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Diablo Dam incline railway climbing Sourdough Mountain, 1930. Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, 2306.
Children waving to ferry, 1950. Courtesy Museum of History and Industry.
Loggers in the Northwest woods. Courtesy Washington State Digital Archives.
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2/13/2025
The Need To Be Well
On February 15, 1909, a group of influential Seattleites concerned about the growing number of undiagnosed and untreated tuberculosis cases in the region formed the Anti-Tuberculosis League of King County. The league later received some of the profits from the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, which helped fund the Henry Sanatorium, a municipal tuberculosis hospital near Shoreline. Later renamed Firland Sanatorium, the facility was built on land donated by railroad magnate Horace Henry, whose son had died from TB.
For many years, tuberculosis patients were often housed in tents on the grounds of the King County Hospital in Georgetown. When the sanatorium began taking in patients in 1911, they were housed in open-air cottages. Since no paved road connected Seattle and the hospital compound, people and supplies arrived on the Interurban trolley. By 1913 the North Trunk Road, now Aurora Avenue N, was paved with bricks at the insistence of physicians so that they and patients' families could have easier access.
Over the years, Firland helped thousands of tuberculosis patients in their recovery, many of whom were children (photo courtesy MOHAI). Perhaps the best-remembered Firland patient is Betty MacDonald, who detailed the year she spent there in her book, The Plague and I. Other patients at Firland included artist Bill Cumming and activist Hazel Wolf. We invite you to read this account by Agnes Johnson, who spent three years recovering there in the 1950s.
Firland stayed in operation until 1973, when Washington decided to consolidate the state's tuberculosis treatment centers, and national trends encouraged integrating TB patients into mainstream hospitals. But although tuberculosis has been on the decline due to medical advancements, it has not been eliminated. The communicable disease is preventable and curable, but a recent outbreak of TB in Kansas comes at a time when federal health agencies have been instructed to stop, for an indeterminate time, communicating directly to the public.
When the Bridge Fell
On February 13, 1979, a massive storm blasted the Hood Canal Bridge with 80- to 120-mile-per-hour winds. High waves pounded the span until the western section broke off and sank (a fate that would befall the Lake Washington Floating Bridge in 1990, a sinking abetted by human error). The Hood Canal Bridge took three years to repair, during which time an old ferry run was resurrected on Puget Sound to alleviate traffic congestion to and from the Olympic Peninsula.
The Hood Canal Bridge was controversial from the start. Floating bridges work best on calm lake waters, and the fjord that is Hood Canal is subject to tides, high winds, and choppy waters. Highway Director William A. Bugge gave assurances that the design was sound, although once the bridge opened it required constant maintenance due to jostling from high waves and storms. Two years before it sank, the bridge was renamed in Bugge's honor.
In 2003 work began on replacing the 40-year-old pontoons supporting the eastern half of the bridge. A shoreline site in Port Angeles was selected as a graving dock for building replacement sections, but during its construction workers uncovered a shell midden. Further discoveries revealed the largely intact Klallam village of Tse-whit-zen, buried under layers of industrial rubble and fill. The graving dock construction site was abandoned at a loss of some $60 million, and the pontoons were built in Tacoma, a city that had once experienced its own spectacular bridge failure.
On February 19, 1909, Local 174 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters was chartered in Seattle. Beginning in the 1920s, Dave Beck rose through the ranks of laundry truck drivers to eventually control the entire Teamsters International, aided for many decades by Local 174 chief Frank Brewster. But in the 1950s, Beck ran afoul of federal law and became a resident of McNeil Island Penitentiary in 1962. After his release in 1964, he retired to Seattle, while George Cavano rebuilt and revitalized Local 174.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 directing the relocation to inland camps of all people of Japanese descent on the West Coast, including U.S. citizens. The internment uprooted thousands of Washington residents from Bainbridge Island, Seattle, the Yakima Valley, Spokane, and dozens of other communities.
On February 18, 1943, the second of Boeing's top-secret B-29 prototype Superfortress bombers caught fire after taking off from Boeing Field before crashing into the Frye Packing Company on Airport Way and exploding. The plane's 11 crewmen, including renowned test pilot Eddie Allen, died, along with 20 Frye employees and one fireman. The tragedy could not be concealed from the public, although the identity of the aircraft type would not be revealed until after the war.
On February 13, 1968, Joel Pritchard and several of his friends incorporated Pickle Ball Inc. to promote the sport they invented in 1965 at Pritchard's Bainbridge Island cabin. Pritchard would later serve as a Washington state legislator, a U.S. representative, and Washington's lieutenant governor.
On February 13, 1968, King County Voters approved Proposition 6, a Forward Thrust Parks and Recreation bond that provided much-needed funding for King County parks. Voters also approved bonds for a new stadium and an aquarium, but opted against funding a regional rapid transit system, much to the dismay of present-day commuters.
On February 17, 1970, the day after the rulings in the Chicago Seven trial, protesters led by the Seattle Liberation Front clashed with police in front of the federal courthouse in Seattle. This led to indictments of the alleged organizers, who became known as the Seattle Seven. For a first-hand account of their trial, please read this essay by Roger Lippman, one of the defendants.
On February 14, 1961, the skeleton of an extinct giant sloth was unearthed during runway construction at Sea-Tac International Airport. It's now on display at the Burke Museum.
"He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything."
-- Thomas Carlyle
