pointedly shipped thousands of jobs to Bellevue.

AI, an even more potent economic driver, forced a new mindset.

Big tech meet big reset.

Amazon and Microsoft collectively shed 45,000 positions worldwide in nine months.

Another Boeing bus?

Hardly.

Like many places, Seattle has been better at riding a boom than managing its drawbacks.

If the city now seeks relief from the gloom, relative gloom, to be fair, inspiration arises from an ability to learn from past mistakes.

A reboot is likely.

In a city close to nature, salmon serve as a metaphor.

Even with their own existential challenges, silvers, sockeye and kings still course through Seattle's waterways.

Their example reflects our own powerful Northwest instincts and pluck to maneuver around obstacles and propel forward again.

>> If you love Seattle, you must love it on a winter day.

The dark at 4 o'clock, the low ceiling, slate gray skies, the gloom.

Here is water, not as an artist would paint it or a poet would celebrate it, but as we live it in all its clammy essence during the shortest days of the year.

The city has endured many metaphorical winter days over the last 175 years.

Fires, earthquakes, busts that followed booms, people without homes, riots of discontent.

The turn off the light suggestion to the last person leaving Seattle.

That famous last person sign was in 1971.

Since then, metro Seattle has gained more than 2 million people.

In its first days with a name and a grid, this place was a squat of Midwestern exiles huddled on mud flats.

Skid Row, the original.

Now, we're a big, loud, sprawling hub of 4 million people.

In hindsight, we probably shouldn't have built a freeway through the heart of Seattle or lopped off all those hills or constructed a giant concrete sports dome that we blew up before it hosted a Super Bowl team or a World Series winner.

Or made it a crime for the largest city in the world named for a Native American, to ban those same people from living here.

For a time, we also got too big for our bridges, including the floating ones.

We took in Amazon, now the largest private employer, but never quite made it part of the family.

Not yet.

To the city that gave the world REI, Boeing, Nordstrom, Starbucks, Microsoft, the University of Washington, Quincy Jones and Jimi Hendrix, it takes a little time to win a permanent seat at the table.

The challenge through the length of this century, as it was for the previous hundred years, is to craft a city to match the setting.

No simple task.

The setting, of course, was the easy part.

Our inheritance from nature.

On one side, the Salish Sea.

On the other, the second largest natural lake in the state of Washington.

All of it surrounded by mountains with year-round snow and no small amount of envy.

Who could screw that up?

We did.

Several times.

But we'd never been one to mope.

We shrugged and took in more people.

They keep arriving, these aspirational Seattleites, for what is still to come.

We are a young city with a young person's attitude.

A place with more tomorrows than yesterdays.

A why not city.

A room to fail city.

A sketch a Space Needle on a cocktail napkin city.

A city with a motivating chip on its shoulder.

"Out there?"

they ask from somewhere far away.

"On the distant edge of the continent?"

No, here.

The place we call home.

>> They say history is who we are and why we are the way we are.

In this three-part history of Seattle, we have explored the events, people and environments that helped shape this region, calling on a carefully curated team of historians, authors, scholars and eyewitnesses to write the stories in their own style.

We've covered over 14,000 years, from the Ice Age through first contact up to the present, in over 90 short historical documentaries.

It's been over 11 years in the making, a labor of love.

We've seen times of great progress, stubborn challenges, mind boggling change.

So many great stories were left out because of time, budgets and the limitations of broadcast TV.

History is made every day.

We hope you, the viewer, will continue with our quest to unearth the stories we've missed and tell the new ones in the future.

We are all storytellers, one way or another, and we challenge you to keep our region's history alive with your own films, scripts, recordings and stories.

It's been an honor to share these short films, and we hope you will be inspired to discover why we are the way we are.

History teaches us everything, including the future.

Will we learn from our mistakes?

We'll see.

>> "To Love a Place: For Seattle."

Begin with songbirds, salmon wrens and blossom of the wild sweet rose.

Feed your love, let it grow.

Love the low, slung, clouds heavy with their precious cargo.

Love the face of the mountainside glowing in the early evening light.

Love the monochrome shine of winter skies.

Love the seashore's dance of waves, those eternal chorus lines with skirts of frothy lace.

Love the delicate fingers of rain tapping out their lonely songs on foggy windowpanes.

Love rain as it finds its way into every shade of blue and green and gray.

Love the cycles to which our lives and habits of time are tied.

From morning mist, we learn to rise.

While the stream is proof that every raindrop finds its path through the city and to the sea at last.

To love a place, become the place and let it love you back.

[ Music ] >> Funding for, "Seattle: A History in Short Stories" provided by.

[ Music ]