Product Description

By the late nineteenth century, the city of Seattle was a vibrant cultural center of the West. Fueled by the lumber industry, the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896, and the shipbuilding and aeronautics industry, the city's economic history embraces cycles of boom and bust. Through changing fortunes, Seattle has continued to grow and prosper by overcoming adversity and maintaining the strong, independent culture of its citizens.


Historic Photos of Seattle captures this journey through still photography selected from the finest archives. From the Great Fire to the World's Fair, the Space Needle to Pike Place Market, Historic Photos of Seattle follows life, government, education, and events throughout the city's history.


This volume captures unique and rare scenes through the lens of hundreds of historic photographs. Published in striking black and white, these images communicate historic events and everyday life of two centuries of people building a unique and prosperous city.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #426422 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 206 pages

Review
Local superstar historian Walt Crowley pairs rare archival photos with sharp sociological observations in this new coffee table book. --Seattle Magazine

Readers wanting a photo-chronicle of Seattle's entire history can turn to Walt Crowley's Historic Photos of Seattle. --The Seattle Times

Walt Crowley wrote an overview of Seattle's history from 1851 to the present day for this large, high quality album of photographs selected from local archives by Turner Publishing, a major producer of illustrated histories. It's a perfect gift for out-of-town friends and relatives and natives alike. --historylink.org

About the Author
Walt Crowley is an award-winning historian based in Seattle, Washington, and the author of more than a dozen books, including The National Trust: Seattle, Rites of Passage, A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle, and Seattle & King County Timeline. A former member of the Washington State Council on Historic Preservation and the City of Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board, he co-founded and directs HistoryLink.org, the free online encyclopedia of Washington state history.

Customer Reviews

Seattle photos from 1851 until the advent of the Space Age
I've been exposed to the "Historic Photos of..." series through the volumes on San Francisco and Orlando. While this one focused on Seattle didn't engage me as much as the other two, it does offer a photographic testimonial of the evolution of the Northwestern city from its foundation in 1851, through the Seattle Fire of 1889, all the way to recent times, when it hosted the second world's fair in 1962, which gave way to the Space Needle landmark that now characterizes the city skyline.

I honestly wish there had been more photos of contemporary Seattle, showcasing it in association with the Grunge movement during the mid-nineties, the WTO riots of 1999 and the insertion of companies such as Starbuck's and Amazon.com as part of the city fiber.