162 years after the Denny Party, what’s YOUR landing story?

(Photo from Seattle Municipal Archives)
We’re in the final moments of one of Seattle’s biggest anniversaries: November 13th, the day the Denny Party came ashore on Alki in 1851. No parties that we know of today – certainly nothing like the one on the sesquicentennial anniversary in 2001, with the landing re-enacted as shown above – but this weekend, the Log House Museum has a unique commemoration: You are invited to stop by Saturday afternoon, 2-4 pm at 61st and Stevens, and have your “landing story” recorded on video for posterity. Read more about it on the LHM’s website. (And read more about some past observances here!)

14 Replies to "162 years after the Denny Party, what's YOUR landing story?"

  • miws November 14, 2013 (7:36 am)

    I guess we could say that’s an Exact replica? ;-)

    .

    Mike

  • evergreen November 14, 2013 (7:52 am)

    Coincidentally, just began reading about Seattle’s history last night. Trying to feel a sense of place & identify with the land, trying to make this neighborhood feel like “home”. This is a great blog post to wake up to.

  • Gatewooder November 14, 2013 (8:00 am)

    I remember it well. It was a gloomy, rainy November day when we disembarked from the uncomfortable quarters of the chartered U-Haul truck and began off-loading the supplies that we would depend on until we had established trade relations with the natives, who seemed friendly but not too friendly…

    • WSB November 14, 2013 (8:16 am)

      :)
      .
      We landed in golden sunshine in early April 1991 after sailing my Chevrolet Spectrum up I-5 from San Diego over the course of a week. I didn’t realize how much we were getting into the spirit of “landing” in Seattle when I made an impulsive choice for the final leg of the trip to be by sea – we took a westward turn at Tacoma because Patrick had never been to Seattle (while I had been three times, twice as a tourist and third time for the interview that landed me a job producing the 11 pm news for the local TV station that paid our moving expenses) and I didn’t want his first view to be that stark berm on I-5 before you round the bend near Boeing Field … so we drove to Bremerton and ferried to downtown.

  • Josh November 14, 2013 (8:52 am)

    Good call on the ferry entry WSB – sure to hook even the toughest soul.

    I thank my parents who moved to take a job at the big B long before I was born…

  • Gatewooder November 14, 2013 (8:59 am)

    You did it the right way Tracy, no better way to arrive than on a ferry. We had to content ourselves with the symbolism of the I-90 tunnel portal “Seattle – Gateway to the Pacific” motto, which we still remember fondly as our threshold moment of arrival.

  • Chas Redmond November 14, 2013 (9:23 am)

    First landed in Seattle as a draftee in 1969 aboard a stretch DC-8 which flew nonstop from Kennedy Airport in New York and landed at Boeing Field in the stark darkness of an August night. I looked up at what I later learned to be Beacon Hill and all the houses up there, smelled the pine and fir in the air, realized I’d be at then Fort Lewis for the next four months and perhaps Vietnam after that, and immediately fell in love with the Northwest. Wound up in Korea and returned to work briefly for the P-I in the old Daily Planet building on Wall at 5th and was subsequently laid off in the epic Boeing “last person leaving town turn out the lights” episode and returned to Seattle roughly 30 years later. Et, voilĂ .

  • Oneanne November 14, 2013 (10:13 am)

    We moved from Bellingham to the Burien area when I was in 3rd grade: heading south on I5 by Boeing Field, my Dad pointed west to this large patch of green on the far hill and said “that’s your new front yard”. We were like “wow”!

    It turned out to be Rainier Golf Course.

  • Dave November 14, 2013 (12:27 pm)

    I hope you’re all stopping by the museum on Saturday to tell your stories!

  • Sonoma November 14, 2013 (12:30 pm)

    Yea, it was well-nigh two decades ago when I made the perilous six-hour passage ‘cross stormy skies, a Colicky Infante weeping, a Distinguished Gentleman coughing as if he had ye Consumption, and others too Exhausted to behold the landscape below. The provisions provided by the friendly uniformed crew were meager and unpalatable, and I was forced to sate my hunger with Salty nuts. Upon arrival, I was met by a Cousin, who welcomed me into this strange, green, alien land. But I did not feel that I was truly home till I found my place in West Seattle.

  • Sonoma November 14, 2013 (12:32 pm)

    P.S. I love each and every one of your tales! I foresee a book in the making! Fifty Shades of Green?

  • NW November 14, 2013 (1:08 pm)

    Great Grandparents at least two for sure would pass thru West Seattle in the early 1900s on their way to Vashon where they had property and another farmed in South Park among other of his paisanos from Italy in the shadow of West Seattle later their off spring along with what was to become my Grandfather from Rainer Beach bought and lived in South Park a number of years before moving to 98116. The two other Grandparents one as I mentioned already in King County and the other Whatcom moved from there and Wallingford eventually to West Seattle the 1940s. My parents going to schools like Alki Elementry, Lafayette, Madison and WSHS and basically growing up and living in a now very different WS. I came along eventually after another sibling and we also grew up in West Seattle and we went to schools locally and were also bussed off of the peninsula ,which was an experience. I graduated from the same high school as my parents and continued living here and I like it despite how I may interpret it otherwise from time to time. It’s great we have this community blog and news source which before was either the occasional 5 o’clock news story, WS Herald or community bulletin board oh and gossip amongst ourselves. This is where I am from and it’s all I know. The time may come with the bustling and uncomfortable progress (indundation of overbuilding) when I move away, but maybe not. WESTSIDE BABY!

  • Fuhgeddaboudit! November 14, 2013 (5:33 pm)

    I was living in New York when I met a girl on MySpace in Jan of ’06. After almost 7 months of daily correspondence, I flew in for a visit, stayed a few days & moved here 2 months later. We just celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary in September. :c)

  • jim November 14, 2013 (9:47 pm)

    It was a during a late summer thunderstorm in 1968 that we arrived from Victoria aboard the CPR’s Princess Marguerite (II). My sister and I came with mom to join our dad who had already been here for a couple years, working at Lockheed Shipbuilding. But we split up the family and left our draft age brothers in Canada. My dad drove the old station wagon loaded with all our belongings, and my mom followed in the ’58 Volkswagen Beetle. I started grade 2 at Lafayette a few days later, my sister at Madison.

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