 Seattle is often regarded as the birthplace of grunge music, and has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption; coffee companies founded or based in Seattle include Starbucks, Seattle's Best Coffee, and Tully's.[10] There are also many successful independent artisanal espresso roasters and cafes. Seattle was the site of the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization, and the attendant demonstrations by anti-globalization activists. Researchers at Central Connecticut State University ranked Seattle the most literate city in America in 2005.[11] Moreover, analysis conducted in 2004 by the United States Census Bureau of 2002 survey data indicated that Seattle was the most educated large city in the U.S. with 48.8 percent of residents 25 and older having at least bachelor degrees.[12] Based on per capita income, in 2006 the Seattle metropolitan area ranked 17th out of 363 metropolitan areas in a study by the Census Bureau.[13]
[edit] Founding
What is now Seattle has been inhabited since the end of the last ice age. Archaeological excavations at West Point in Discovery Park, Magnolia, confirm that the Seattle area has been inhabited by humans for at least 4,000 years. tohl-AHL-too ("herring house") and later hah-AH-poos ("where there are horse clams") at the mouth of the Duwamish River in what is now the Industrial District has been inhabited since the 6th century BC.[14] By the time the first European settlers arrived in the area, the Dkhw'Duw'Absh and Xachua'Bsh people (now called the Duwamish Tribe) occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around Elliott Bay.[15]
The first Europeans to attempt settlement in the area were the Collins Party, who filed legal claim to land at the mouth of the Duwamish River on September 14, 1851.[16] Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party were on the way to their claim when they passed the scouts of the group of settlers that would eventually found Seattle, the Denny Party.[17] The scouts for the Denny Party, Terry Lee, David Denny, and John Low, would lay claim to land on Alki Point on September 28, 1851, with Terry Low returning to Portland, Oregon carrying a message from David Denny telling his brother, Arthur Denny, to "Come at once."[18] Following the instructions of David Denny, the rest of the Denny Party set sail from Portland and landed on Alki during a rainstorm on November 13, 1851. The landing party's first sight of their new homestead was the roofless cabin that David had been unable to complete because of a fever.[18]
After spending a winter of frequent rainstorms and high winds on Alki Point, most of the Denny Party moved across Elliott Bay and settled on land where present day Pioneer Square is located and established the village of "Dewamps" or "Duwamps."[18] The only members of the party that did not migrate to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay were Charles Terry and John Low, who remained at the original landing location and established a village they initially called "New York," after Terry's hometown, until April 1853 when they renamed it "Alki," a Chinook word meaning, roughly, by and by or someday.[19] The villages of New York-Alki and Duwamps would compete for dominance in the area for the next few years, but in time Alki was abandoned and its residents moved across the bay to join the rest of the settlers.[20]
David Swinson ("Doc") Maynard, one of the village's founders, was the primary advocate for renaming the village to "Seattle" after Chief Sealth (si' Si'ahl) of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes.[21] Doc Maynard's advocacy bore fruit, because when the first plats for village were filed on May 23, 1853, it was for the Town of Seattle. In 1855, nominal legal land settlement were established and the city was incorporated in 1865 and again in 1869, after having existed as an unincorporated town from 1867 to 1869.[18][22]
[edit] Major events
Major events in Seattle's history include the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, which destroyed the central business district (but took no lives);[24] the anti-Chinese riots of 1885 1886;[25] the Klondike gold rush, which made Seattle a major transportation center; the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909, which is largely responsible for the layout of the University of Washington campus;[26] the Seattle General Strike of 1919, the first general strike in the country;[27] the 1962 Century 21 Exposition, a World's Fair;[28] the 1990 Goodwill Games;[29] the APEC leaders conference in 1993, and the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, marked by street protests and a series of riots.[30]
[edit] Economic history
Seattle has a history of boom and bust cycles, common in cities of its size. Seattle has several times risen as a company town or through economic specialization, then gone into precipitous decline, but it has typically used those periods to successfully rebuild infrastructure.[31]
 The first such boom, covering the early years of the city, was fueled by the lumber industry. (During this period the road now known as Yesler Way was nicknamed "Skid Road"[32] after the timber skidding down the hill to Henry Yesler's sawmill. The term later entered the wider American vocabulary as Skid Row.) This boom was followed by the construction of an Olmsted-designed park system.[31]
The second and most dramatic boom was the direct result of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896, which ended the national depression that had begun with the Panic of 1893. On July 14, 1897, the S.S. Portland docked with its famed "ton of gold", and Seattle became the main transport and supply point for those heading north.[33] The boom lasted well into the early part of the 20th century and funded many new Seattle companies and products. Finance company Washington Mutual was founded in 1889, in an attempt to save Seattle's economy after the Great Seattle fire. In 1907, 19-year-old James E. Casey borrowed $100 from a friend and founded the American Messenger Company (later UPS). Other Seattle companies founded during this period include Nordstrom and Eddie Bauer.[34]
Next came the shipbuilding boom in the early part of the 20th century, followed by the unused city development plan of Virgil Bogue. Seattle was the major point of departure during World War II for troops heading to the North Pacific, and Boeing manufactured many of the war's bombers.
The local economy dipped after the war, but rose again with the expansion of Boeing, fueled by the growth of the commercial aviation industry.[35] When this particular cycle went into a major downturn in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many left the area to look for work elsewhere, and two local real estate agents put up a billboard reading "Will the last person leaving Seattle Turn out the lights."[36]
 Seattle remained the corporate headquarters of Boeing until 2001, when the company announced a desire to separate its headquarters from its major production facilities. Following a bidding war among a number of major cities, Boeing moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago.[37] The Seattle area is still home to Boeing's Renton narrow-body plant (where the 707, 720, 727, and 757 were assembled, and the 737 is assembled today) and Everett wide-body plant (assembly plant for the 747, 767, 777 and the upcoming 787 Dreamliner), as well as BECU, formerly the Boeing Employees Credit Union.
Next, technology companies, including Microsoft, Amazon.com, RealNetworks, McCaw Cellular (now part of AT&T Mobility), VoiceStream (now T-Mobile USA), and biomedical corporations such as HeartStream (later purchased by Philips), Heart Technologies (later purchased by Boston Scientific), Physio-Control (later purchased by Medtronic), ZymoGenetics, ICOS (later purchased by Eli Lilly & Co.) and Immunex (later purchased by Amgen), found homes in Seattle and its suburbs. This success brought an influx of new citizens with a population increase within city limits of almost 50,000 between the 1990 and 2000 Census[38] and saw Seattle's real estate become some of the most expensive in the country.[39] Many of these companies remain relatively strong, but the frenzied dot-com boom years ended in early 2001.[40][41]
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