Page 46 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Pacific Northwest

44  INTRODUCING THE P A CIFIC NOR THWEST

thousands of exposition visitors stayed
in the newly dubbed “City of Roses,” and
the population doubled to more than
250,000 by 1910. Seattle, having quickly
rebounded from an 1889 fire that leveled
all of downtown, followed suit in 1909
with the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.
These expositions set the stage for the
region’s growth throughout the 20th
century. The Boeing Airplane Company,
Government House, New Westminster, BC, in 1870 founded in Seattle in 1916 and rivaling
the state’s timber industry in economic
The Gold Rush moved north in 1851, importance, created tens of thousands of
when prospectors found gold in southern jobs through its military and commercial
Oregon, and farther north again, to aircraft contracts. During World War II
British Columbia’s Fraser River, in 1858. (1939–45), factories in the Pacific
Canadian prospectors also struck it big Northwest produced aircraft, weapons,
in 1860 in the Cariboo Mountains, in and warships for the Allies’ war effort.
the BC Interior. When Seattle-based Microsoft took
The Klondike, in Canada’s Yukon Territory, off in the 1980s, this ushered in a wave
was the stage for the next frenzy of gold of high-tech business.
fever. Once prospectors stepped off ships Vancouver became the focus of world
in Seattle and San Francisco, in 1896, with attention when 21 million visitors attended
gold they had found along Bonanza Creek, festivities at Expo ‘86 to celebrate the city’s
the word was out. More than 100,000 100th anniversary. In the years immediately
prospectors flooded into the Klondike following, there was a huge surge in
gold fields, and Vancouver and Seattle population growth, business development,
prospered by supplying and housing and cultural diversification.
the miners and banking their finds. In the late 1990s, trade liberalization and
the globalization of goods manufacturing
Modern Times increasingly became topics for public
By the early 20th century, the Pacific
Northwest was celebrating its prosperity.
Portland hosted the Lewis and Clark
Exposition in 1905, honoring the pair’s
voyage 100 years earlier. The city put
up new buildings downtown, planted
thousands of roses, and laid out
new parks for the event. Many of the Historic cannery along the British Columbia coast

1897 The Klondike Gold Rush brings 1938 Lions Gate Bridge
prosperity to Seattle and Vancouver opens, joining
1909 Seattle hosts 1919 US’s first General Strike Vancouver to North
1889 Washington becomes Alaska-Yukon- occurs when 60,000 workers Shore communities
the US’s 42nd state Pacific Exposition mobilize in Seattle
1880 1900 1920 1940
1886 Canadian 1905 Portland hosts World’s Fair 1916 Boeing 1926 Seattle elects the 1949 Seattle
first woman mayor of
transcontinental with Lewis and Clark Exposition Airline Company a major US city earthquake
railroad founded in Seattle ruins many
completed; fire 1942 Internment of historic
destroys a large Farmer taking produce to Seattle’s Japanese-Americans and buildings in
part of Vancouver The Klondike Gold Rush Pike Place Market, founded 1907 Japanese-Canadians Pioneer Square

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