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Photo Album

Seattle, Washington 2007

Weekend trip from September 1st to 3rd, 2007 to Seattle, Washington including a day trip to the Japanese Garden in Portland, Oregon.

2007 September 1 2 3

Aquarium (130) Erica (29) Portland (157) Ruben (17) Seattle (387)

All

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Amazing Properties, Creative Uses Unlike other metals, gold will not tarnish or rust. It is completely recyclable and virtually immune to the effects of air, water, and oxygen. Its beauty combined with a host of other properties make it an important material for a wide range of uses. Property Gold is the most heat reflective (capable of reflecting or bouncing back heat) material known. High purity gold reflects up to 99% of infrared rays. Use Gold is used in life-saving shields for astronauts and workers exposed to very high heat.
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Property Gold does not corrode and is among the most electrically conductive of all metals. Use Gold is used in many electronic applications, including computer circuitry, where safety and reliably are important.
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Property Gold is the most ductile (capable of being drawn out thin) of all metals. Use Thin gold sheets sometimes enliven domes on important buildings. Here, sunlight reflects off the Colorado State Capitol Building.
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Property Gold is a very malleable (capable of being shaped by beating with a hammer or by the pressure of rollers) metal. Use Gold was a favorite material for making jewlery. Many items in King Tutankhamen's tomb (14th Century BC, Egypt) were gold.
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Seattle's Historic Core Pioneer Square is home to one of the nation's largest surviving assemlages of 1890s era buildings. This area, now the Pioneer Square Historic District, was Seattle's downtown in the 1890s. Here stampeders purchased supplies, slept in whatever accomodations they could afford, and boarded ships for Alaska. Building Style Many of the surviving historical buildings in the District were built soon after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. Many were designed by architect Elmer Fisher in what is known as the Richardsonian-Romanesque style. This style provides an architectural unity to the area. Ribbons of Steel Following the Civil War, West Coast towns competed fiercely for transcontinental railroad service. In 1873 the Northern Pacific Railroad located its western terminus in Tacoma rather than in Seattle. Despite Seattle's attempts to build branch lines to connect with the Northern Pacific, the city remained isolated from transcontinental rail service until 1895. In that year, the Great Northern Railroad reached Seattle from the east. This rail line was essential to the city's success as the primary point of embarkation for the Klondike Gold Rush. Grand Old Lady The Pioneer Building stands on land formerly owned by Seattle pioneer Henry Yesler. He commissioned construction for the Pioneer Building in early 1889. The Great Seattle Fire of that year slowed the building's completion until 1892. Upon its completion, it was considered to be the most beautiful building west of Chicago. During the Klondike Gold Rush, the Pioneer Building was a prestigious address and housed 48 different mining companies.
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Cadillac Hotel The building you are in has served many functions and has been known by a variety of names, including the Dereg, the Star, and the Yokohama. Most commonly known as the Cadillac Hotel, it is a fitting location for Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park, as it once housed stampeders. Severly damaged by the Nisqually earthquake in 2001, the building was in danger of being torn down. Preserved through a creative public / private partnership with Historic Seattle, an architectural preservation organization, the Cadillac is a testament to Seattle's strong preservation ethics.
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Pioneer Square National Historic District By the late 1930s, Seattle's central business district was moving northward. Modern commercial buildings constructed north of Yesler Way left behind the "rough and tumble" gold rush atmosphere of Pioneer Square. Many Pioneer Square buildings fell into disrepair and were threatened with demolition. In 1961, the razing of the Hotel Seattle, a local landmark, galvanized a preservation movement. A number of architects, civic leaders, and private citizens saw the area's architectural and historical value and successfully pushed for protection. On June 22, 1970, the Pioneer Square Historic District was created. This fostered a rebirth in appreciation for the area's architectural heritage. In 1974 a city ordinance increased the historic district to nearly twice its original size.
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Miners.
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An Event to Remember Welcome to the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. This national park site commemorates an event that stetched across thousands of miles, crossed international boundaries, and touched the lives of people around the world. Klondike Gold Rush On July 17, 1897 the steamship Portland arrived in Seattle carrying nearly ten tons of gold. Sixty-eight exhausted but wealthy miners disembarked. They told stories of rivers lined with gold and easy riches in a remote region of northwestern Canada. The event sparked the imagination of people around the world. The rush was on! Savvy city leaders seized the opportunity and advertised Seattle as THE gateway to the Klondike. Thousands of people flooded through the city spending millions of dollars. As a result a slumbering Seattle awoke, becoming a busting economic center. Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park interprete the dramatic and historic event. Commemorating the Gold Rush Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park was established by Congress on June 30, 1976 with sites in Alaska and Washington. The Alaska sites include restored historical buildings in the Skagway Historic District, the historical town sites of Dyea, and a portion of White Pass. The Alaska site also preserves the American side of the Chilkoot Trail. Parks Canada has actively preserved several gold rush sites, as well. Between 1996 and 1998, both Canada and the United States designated many key gold rush sites as Klondike Gold Rush International Historical Park.
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"All that anyone hears at present is 'Klondyke.' It is impossible to escape it. It is talked in the morningl it is discussed at lunch; it demands attention at the dinner table; ... and at night one dreams about mountains of yellow metal with nuggets as big as fire plugs." - Seattle Daily Times, July 23, 1897
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Difficult to see on this image but this is a chain of people climbing a mountain with their supplies.
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Step by Weary Step Crossing the rugged Coast Mountains from Skagway or Dyea with a ton of goods was a formidable task. Thousands of people and a wide variety of pack animals crowded the crude trails. All along the way were men and women - entrepreneurs or charlatans - anxious to make money off those trudging their way across the passes toward the Klondike. A Tale of Two Towns Dyea and Skagway, both reached by ship, were less than ten miles apart and provided access to the two most popular trails to the gold fields - Chilkoot Trail and White Pass. The two towns actively competed for stampeder dollars. Chilkoot Pass, out of Dyea, was the more popular route. Dyea's harbor was not as deep as Skagway's so most ships landed their cargos at Skagway. Stampeders, including those who had purchased tickets to Dyea were often left to make their own way from Skagway to Dyea and the Chilkoot Trail. In 1898, a series of avalanches struck Chilkoot Pass, killing dozens of stampeders. Skagway civic leaders used the tragedy to promote White Pass as the safer trail. Conversely, Dyea promoters used stories about Soapy Smith and his gang - a group of con men operating in Skagway - to encourage stampeders to bypass Skagway in favor of Dyea. Those There Before In 1880, the Tlingits, who had been carrying their own trade goods over Chilkoot Pass for many years, began packing equipment and supplies for the small numbers of miners, explorers, and survey parties beginning to enter the region. After 1893, persistent rumors of gold in the Yukon increased the flow of gold-seekers over the pass. The hordes of stampeders that arrived in 1897 and 1898 soon overwhelmed the traditional lifestyle of the Tlingit and other Native peoples in the region. Infamous Chilkoot Pass The trail from Dyea to Lake Bennett was a rugged thirty-three miles. Those carrying their own loads hiked each section of the trail multiple times in order to move their "ton of goods" along. Those who could afford to, hired commercial packers or, later in the gold rush, used tramways to transport their gear. At the base of the final climb over Chilkoot Pass was an area called "the Scales." Many arriving at the Scales saw the steep slope and long lines ahead and, out of sheer exhaustion and discouragement, gave up. They sold their goods or left them behind and returned down the trail. Those who pushed on trudged up 1,500 steep steps carved into an icy mountain face. After this grueling climb to the summit, bent under a backbreaking load, a stampeder had a few seconds of fun - sliding down an icy chute - only to start the climb over with another load. Photos of endless lines of stampeders making their way up the "Golden Stairs" have created a lasting image that symbolizes the toil and hardships of all who made the Klondike journey.
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Trailside Entrepreneurs Ingenuity and enterprise accompanied the stampeders. More money was made by those who set up hotels, restaurants, and other businesses than by most of the Klondike prospectors. Several small towns sprang up along the Chilkoot Trail, providing supplies and services to stampeders. Tranporting the mountain of goods required for each stampeder was a business in itself. Local Tlingits hired out as packers carrying goods for a set amount per pound. Loads were weighed at the scales to calculate payment to the packers. Several entrepreneurs built tramways for hauling gear. A crude surface tramway pulled loads up the final slope to the summit. Several other aerial tramways were engineering marvels for their day. The most elaborate, completed in May 1898, was a tramway built by the Chilkoot Railroad and Transport Company that carried goods nine miles over the pass on cables hung on wooden tripods. Most stampeders, however, could not affort these luxuries. They slowly and methodically shouldered the heavy loads themselves.
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The Treacherous Passes Ethel Anderson's Story Ethel, her mother, and two brothers arrived in Skagway in the late fall of 1898, following her father, a stampeder who preceeded them. The four traveled over White Pass where a train route, which was under construction, would not be completed for another ten months. In later years, Ethel Anderson describes the hardships of the trip: "We arrived in Skagway, a peaked mother and three small children, ... I do not remember much of the trip to Whitehorse. ... A little red hood and wool coat were poor protection. The ground was frozen and snow had fallen on the upper levels. Packers, pack trains and horses, all top-heavy with freight, choked the trails, hoping to gain the headwater of the Yukon before the river froze. Somehow mother fed us and washed us, diapered Clay, and soothed him to sleep ... but it was an experience she would never talk about in later years. Hundreds of men turned back on that White Pass Trail. ... But that pioneer mama of ours was re-uniting her family. ... What greater urge is there?"
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The red wool coat of Ethel Anderson.
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Tortuous Trails White Pass Trail When the first stampeders arrived in July 1897, only a narrow winding trail connected Skagway Bay and the summit of White Pass. Within a few weeks, stampeders overwhelmed the trail, turning it into a morass of rocks, exposed roots, and deep mud. The trail, frequently impassable, became a trap where horses and other pack animals died by the hundreds. Once hard winter came, traffic switched to travel on the frozen Skagway River. A wagon road was completed to the top of White Pass in March of 1898. Later the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad followed the same route.
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