An anything-but-dry history textbook in a pocket-sized package, WASHINGTON'S HISTORY is a fascinating walk through the lengthy story of a place and its people. Historian Harry Ritter introduces the Native American peoples who lived in the region's coastal rainforests and inland plateau, the European and U.S. seafarers who explored and mapped the complicated shores and islands, and the leaders involved in conflicts over boundaries, resources, and religion. There's the story of The Pig War, which began with an assassinated pig in 1859 and escalated into an international skirmish. Read about the construction of the massive Grand Coulee Dam in 1933, and the creation and aftermath of Hanford, and the hopefulness surrounding the World's Fair. And then there's the land itself: vast, stirring in its stark beauty, and fearsome when natural disaster strikes, as it has in every century. Ritter offers fifty-two lively vignettes illustrated with rare archival photographs that together comprise a picture of life in the Far Northwest. Learn about the Natives, explorers, traders, missionaries, loggers, farmers, inventors, and politicians. From Chief Seattle to Dr. John McLoughlin, William E. Boeing, Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson, and Bill Gates, these are the people at the epicenter of events that shaped the Evergreen State.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 132-134) and index.

Prologue: the northwest of the imagination — Native cultures — Maritime and overland exploration of the northwest — Fur traders, pathfinders, and missionaries — Pioneer settlement — From big trees to big sky: the early days of Washington territory — The iron horse and the vision of economic empire — The twentieth century and beyond.