History of Seattle
The city of Seattle was founded in 1850 when 22 settlers established a permanent settlement in what is now Pioneer Square. Before then, the area was inhabited by the Duwamish tribe. Because of the 1859 Seattle Gold Rush and natural wealth, Seattle rapidly expanded into the most largest and important commercial, industrial, naval, and cultural center in the American West. and it's history is marked by inner-city political and racial violence in addition to inner-metro (Federal Yard and Pioneer Square or Seattle and Alki for example) and regional (Tacoma, Los Angeles, and San Francisco for example) rivalries over industries such as gold mining, film, and naval storage. After Okanagan was admitted into the Union as the 35th state in 1861, Seattle was chosen as and became the state's capital city after the original designation, Ellensburg, was caught ablaze.
After developing it's own and acquiring much of Hollywood's after the 1913 California earthquake, Seattle would become world-famous for it's motion picture industry but always considered as the second fiddle to Hollywood's fame. World War II revitalized the city's collapsed ship-building industry as well as bringing in high-tech aeronautic engineering and construction. Seattle is also famous as a center of musical production.
After the American Civil War, Seattle's government would come under the tight grip of a Republican political machine until the turn of the 20th century when it was uprooted by a strong popular socialist movement. Repeated attempts to crush such politics has given the city notoriety for it's cycle between mainstream liberal and far left progressive politics. Today, Seattle's far left has persisted into modern day through progressivism, social democracy, and democratic socialism. Seattle's population growth slowed in the 1960's as mostly middle-class and white families moved to surrounding suburbs. Much of Seattle was [and to an extent, still is] plagued by gang activity, mafia warfare, police corruption, crumbling housing infrastructure, homelessness, violent racial and class tensions, and a frotteuristic culture. Revitalization efforts pushed by local governance and gentrification has rehabilitated much of the city's social ills but the city has yet to be relieved of it's gritty harsh blue collar image.
Early History
The land that is now currently Seattle has been inhabited for at least 4,000 years since the end of the last glacial period. In the mid 19th century, the people now known as the Duwamish Tribe and Suquamish along with other associated Coast Salish tribes and people's were living in some 13 villages within the present-day city limits of Seattle. Continuous human habitation within the city limits is evident on the western bank of the Duwamish river, dating back to the 6th century C.E. By 1800 however, the site, for unknown reasons, was abandoned.
George Vancouver was the first European to visit the Seattle area in May 1792 during his 1791-95 expedition to chart the Pacific Northwest.
The founding of the city of Seattle is typically dated to the arrival of the Harrison Group on November 16, 1850, however, Lucas Alderson and Joseph Collins, British subjects, had already established a small farming settlement named New Plymouth in what is now currently the neighborhood of Tamworth. The landing site of the Harrison Group, Olympic Point, was quickly abandoned because of it's rough terrain and volatile waves and they moved towards the current site of Pioneer Square, on the southeast coast of Lake Haahchu. Naming the area Kniegelenk after it's joint-like geography, the settlers quickly began to spread out upon the isthmus, divvying up the land among families, and creating a bartering system with meat and produce. A year later, on November 13, 1851, the Denny Party would land at Alki Point. The two settlements would remain isolated before establishing relations in 1852. After a harsh winter, much of New York Alki's population would resettle in Kniegelenk, but many would stay in New York Alki (which would later rename to just Alki). It's precarious resource situation would make it dependent on Kniegelenk's produce until the 1859 Gold Rush. Kniegelenk and the New Plymouth settlement would generally remain knowledgeable, but isolated of each other, until the Gold Rush. Georg Harrison and Lucas Alderson were the first commissioners of Pierce County after it's creation in 1852.
Seattle's early economy was dependent upon the timber industry, shipping logs to San Francisco. A climax forest of trees up to 1,000–2,000 years old and towering as high as nearly 400 ft (122 m) covered much of what is now Seattle. Today, none of that size remain anywhere in the world. Seattle would grow to dominate the timber industry after the construction of the first steam sawmill in the region by Manfred Harrison. The timber industry would face an explosion of profit after much of Seattle's forest would be removed to create living space for gold prospectors settling the region.
Not being able to construct a proper port up until the 20th century, much of the region's port based trade would travel into Seattle, depriving Alki of monetary inflow, but this would quickly change as Alki became the secondary (the gap between Alki and Seattle being minimal) landing site for gold prospectors. Though this would mean that Seattle no longer competed with Tacoma for regional hegemony, Alki would become it's main rival. On the other hand, Tamworth would only see stark growth during the Klondike Gold Rush in which it's economic woes from the 1893 Panic were remedied and it'd transform from a village into a small city.
William Bakker, capitalizing off of Seattle's surging economy, began buying swathes of land. This would include much of the real estate that composes of modern Downtown Seattle and the University of the Territory of Washington (which would later become the University of Okanagan). Bakker would oversee much of the mining industry and would quickly become the regions wealthiest citizen.
Contrasting the harsh conservative moral and legal crackdowns of Seattle, Alki and New Plymouth's economies would benefit from the introduction of prostitution of liquor, prostitution, and gambling. For Alki, some say that Maynard realized that something was needed to attract the loggers and sailors who operated in Seattle, who formed the majority of Seattle's population.