Battling violent storms, forest fire smoke, head winds and fatigue, a pair of Spokane, Washington, aviators flew nonstop across America and back in 1929 to establish a new world record. Their Buhl CA-6 sesquiplane, named Spokane Sun-God, was the first airplane to make a non-stop transcontinental round-trip flight. Sponsored by the National Air Derby Association along with Texaco, who supplied the gas, Buhl Aircraft Company, who provided the plane, and many Spokane citizens and businessmen, pilot Nick Mamer and mechanic Art Walker took to the skies at 6 p.m. and headed west into the sunset from Felts Field on August 15th as a crowd of thousands looked on.

I am proud to announce the publication of my new book, Exploring Maritime Washington—a History and Guide. Each of the places covered in its pages has a connection to Washington’s maritime history, whether a popular tourist destination or a hidden gem known only to longtime locals. Exploring Maritime Washington provides visitors with a fun and easy way to enjoy each community while learning about Washington’s nautical history. By visiting and experiencing Washington’s special maritime features—museums, ships, lighthouses, waterfronts and all—the heritage traveler can obtain an authentic understanding of maritime Washington’s diverse history and culture.

Before there were roads around the Puget Sound region, there were rivers. Before the stagecoaches, there were Salish canoes. And before the planes, the trains, and the automobiles...there was the water, and the ships that traveled upon it. By the 1860s, there were hundreds of steamers crisscrossing the Puget Sound, every day, all day. There were, in fact, so many ships upon the water at any given time, that an article in the Tacoma Daily Ledger on February 21, 1889, implied that when viewed from a lofty point, the fleet looked like a swarm of mosquitos skimming over the green waters of the Sound. And the nickname stuck.

There are hundreds of different museums scattered far and wide across Washington state. Many of them are focused on the history of their particular city, county, or region. Others feature arguably some of the most interesting, thought-provoking, and unique art and sculpture in the world. And a few have captured more of a niche area, showcasing things like robots, quilts, and puppets. But the thing that binds these varied institutions together is that most of them are members of the Washington Museum Association, a nonprofit organization first conceptualized in 1979. Holding its inaugural meeting the following year in Ellensburg, Washington, the Washington Museum Association was established to represent and serve museums of all types and sizes throughout the state.

Built in 1849 to project American power and secure American interest in the Puget Sound Region, Fort Steilacoom played a key role in helping to settle what was then Oregon Territory. It served as the focal point for the Treaty Wars of the 1850s and played witness to the judicial murder of an innocent man - Chief Leschi of the Nisqually Tribe - about which you can learn more in my Medicine Creek Treaty podcast episode. Fort Steilacoom also rose to the forefront of history during the San Juan Island Pig War of 1859, again which you can learn about from that episode of the Washington Our Home podcast.

Just after one o'clock in the morning, on a frigid, starless night in March 1910, more than a hundred souls aboard Great Northern Railway's Spokane Local No. 25, a passenger train, and Fast Mail Train No. 27 slept tightly bundled in their cars. They'd been stuck near Wellington in King County, Washington, for almost a week...waiting as railroad crews attempted to clear the tracks of snow, which had been accumulating at a record pace. Each time they tried, their enormous rotary plows either broke down, ran out of fuel or got stuck, forcing crews to try digging out from the five-to-eight-foot snow drifts by hand while passengers hunkered down and waited for the blizzard to pass. But it didn't pass. The snow just kept on coming. High above them loomed the peak of Windy Mountain, and below them, the Tye Creek ravine. On the last day of February, the snow turned to rain. Lightning and thunder erupted across the Cascade Mountains, and one fateful lightning strike touched off the deadliest avalanche in United States history.

Two weeks after Valentine's Day, 2001, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the south sound region of Washington state near where the Nisqually River empties into Puget Sound. It was nearly 11 a.m. on a Wednesday, and the state legislature was in full swing. The violent tremors lasted nearly a minute, rocking the state capital of Olympia and the nearby cities of Lacey, Tumwater, Nisqually, DuPont, and Shelton. The shocks registered as far away as Oregon, Idaho, and Canada. Property damage estimates up and down western Washington totaled in the billions. One person died of a heart attack and nearly four hundred were injured. This was a large earthquake that hit in the Puget Sound region…but it wasn't the first. Not by a long shot.