Eccentric Seattle

by Pierce, J. Kingston

• ISBN13: 9780874222692
• ISBN10: 0874222699
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: Washington State Univ Pr

Summary

In Eccentric Seattle, readers explore the Emerald City's troubled, tragic, and bawdy past as well as the more familiar, rosy portrayals. A visitor in 1897, at the height of the raucous Klondike gold rush, called the Pacific North-west's most ambitious city "more wicked than Sodom." Just over a decade later, President William Howard Taft--speaking with greater generosity, or perhaps less skepticism--declared the town to be "one of the most magnificent combinations of modern city and medieval forest...that has ever delighted the eye of men in this or any other country." The truth, as J. Kingston Pierce shows in this irreverent account of Seattle's past, has always been somewhere in the middle. It was there, after all, where burghers once plotted to import "pure young ladies" from the East to marry local loggers...where big-dreaming bankers embezzled funds to raise a hotel in their own honor...where a bogus religious prophet was "shot down like a dog," while the press cheered...where a canny woman's political coup helped land her the mayor's post...where irate shi

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	ix
1. The Marrying Kind-Asa Mercer	1	(10)
Running from Office-Corliss P. Stone
2. The White Stuff Big Snow of 1880	11	(8)
Ghosts of Christmas Past
3. Strokes of Genius-Harriet Foster Beecher	19	(8)
Bloodstained Boat-James Colman Murder
4. Empire Builder-James A. Moore	27	(12)
Frontier Equality-William Grose
5. The Sinful Seamstress-Lou Graham	39	(10)
Hot Times in the Old Town-Great Fire of 1889
6. Elusive Architect-Elmer Fisher	49	(12)
Finding Fisher
Austin Bell's Folly
7. Go East, Young Man-C.C. Calkins	61	(20)
He Moved Mountains-Reginald H. Thomson
8. The Other Great Depression-Panic of 1893	81	(14)
President Cleveland's Secret Surgery
9. Count of Yarrow Point-Leigh S.J. Hunt	95	(18)
Citizen Blethen-The Seattle Times
10. City of Gold-The Klondike Stampede	113	(14)
Reporting the Rush
Notice to Newcomers
Diminishing Returns
11. The Wheel Thing-Bicycling Craze	127	(8)
The Century Turns
12. Angel of the Trail-Mollie Walsh Bartlett	135	(12)
The Great Chase-Harry Tracy
13. Going for the Green-Olmsted Parks Plan	147	(10)
Improbable Dream-Virgil G. Bogue
Cause for Celebration-Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition
14. God's Own Sinner-Edmond Creffield	157	(10)
Class Act James Stephen's Schools
Studying Stephen
15. End of Innocence-Luna Park	167	(10)
Balance of Power-George F. Cotterill
Mayor of Wappyville-Hiram C. Gill
16. Danger in the Air-Influenza Epidemic	177	(6)
Too Much Precaution
17. Lady in Red-Anna Louise Strong	183	(8)
Taking Wing-William E. Boeing
18. Warren's Peace-President Warren G. Harding	191	(8)
Body in the Steamer Trunk
19. His Brilliant Career-Roy Olmstead	199	(6)
20. Night of the Klan-KKK in Issaquah	205	(16)
21. Head in the Clouds-Camlin Hotel Scandal	221	(18)
Museum Quality-Sam Hill
22. Big Bertha-Mayor Bertha Knight Landes	239	(10)
23. Encore Performances-B. Marcus Priteca	249	(10)
Wronged Writer-Bertrand Collins
Priteca Primer
24. Ditty's City-James Ditty and Bellevue	259	(10)
"The Durned Thing Really Does Float!"
"The Japanese Must Go"
25. The Inquisition-Canwell Hearings	269	(10)
Loathsome lothario
Waiting for "The Big One"
26. Turning Point-Theodore Roethke	279	(8)
The Heist
Experiencing Hendrix
27. Why Is This Man Smiling?-David Stern	287	(10)
Elvis Sightings-Seattle's World Fair
Saving Grace-Pioneer Square/Pike Place Market
Seattle Timeline	297	(7)
For Further Reading	304