Public Library, SEATTLE WASHINGTON WA

The initial move to form a public library in Seattle came only 17 years after the first white settlers arrived on the shores of Puget Sound. It was July 30, 1868, when 50 residents of the rough-hewn logging town gathered to form a library association, good intentions that produced only minimal success over the next two decades. A new Ladies Library Association in 1888 provided the strongest foundation yet for The Seattle Public Library. In 1890, the city established the Library as an official city department, designated to receive 10 percent of the amount raised by city licenses and fines. [Source: Brief History of the Seattle Public Library]

Though Seattle is still a young city, growing and changing, much of its short past is already lost-but not forgotten. Generations of Seattleites have fond memories of restaurants, local television shows, stores, and other landmarks that evoke a less sophisticated, more informal city. This new book explores Seattle at a time when timber and fish were more lucrative than airplanes and computers, when the city was a place of kitschy architecture and homespun humor and was full of boundless hope for a brighter future. These rare and vintage images hearken back to the marvels of the 1962 World's Fair, shopping trips to Frederick & Nelson and I. Magnin, dinners at Rosellini's, dancing at the Trianon Ballroom, traveling on the ferry Kalakala, rooting for baseball's Rainiers, and local personalities including Stan Boreson, J. P. Patches, and Wunda Wunda. [Source: Arcadia Publishing]