Washington
Wawona Alaska Run,Austin Dwyer, acrylic
..........“The settling of Seattle was hardly the stuff of songs. It was a cold, rainy day when the first white settlers landed near Alki Point on November 13, 1851. The site was among the most exposed to winter storms and the date, as future climatic data would reveal, was one of the wettest of the year. Alas, Arthur Denny and his small band of pioneers had already trekked west from Illinois on the Oregon Trail and then sailed north from Portland on the schooner Exact. They forged a tiny community of log cabins near the beach and endured their first wind-swept winter on Puget Sound before moving to a more sheltered, permanent location along the Elliott Bay tidelands in the spring of 1852.
“During the last half of the 19th century, Seattle gradually grew to become a major port of call for ships plying the Pacific Coast. The surrounding hills and islands supplied thousands of shiploads of lumber and coal for California towns.
“GOLD! On July 17, 1897, a steamer filled with gold from the north arrived on Seattle’s waterfront. The Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890’s transformed Seattle into an outfitter, ship builder and transshipment port for the thousands of prospectors and millions of tons of goods heading north to Alaska and the Yukon.”
from History of Seattle
Seattle’s Convention and Visitors’ Bureau
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