Cyberpedias & Features
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Duane Berentson served for 18 years (1962-1980) as a Washington state legislator representing Burlington, Skagit County, and specializing in transportation issues. In 1981, he became the first non-engineer to serve as chief executive of Washington's highway transportation program, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). Berentson served as Secretary of Transportation for 12 years until 1993.
William Arthur Bulley served as Director of Highways for the Washington Department of Highways from 1975 to 1977, and in September 1977 when the Legislature created the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), he became the first Secretary of Transportation (1977-1981). As director, then secretary of the department, Bulley helped to resolve federal and local impediments to the completion of Interstate 90. He also secured federal funding to repair the Hood Canal Bridge after it sank, and to rebuild roads and bridges destroyed in the eruption of Mount St. Helens. Bulley was instrumental in continuing the department’s gradual change of focus from highway building exclusively to its current inclusion of mass-transportation.
The Colman Clock of the Seattle Ferry Terminal at Colman Dock has truly taken a licking, but keeps on ticking. Over the past hundred years, since 1908 when it arrived, the clock has been dunked into Puget Sound, tossed in a warehouse, and moved around here and there. Today (2005) it is back at Colman Dock (Seattle Pier 52), and once again marks the minutes and hours of the day.
Scottish-born James Murray Colman arrived in Seattle in 1872 at the age of 40 to lease and operate Yesler's sawmill. Colman was a prime mover in organizing the Seattle & Walla Walla Railroad after the Northern Pacific decided to make Tacoma its Western terminus. He built Colman's Dock (today Pier 52, the terminal for the Washington State Ferries), which became a thriving hub of maritime commerce during and after the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897.
The ferry Kalakala was launched from the Lake Washington Shipyards, in Kirkland, on July 2, 1935. Between 1935 and 1967, the streamlined ferry plied the waters of Puget Sound, carrying commuting workers between Seattle and the naval shipyard in Bremerton. Auctioned
off in 1967, the Kalakala spent the next 31 years in Alaska, serving as a fish processor. The vessel returned to Seattle on November 6, 1998. After failed attempts to raise sufficient funds to restore her, she was auctioned off, moved to Neah Bay, removed from Neah Bay, and in September 2004 moved to Tacoma.
For more than a century, ferryboat captains on Puget Sound have used the distinctive docking signal made up of a long blast on the boat’s whistle followed by two short ones. In maritime terms, this is called a warp and two woofs. Still in use today, this method of sounding the vessel’s arrival to land is not only unique to each boat’s whistle, but also to each individual ferryboat captain and the techniques they use to sound the call. This file links to sound recordings of some of the more distinctive boat whistles of the Washington State Ferry fleet. The recordings were made in the 1960s and 1970s by retired Black Ball Line publicist William O. Thorniley.
A guided, photographic Cybertour of Seattle's downtown waterfront. Curated by Paul Dorpat, written by Walt Crowley, Designed by Chris Goodman.
Puget Sound's historic "Mosquito Fleet" consisted of thousands of steamships that steamed from port to port around the sound from the 1850s to the 1930s. They were so numerous that people said they resembled a "swarm of mosquitoes." From the days of the earliest tribal canoes to the early 1930s, Puget Sound and the Inside Passage (the channel between the British Columbia/Alaska coasts and the islands) constituted the major transportation corridor of the Northwest. The heyday of the Mosquito Fleet ended in the 1930s when competition with rail and road transportation put the fleet out of business.
Accessible only by water or air, San Juan County is an archipelago of hundreds of islands, reefs, and rocks between mainland Washington and Vancouver Island. Around 20 islands are inhabited. The largest three -- Orcas,
San Juan, and Lopez -- contain most of the land area and nearly all the population. Only in 1872, later than any other area in the 48 contiguous states, did the San Juan islands become an undisputed part of the United States following the "Pig War" boundary dispute with Great
Britain. San Juan County was created the next year. Like the Lummi, Samish, and other Northern Straits Salish peoples who have made the islands home for thousands of years, early settlers depended heavily on the islands' rich marine resources. As settlement increased the islands
supplied the surrounding region with fish, agricultural produce, timber, and lime from some of the nation's richest deposits. A few residents still make a living from fishing, farming, or forestry, but tourism, construction, real estate, and self-employment are now the leading economic sectors as ever more weekend visitors, summer-home buyers, and retirees flock to enjoy the San Juans' beauty.
Colman Dock, Pier 52, now the Washington State Ferries terminal at the base of today's Columbia Street, was originally built by Scottish engineer James Colman in 1882 to service the growing regional steamship traffic. Immediately to the north (now an auto waiting area) stood the Grand Trunk Pacific Pier, which was consumed in a tragic fire in 1914. Colman Dock served as the terminal of the Black Ball line before that private enterprise was taken over by Washington State Ferries in 1951.
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Timelines
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On July 6, 1902, the Hall Brothers Shipyard breaks ground for its new location in Madrone (renamed Winslow) on Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island. Upon moving there in May 2003, the shipyard will become the town's first large-scale industry. At the turn of the century the Hall Brothers Marine Railway and Shipbuilding Company (its formal name) was outgrowing its site at Port Blakely, which had steep hills ending at the beach. Shipyard owner Henry Hall (his brothers Isaac and Winslow had died) looked to Eagle Harbor for more room and secured 77 acres in Madrone. The town's name becomes Winslow, in honor of Winslow Hall, either because, as historian Edmond Meany asserts, Henry Hall renamed the town, or because the town renamed itself to encourage the shipyard to relocate there.
On April 25, 1912, on the Seattle waterfront, the Alaska Steamship liner Alameda rams the Colman Dock, topples the dock's clock tower, sinks the stern wheel steamboat Telegraph, and injures five women. Colman Dock (today the Washington State Ferries dock) is located in Elliott Bay in Seattle between Madison and Marion streets.
On December 27, 1913, the wooden ferry Leschi makes her maiden trial-run on Lake Washington. The Leschi begins as a steam-powered sidewheeler. Built by the Port of Seattle, she is operated by Captain John Anderson, and is the first boat built in Western Washington to carry automobiles.
In 1927, the Key Transit Company in San Francisco builds the ferry Peralta, whose hull is later used to build the Seattle ferry Kalakala.
On February 17, 1928, a fatal accident occurs in Oakland, California, on board the Peralta (whose hull was used to build the renowned Puget Sound ferry, Kalakala). The bow floods and five passengers are drowned.
On May 6, 1933, fire breaks out at the ferry terminal in Oakland, California, destroying the ferry Peralta, whose hull will be used to build the renowned Puget Sound ferry Kalakala.
From October 12 to 20, 1933, the tug Creole tows the burned hull of the ferry Peralta north from San Francisco to Puget Sound. Captain Alexander Peabody, of the Puget Sound Navigation Co. (The Black Ball Ferry Line), intends to use the hull to rebuild a modern, streamlined ferry. The ferry will be the renowned Puget Sound ferry Kalakala.
On July 2, 1935, the ferry Kalakala readies for her maiden voyage with a trial run near Bremerton.
On July 3, 1935, the ferry Kalakala starts daily service between Seattle and Bremerton.
On November 4, 1936, the ferry Kalakala rams into the ferry Chippewa near Bremerton.
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People's Histories
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