September 20-24, 1976: A Trip to Montreal, Canada
	August 7-8, 1976: A Weekend in Washington, DC
	Return to Index for 1976

This will be a pretty short page, for I only took a few pictures when I visited Seattle as one of two or three sales calls that Jim Blake, the National Sales Manager, asked me to make for him on the West Coast. I was only here a couple of days, but thought that I would do something I'd not done- take the ferry across the harbor to the islands west of downtown, just to see what I could see.

Downtown Seattle and the Space Needle

I stayed at a hotel in downtown Seattle, and I was able to get up to a high floor to take this picture looking northward towards the Space Needle.

The Space Needle is an observation tower that's a landmark of the Pacific Northwest and an icon of Seattle. It was built in the Seattle Center for the 1962 World's Fair, which drew over 2.3 million visitors. Nearly 20,000 people a day used its elevators during the event.

Once the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River, it is 605 feet high and 138 feet. It is built to withstand winds of up to 200 mph and earthquakes of up to 9.0 magnitude, as strong as the 1700 Cascadia earthquake. It also has 25 lightning rods. I did not go up in the Space Needle, as I have been up in it before. There is an observation deck at 520 feet and the rotating SkyCity restaurant at 500 feet. The downtown Seattle skyline, as well as the Olympic and Cascade Mountains, Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, Elliott Bay and surrounding islands can be viewed from the top of the Needle.

You can see running from the Space Needle towards me the Seattle Monorail. The monorail, which cost $3.5 million to build, opened on March 24, 1962 for the Century 21 Exposition, the same event for which the Space Needle was constructed. Eight million people rode the monorail during the half year the fair was open; today, annual ridership is around 2 million. The south end of the line is at the Westlake Station, part of the Westlake Center Shopping Mall complex. At the northern end, the monorail passes right through another of the fair's buildings, now the Museum of Pop Culture.

I actually thought about taking the Seattle Ferry to Bainbridge Island or to Bremerton, but the schedule wasn't convenient for the time that I had. So, instead, I drove a bit south of downtown to go over to West Seattle for some views of the city across the water.

I took Interstate 5 about two miles south to the turnoff for West Seattle. This took me onto an elevated roadway that eventually crossed over a drawbridge to get to the peninsula that is West Seattle.

The bridge I crossed was a low-level bascule bridge constructed in 1924. This means that the bridge was only ten or fifteen feet above the water, but could be opened to allow ships to pass through the Duwamish Waterway. I recall that even in the middle of the day the traffic was bad; apparently the frequent bridge openings have made the street one of the city's worst bottlenecks.

What happened in the years after my visit is one of Seattle's most notable stories. Everyone recognized that a new bridge was needed, but it took a long time for funding to be arranged. A scandal involving a sweetheart deal engineered by the city engineer and the Speaker of the Washington State House, arose, and conspirators were jailed. The project was considered dead until a ship ran into the bridge in 1978, damaging it beyond repair. This made the project eligible for emergency Federal funds, but it was the lobbying efforts of Jeanette Williams, a Seattle City Council member that got the funds freed up. The Jeanette Williams Memorial Bridge, opened in 1984.

I drove along the shoreline to the northern point of West Seattle to get a couple of pictures:

Downtown Seattle Seen from West Seattle

Harbor Facilities on the Duwamish Waterway

You can see that the weather wasn't very good for my trip to Seattle; it was gray and overcast. This is not unusual for Seattle, which gets relatively few bright, sunny days during the year. I am not sure I would ever want to live here; it seems too depressing.

The Bay at Aberdeen, Washington

I found that after my meeting, I did have some time on my last day, so I decided to drive to Aberdeen, on the coast, not only to see what it looked like, but because there was a Baskin-Robbins store there that I doubted I would again have a chance to visit. The drive from Seattle to the coast is about 75 miles, so it took me 90 minutes to get there. I got my scoop of ice cream and then drove over to the bayshore. The day was nice when I started, but turned foggy and cold near the coast.

Aberdeen was founded by Samuel Benn in 1884, and although it became the largest and best-known city in Grays Harbor, Aberdeen lagged behind nearby Hoquiam and Cosmopolis in its early years. When the town's first sawmill was built in 1894, the other two municipalities had had such businesses for several years. Aberdeen and its neighbors vied to be the terminus for Northern Pacific Railroad, but the railroad went all the way west to Ocosta.

By 1900, Aberdeen was a raucous town of saloons, whorehouses, and gambling establishments; it was known as "The Port of Missing Men" due to its high murder rate. Aberdeen was hit hard during the Great Depression, which saw the number of major local sawmills reduce from 37 to 9. The timber industry continued to boom for a while, but by now most of this resource has been logged. Today, Aberdeen and the rest of Grays Harbor remain dependent on the timber, fishing industries, tourism and as a regional service center for much of the Olympic Peninsula. Historically the area is dependent on harvesting and exporting natural resources. The Port of Grays Harbor is the largest coastal shipping port north of California.

Sadly, the nicest day of my trip was the day I left for Chicago. The generally good weather allowed me to take a couple of nice pictures from the airplane.

Passing Mt. Rainier

Crossing the Missouri River

Although this trip was mostly business, I was fortunate to be able to get out of downtown and see a few things.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	September 20-24, 1976: A Trip to Montreal, Canada
	August 7-8, 1976: A Weekend in Washington, DC
	Return to Index for 1976