SEATTLE — Ever wonder what the world would be like without planes, computer software and online shopping? Thanks to progressive Seattle innovators and change-makers, the world is a much better place to live, work and play.
In the historical documentary “How Seattle Changed the World," KOMO TV explores how the Northwest went from an afterthought to a magnet for innovation, drawing in passionate people, who made advancements in technology, aviation, commerce, music, entertainment and the arts.
In its early decades, Seattle was thought of as "somewhere," as in, "somewhere else." Out of focus, off the grid, and out of mind, Seattle was America’s "postage stamp" that was stuck to the map in the upper left-hand corner and seen as "Alaska south."
Sure, people lived out there. But were they really important people? Doing important things?
The year Washington became a state, in 1889, Seattle did make headlines back east, when much of it burned to the ground. What a mess. The city and the state were actually moving backwards -- further from the modern world.
They had a long way to go, and then, Seattle started to move.
Early on, that meant normal things, like a first public hospital, library, and a streetcar line. But then Seattle got bolder, knocking down huge hills across town, cutting canals between lakes, and putting up the West Coast's first skyscraper.
But moving forward meant more than just building new structures. Seattle adopted a state of mind, a continuous mental exercise of turning imagination into action, then action into progress.
A mission emerged to "invent and innovate" and Seattleites began writing their own rulebook. The rules? Don't follow others, always punch above your weight, and never stop.
Seattle's legacy is a litany of global brands and accomplishments that the world now knows.
"Did Seattle change the world? I know it changed my world, and I bet you could go halfway around the world and find that anyone you ran into, their lives would be materially different because of innovations that came directly from this community," said Leonard Garfield, the executive director of Seattle's Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI).
So, why and how did Seattle do that? Because at every point, Seattle saw opportunity and said, "Hey, we can do that. We can solve that. And we can do better."
And so, Seattle did. Out of necessity, Seattle has always been about moving things and moving people.
Starting in the mid-1800’s, you’d find workers entering Elliott Bay from as far away as China and Japan. Logs rolling down to the waterfront and thousands of gold prospectors shipping out to seek their fortunes in the Yukon.
"Seattle as a community was born with the notion of inventing something new," said Garfield. "Young pioneers came out here in the 1850s with the idea of building an urban frontier where the future would be about new technologies, new transportation systems, new ways of doing business."
But the world changes and no company can afford to stand still -- not if you want to stick around for more than a century.
Three Seattle transport companies have surpassed that milestone, but not without adapting.
After a national rail line finally reached Seattle in 1893, William Pigott had an idea. In 1905, he designed a way to load massive logs safely and efficiently onto flatbed rail cars.
Three years later, his company, eventually to be known as PACCAR -- was selling commuter train cars to China. His business boomed.
But the Great Depression took a toll as people lost jobs and homes nationwide. The company had to find a way to keep going.
"I sometimes think that adversity is the best goad for innovation," said Lorraine McConaghy, a historian at the MOHAI. "And sometimes when it’s hard that’s when innovation really flourishes. But you have to have that basic optimism and confidence."
For Pigott’s company that meant building a foundry -- that turned out 1500 Sherman tanks during World War II, and decades later, its structural steel division built the Space Needle and made the transport mechanism that moved Space Shuttles to the launch pad.
After the war, interstate highways changed the nature of transport, so the company pivoted again. It shut down rail operations, replacing them with production of the highly rated Peterbilt and Kenworth truck lines.
At the same time Pigott was thinking about his first rail car, teenagers Claude Ryan and Jim Casey borrowed $100 and set up a small Seattle messenger service in the basem*nt of a saloon. Most messages went out on foot, but there were two bicycles -- and soon, motorbikes.
When the company moved to Model T’s, it became United Parcel Service (UPS) and adopted its iconic brown color because that shade did the best job of concealing dirt.
Package demand continued through World War II, but with men off to war, women seamlessly moved in.
Today, UPS is the world’s largest package delivery service and employs more than half a million workers in 220 countries. The company also runs its own fleet of cargo jets and delivers 25 million packages a day.
However, if one name emerged to define transportation in Seattle -- and become a global game changer -- it's Boeing.
"Boeing stands out as basically creating the whole commercial airline industry when you think about it. And I don’t think there’s any technology that’s changed the world more than air travel," said Glen Hiemstra, founder of Futurist.com.
"Boeing changed the world, Boeing took us to the moon," said McConaghy.
It all began with Bill Boeing taking a chance.
"He dropped out of Yale, he went to finishing school, he was being groomed to be part of the East Coast Elite," said Margaret O'Mara, a professor of American History at the University of Washington in Seattle.
But a voracious curiosity and sense of adventure drew him west.
"Seattle was still a frontier town And so there was this pioneering spirit, this sense of, it was good to take risks," said Michael Lombardi, senior historian at The Boeing Company.
Bill Boeing did takes risks, amassing a fortune in timber. Then, in 1915, he took a flight in a bi-plane over Lake Washington. "He’s like, this is so great, learns to fly and then a year later he started his own floatplane company on Lake Union," said O'Mara.
Then, Bill Boeing got lucky.
"It’s right time, right place. You know, Bill Boeing started Boeing in 1916 and the next year the US formally enters the First World War," said O'Mara.
"And so the company designed a training airplane called the Model C and the Navy gave Boeing its very first contract for 50 of those trainers," Lombardi added.
Yet after World War I, and the arrival of the depression the company barely survived.
"He had collected this wonderful staff of engineers and machinists and seamstresses and he didn’t want to let them go, so he paid them out of his own pocket," said Lombardi. "He kept everybody busy building furniture, speedboats."
In 1927, Boeing began flying mail between San Francisco and Chicago, soon expanding flights to New York, creating America’s first transcontinental airline, which continues today, as United Airlines.
Boeing also hired nurses to tend to passengers, inventing the modern flight attendant. World War II would be pivotal as Boeing vastly expanded its workforce to support the military.
"We were building bombers. B-17 and B-29 super fortresses... Boeing employees, half of them Rosie the Riveter, did an incredible job of building these airplanes. The numbers were mind boggling. In April 1944, they built 352 bombers in one month," said Lombardi.
Bombers that were crucial to winning the war. "This was the most important program in the arsenal of democracy," said Lombardi.
But Boeing also envisioned air travel for ordinary people -- kick starting the jet age in 1959 with the introduction of a PAM AM Boeing 707 that would spawn a family of planes and give Boeing dominance in commercial flight for decades.
The 60s were a golden era -- In 1966 alone Boeing-built lunar orbiters began mapping the moon, the company won a government contract for a supersonic transport -- the SST and Boeing announced a radical new project.
Building a jumbo jet in the world’s largest assembly plant just north of Seattle in Everett. The (PAN AM) 747 flew its first commercial flight in 1970 forever changing the industry.
But more hard times were looming. In 1971, Congress cancelled the SST, and Boeing began slashing its workforce by two thirds. The gloom epitomized in a billboard that read, "Will the last person leaving Seattle turn out the lights."
"And so Seattle just spirals into this deeper a worse 1970s than everywhere else and that’s saying something and people don’t leave," said O'Mara.
In fact, as we’ll detail later, those laid off workers will form the backbone of an entirely new sector of innovation in Seattle.
PACCAR, UPS, and Boeing succeeded because they pivoted as circ*mstances changed, and through sheer determination overcame odds that might have doomed other companies. In doing so, they moved the world closer together.
A message to the world
Innovation takes courage and courage often comes with audacity. The idea that Seattle could host a World’s Fair was nothing if not audacious.
“Civic leaders and business leaders got together and said, let's do something to put Seattle on the map internationally, and let's do that by creating a World's Fair that isn’t just a World’s Fair, but focused far into the future," said Hiemstra.
"And this was the boldest act in this little tiny jerk water town, really. Seattle was a very provincial place in 1962," said McConaghy.
"And then we built that thing that we can see behind me, the Space Needle, which was almost perhaps almost accidentally truly a symbol of the 21st century," said Hiemstra.
The fair also had a subtext -- a separate reason for looking to the future. The Soviets had launched the first orbiting satellite in 1957 and the Space Race was on. Century 21 was a public response from America that said, "we’re coming."
In effect, Seattle’s fair began promoting STEM learning in schools -- half a century before the term was ever coined. The federal government contributed more than it had in any previous fair, far more than either the city or the state.
Spearheaded by civic booster Eddie Carlson, this audacious idea succeeded in every sense. Attracting 10 million visitors, and unlike most fairs, it made money. But most importantly, Seattle did grab the world’s attention and it never stopped.
"I think a culture of innovation in Seattle did grow out of that secular affair and become very important to the eighties and nineties and the explosion of innovation here," said McConaghy.
Hiemstra added that it, "imbued a spirit in the city that said, oh, we're about the future. And we're about being more than we've been in the past."
Technology rising
As Seattle grew into a Silicon Forest, its tallest tree became Microsoft. The seeds sprouted during that ‘62 World’s Fair with its focus on the future.
“You have visitors like Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who said repeatedly in interviews later on that going to Century 21 changed their lives because it changed the way they thought about problems, how to think about them, how to pull them apart, and how to respond to them with innovation," said McConaghy.
In 1975, Paul Allen saw a magazine cover which prompted a call to Gates. The former Lakeside School buddies could develop a basic software to instruct these new things called personal computers. A far different concept than a giant machine squatting awkwardly in the office.
"And it really takes a fresh look. You have to literally say, these guys have gotten so ingrained in how things should work that they miss this whole new approach," said Bill Gates of Microsoft in a 1982 interview with KOMO News.
They wrote their first program quickly, then sold it to one hardware manufacturer, and set up Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to be close to that one client. But it wasn’t long until Seattle drew them back.
"Sure, they're from here, coming home. But that wasn't the main reason. The main reason was they were engineers. They knew they could get the people they needed," said O'Mara.
Such as graduates from the University of Washington’s growing computer science department. And, engineers, who’d lost jobs in the Boeing bust. The pool of talent is like catnip to Microsoft.
Once back in metropolitan Seattle in 1979, the company’s vision flowed.
Bill gates said, "The computer is constantly improving, getting smaller, we’re getting these flatscreens with great resolution. We’re trying to make handwriting something you use to get information into the computer and eventually speech as well. So we’re trying to make it fit in, and have it be natural to use it. You know, eventually there’ll be computers as small as your wallet."
Microsoft started bundling word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software under the Office label in the early 90s. The company's market share and revenues soared.
"Microsoft was critical to what happened here in terms of the tech economy that we have now," said O'Mara. "Absolutely foundational."
But like every Seattle innovator, Microsoft hit speedbumps.
Apple, whose first PC’s had used a Microsoft operating system, became a full-throated rival. The government said Microsoft had grown too big and filed anti-trust actions. And the company was late to the game in both web browser and cloud computing. Its mobile phone even struck out.
But Microsoft never stalls. It rises to become a symbol of Seattle’s startup-friendly environment, prompting others to take the same chance. And ironically, just as Microsoft had once feasted on engineer-rich waters after the Boeing crash, someone later sees Microsoft as the source of talent he needs.
"In fact, you know, famously, Jeff Bezos drove out in his car with his business plan in his lap to Seattle because Microsoft was here and had created this great community," said Garfield.
Microsoft became "generative," triggering startups and a family tree of its own. Two of those descendants made their way to the Fortune 500 list -- each based in the Seattle area.
In 1996, a Microsoft employee pitched an idea directly to Gates -- let’s eliminate travel agents and let people book their own travel online.
Gates said yes, and the result was, Expedia.
"And when that happens people say 'Gosh, look what can happen when it works out, you can build the biggest company in this industry in the world, or the most significant company in that industry in the world,'" said Hiemstra.
Expedia quickly became an online giant, acquiring names like Travelocity, TripAdvisor, Trivago and Orbitz, as well as European-based sites. And the man who made that initial pitch, Richard Barton would go on to co-found Zillow, the most visited real estate website in America.
A computer in your pocket
Sometimes, innovation is as simple as recognizing a great opportunity before anyone else. You might not know the name, but if you carry a mobile phone, in many ways, you have McCaw Cellular to thank.
"The most dynamic tech technology in everybody's pocket all over the world today," said Hiemstra.
The McCaw’s roots were in the small Southwest Washington town of Centralia. In 1969, the four McCaw brothers inherited a tiny, troubled cable TV business from their father. Their mother wanted to sell, but the boys decided to run it. Led by Craig, the second oldest, they scrambled for years to grow the cable holdings.
Then, in the early 80s, McCaw learned the federal government was awarding licenses for portions of the radio spectrum that could connect mobile phones. AT&T passed. But McCaw saw those invisible airwaves as a conduit to the future.
"Craig really had a vision. It was having a phone that was identified to a person, he said we’re not going to call places, we’re going to call people," said Bob Ratliffe, former Sr., vice president of McCaw Cellular Communications.
In 1987 McCaw sold the cable business to pour the money into cellular, setting up headquarters in a Seattle suburb. Ratliffe recalled jetting around the country with the McCaws, buying up licenses.
"I wouldn’t say it was a sure bet, I mean we certainly had a tremendous amount of pressure on us because of the debt that was assembled, but the debt made sense because of the fast growth of the industry," said Ratliffe.
McCaw Cellular was convinced success depended on linking together a network of cells. McCaw’s network, Cellular One, would become the largest in the nation operating in more than 100 cities.
Ironically, AT&T would eventually pay more than $15 billion for McCaw’s interests. And many of the departing execs would go on to start new companies.
"T-Mobile in the case of John Stanton, Edge Wireless, Madrona Ventures, Ignition Ventures, radio frame other little technology companies that became integral to the growth of cellular across the world," said Ratliffe.
A world that shifted dramatically when Craig McCaw took a fearless leap into the future.
"We’re on the very edge of that change sweeping across society and no one even understands what it means yet. And I don’t know that we claim to know how many ways it will change society, but it will be profound," said Craig McCaw, chairman and CEO McCaw Cellular Communications in 1994.
"I think there’s eight billion people in the world, and there’s something like eight or 10 billion phones, 80 or 90 percent of the population of the world now has access to cellular telephone technology, it’s changed, it’s changed everything," said Hiemstra.
Helping the world
Seattle has produced many innovations that are helping the world but less appreciated is what Seattle has given to the world. Many companies, organizations and individuals are working to improve lives.
But for our purposes, lets return to those two boys who were inspired by the World’s Fair.
Bill Gates, and Melinda French Gates founded the world’s largest philanthropic organization in 2000, pouring billions into eradicating diseases like polio and malaria, lifting families out of poverty, and facilitating access to safe drinking water, saving millions of lives across the globe.
During that time, Gates’ friend Paul Allen, was thinking on an even higher plane. Allen believed the greatest mysteries in the Universe exist not in the far reaches of space, but in the space -- between your ears -- the brain.
"If you start your career around computers and software and all that, computers think about problems a certain way human brains thinks about problems in ways, we only understand a little bit," said Microsoft's cofounder Paul Allen in a 2006 interview.
To expand that understanding, in 2003 -- 15 years before he died -- Allen donated $100 million to create an institute committed to unlocking the brain’s secrets. That’s because the human brain is a galaxy of billions of cells with trillions of connections and much of how it functions is unknown.
But neuroscientists do know humans and mice share 90% of their genes, so scientists at the Allen Institute began with the tiny mouse brain.
"So the idea was let’s map all the genes across the entire brain and this had never been done before," said Ed Lein, senior investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
It took the Institute’s initial team of 80 scientists three years to produce the Mouse Brain Atlas -- a groundbreaking 3D map detailing more than 20,000 genes in the brain. The Atlas immediately became a go to reference for researchers studying everything from Autism to Alzheimer’s to brain cancer.
It’s not just the Brain Atlas that’s captured the world’s attention, it’s how the Institute handles all its scientific discoveries -- putting them out there for anyone to use and at no cost.
"We have the resources to build things that are big, are comprehensive, that are widely useful to many different scientists and fields of science and then we share it, for free for anyone to use in their work," said Kaitlyn Cacimo, a neuroscientist and educator the Allen Institute.
The Brain Atlas is used daily by thousands of scientists in dozens of countries. And the Institute’s model of Big, Team, Open Science is rapidly becoming the world standard.
At this showcase scientists share findings as they point toward the Institute’s next goal: mapping in intricate detail the cells of an entire human brain and eventually finding cures for the most confounding mysteries of medicine.
"And they can say, I’m interested in Parkinson’s disease, I’m interested in schizophrenia, I’m interested in ALS, well let me look at this healthy brain and then look at my disease and it can help light the way," explained Cacimo.
Thanks to Paul Allen’s generosity, the power of teamwork, and maybe a little sparkle of the magic fairy dust, these breakthroughs in unlocking the brain just could be the most significant contribution Seattle has made to change the world.
Seattle at your service
While many of our region’s brands are instantly recognizable, there’s a subtle influence at work -- a philosophy that a customer’s experience is just as important as what they’re buying.
"You know, it’s not a Seattle creation alone, but it is something where Seattle companies have really, set the bar higher," said O'Mara.
Swedish immigrant John Nordstrom embraced that philosophy when in 1901 he partnered with a shoemaker he’d met in Alaska to open a store in downtown Seattle.
Nordstrom famously said, “Customers will buy more when they are happy."
"Nordstrom sets itself apart from a very early stage when it's just a shoe seller as we're going to, you know... you don't like a shoe, we'll take it back. You wear your shoe, we'll take it back," said O'Mara.
By 1960, that modest shoe store had grown to the largest in the nation and a decade later the company was selling a lot more than shoes with sales surpassing $100 million.
As Nordstrom expanded across North America it spread its philosophy of going "above and beyond." In fact, to this day, Nordstrom-level service is a business case study in how to win and keep customer loyalty.
Another Seattle-area retail brand has become a global juggernaut by offering customers an exemplary experience on a different level.
Costco sells high quality merchandise at bargain prices to card carrying members, and like Nordstrom, will pretty much take anything back.
"It’s providing a level of consumer satisfaction whether it be I’m going to guarantee your products for a lifetime or I’ll take it back no matter what. Or, I’ll give you a better price than you could get elsewhere," said O'Mara.
Costco didn’t invent the concept of a members only warehouse store -- that was Price Club in San Diego. Jeff Brotman’s father suggested his son replicate that model and the lure of entrepreneurial life won out.
"My dream was to not ever have to work for anyone and I never did," said Costco cofounder Jeff Brotman. "Other than a very brief time working for the attorney general of the State of Washington when I got out of law school, I never worked for anyone, that was my objective."
In 1983, Brotman and retail genius James Sinegal teamed up to open the first Costco warehouse on 4th Avenue in Seattle.
They shared a motto: "Do the right thing" for customers -- and employees, who they paid generously. It worked. Costco grew so fast, it became the first company ever to go from zero to $3 billion in sales in under six years.
You can now shop at a Costco in more than 800 stores across the globe from Australia to South Korea to Iceland.
The emergence of Amazon
If Nordstrom and Costco elevated the consumer, Amazon took it to the stratosphere. It began in 1994 when Jeff Bezos quit his Wall Street Job in New York to create an on-line store. And he specifically chose Seattle.
"Jeff Bezos coming out here and recognizing that Microsoft had succeeded here... Jeff Bezos thought this is the perfect place to build entirely new digital commerce and what success they’ve had," said Garfield.
It wasn’t a sure bet. Online shopping was new and untrusted in 1995 when Bezos launched his cyber bookstore from the garage of his suburban home -- a bold risk.
"Amazon used the Worldwide web in a way that no one ever thought possible. It made consumers of the world’s citizens in ways that no one thought possible," said McConaghy.
Bezos did it by embracing Seattle’s secret sauce: gold star customer service.
Within two years, Amazon had a huge Seattle warehouse stocked with two and a half million books and employees working around the clock shipping books worldwide -- many going out the same day they were ordered.
"There are two business strategies, you can be obsessed over competitors, or you can be obsessed over customers, we think it’s much better to be obsessed over customers," said Bezos.
With his unconventional laugh, and dorm style door desk, Bezos hardly fit the image of a business mogul, but in December 1999, Time Magazine named him Person of the Year. Amazon wasn’t even turning a profit, instead pouring revenue into expanding its online offerings and distribution centers.
"What we’re trying to do is be earth’s most customer centric company and within that build a place where people can come discover anything and everything that they might want to buy online," said Bezos.
The man with the goofy laugh who came to Seattle to take a risk is now one of the richest men in the world. And Amazon is now bigger than Microsoft. Bezos embraced the impossible, even as critics predicted the company would fail. Quite simply, he saw a future others couldn’t even imagine.
Creating 'The Vibe'
Innovation doesn’t just work for business -- it can also reinvent existing culture. Seattle’s done that, too.
It’s taken arts and customs which have been around for centuries and added new life and new meaning, and then announced them loudly across America. In many cases, around the world.
During the second World War, rationing meant the US learned how to drink weak coffee -- the result of too few beans and too much water.
After Starbucks opened its first store in Seattle in 1971, it spent a decade selling only roasted beans and brewing implements.
That changed after Howard Schultz was hired and made a trip to Italy in 1983. He came home inspired. Starbucks could offer Americans a richer brew and the kind of coffeehouse experience he’d seen in Milan. There, people sat casually sipping espresso while chatting with friends.
Starbucks could be reinvented as a "third place" somewhere other than home or office, to meet with friends.
"The history of innovation in Seattle or anywhere is a history of pivots," said McConaghy. "It's an iterative history. It moves between applying the old to the new adaptively reusing a technology or a lyric or a particular application in art to a new outcome."
Starbucks grew fast, but not without pauses. For example, the pandemic shifted business to carry out.
But now customers are back in their third places. Starbucks is the world’s largest coffeehouse, and its cultural vibe continues to spread.
Don't forget about the art
And, Seattle’s didn’t just reinvent culture in an espresso cup -- it did the same thing in a red-hot kiln.
Glassblowing dates back more than 2,000 years, but as a global art form, it came alive after 1971 when Tacoma-born University of Washington grad Dale Chihuly opened the Pilchuck Glass School about an hour north of Seattle.
"Chihuly invited people from all over the world to come here. He invited the Italian Glassblower and he invited the Czech people from the Czech Republic and from Japan. And all of these people came together to really exchange ideas and techniques," said Michelle Bufano, executive director at Chihuly Garden and Glass.
Chihuly took what was considered a fragile medium -- glass -- and pushed it to its limits. Not just displaying artworks on pedestals, but hanging them from ceilings, growing them like stalagmites, tossing them into water, weaving them through gardens. Every installation telling a story.
Unlike a novelist or composer, Chihuly’s creations require teams of artists.
"And what's great about Dale Chihuly’s work and process is that he incorporates the intern who is learning glass for the first time and the master who's been doing it for 30 years. And that’s really why people move here," said Bufano.
It’s what lured Minhi England to Seattle to do her work.
"So what he did, he kind of taught us all how it’s done, that you can do so much more if you are able to bring a big group of people together, bring likeminded people together you can accomplish much more," said the glass artist, England.
Chihuly put Seattle on the map as the center of glassblowing in America and he is now the most famous Glass Artist in the World.
Pike Place Market
Just a mile away from the modern Chihuly museum is the venerable Pike Place Market, dating to 1907. Its impact, too, has been global.
When the powerbrokers of Seattle moved to tear it down in the 60s, citizens rose up.
"On the one side was the mayor, the city council the two city newspapers. It was a who’s who of Seattle. On the other side was this ragtag group of university professor, a few artists and a lot of people who had shopped and loved the market," said Alice Shorett, author and historian.
The people staved off the wrecking ball. But Pike Place Market would not be what it is today without another Seattle breakthrough, one that changed the relationship between government and public markets.
Under pressure from Washington’s powerful US Senator Warren Magnuson, the federal government agreed that money allocated to traditional urban renewal -- demolition -- could instead be used to restore and renew.
"We were an international inspiration for markets all over the country and all over the world, because as you can imagine, we were not the only market that was being threatened by urban renewal at the time. Butt to: So the market in Barcelona, which maybe you've been to, is it that's there in part because of the Pike Place market was saved," said Sara Patton, with Friends of the Market.
Seattle's vibrant music scene
And finally, Seattle’s eclectic musical heritage created a vibe that’s influenced artists around the world.
In the 40s Seattle had developed a thriving jazz club scene. Three teens Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson and Ray Charles would lie about their ages to sneak into those clubs. Ernestine was already making her name when she met Ray Charles, who just arrived from Florida.
"And I thought if I could go to a medium sized town and start to do my own thing, maybe I could make it. So I selected Seattle, it took me five days on a bus to get here," said Ray Charles, in an interview with KOMO News in 1983.
16-year-old Ray Charles was performing at a Seattle club when a 14-year-old trumpeter approached him. His name -- Quincy Jones.
A talented performer, Jones would become one of the most celebrated music producers, composers and arrangers of all time, winning 28 Grammy’s.
Jones produced Michael Jackson’s megahit "Thriller" -- the best-selling album of all time.
But the linchpin of Seattle’s musical culture was created back in 1931 when Paul Tutmarc invented the electric bass guitar in his basem*nt.
Creative mastermind Jimi Hendrix would mesmerize a generation in 1969 with his electric guitar performance of the Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock.
Back then, rock music was a male dominated genre. But Seattle sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson broke that barrier. Their first album "Heart" released in 1985 went platinum five times over.
In the late 80s, Seattle’s love affair with the electric guitar hit its high note with the birth of grunge. Groups like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden rode a wave of popularity with their angst-filled lyrics and fusion of punk and heavy metal.
It became known as the “Seattle sound."
That same decade, Seattle defied the odds by creating a thriving hip-hop scene, beginning with Sir Mix A Lot, who was just gaining traction when he appeared on TV with KOMO’s own Steve Pool.
Mixalot's upbeat lyrics and sense of humor set him apart and defined his brand.
Rapper Macklemore would follow in Mixalot’s footsteps, achieving international stardom with "Thrift Shop," a social critique of materialism glamourized by rap. Notably, Macklemore did it on his own, without being signed by a major record label.
From jazz to hip-hop, rock to grunge, Seattle musicians forged new paths, reinvented genres and inspired other artists around the world to do the same.
When the mountain is out
While music influenced Seattle’s soul, nature has shaped its spirit. The raw power of nature was on display for the world when Mt. St. Helens blew its top in 1980.
Mudflows from melting ice and snow, swept away giant trees and entire buildings. While the eruption occurred in Southwest Washington, ash landed as far away as Oklahoma -- and the plume encircled the globe.
The blast could stand as a metaphor for how nature has infused Seattle with a fierce resiliency.
"When you come into a community that is surrounded by the densest forests on earth and some of the highest peaks and fjords that are as deep as those in Scandinavia, you need to have a spirit that says, 'I can deal with this and I need to find a new way,'" said Garfield.
One of the people who found a new way was Eddie Bauer -- prompted by a rainy fishing trip in 1936 during which Bauer nearly died of hypothermia. Bauer bought $25 worth of goose down, stuffed it into a quilted jacket and was soon selling his invention in his downtown Seattle store.
In just four years, Bauer took out more than 20 patents for clothing and equipment and boldly guaranteed his products for life.
But sometimes it’s not what you sell, but how you sell it, that’s a game changer.
"REI notably. That’s founded in 1938 as a cooperative where a group of people who love to hike and love to mountaineer, they wanted someplace to -- all the gear was really expensive and hard to find and you had to get it from Switzerland -- and it was not something that was easily available," explained O'Mara. "So they created a cooperative where there, you know, rather than a business owned by a single person. But it's something where everyone shares their profits."
The fee in to join in 1938? Just $1 -- for a lifetime membership.
REI’s first store manager was Northwest mountaineering legend Jim Whittaker, who would later become the first American to summit Mt. Everest in 1963.
But, beyond helping extreme sports enthusiasts stay alive, together REI and Eddie Bauer changed the way many people around the world connect to the outdoors. Adventure isn’t just for the wealthy and privileged, with the right gear, anyone can venture out.
Because, along with its many peaks and lakes, Seattle is known for rain and clouds, and for dynamic air flows that split around mountains and gather over Puget Sound.
"I love the idea of thinking of it as a convergence, and we think of the convergence zone where weather systems come together and create something different. This is a place where ideas come together," said Garfield.
Aside from Mt. St. Helens, there’s another mountain that has a profound impact on Seattle’s spirit -- Mt. Rainier.
Locals call it "THE mountain" because it dominates the skyline, its grandeur suggesting endless possibilities. In any season, when the mountain and sun come out together, so do the people.
"People want to come here from all over the world and that’s generating the energy and dynamism. That’s where the new ideas come from," said O'Mara.
Ever heard of Pickle Ball?
Sometimes those new ideas are quirky. Ever heard of Pickle Ball? It was created by happenstance on an island 30 minutes by ferry from Seattle.
Joel Pritchard -- US Congressman from Washington would take his family to Bainbridge Island for the summer. His oldest son Frank was 13, a teenager then.
The family picnics, boating, walks on the beach -- didn’t impress the kids.
"It was a beautiful day, I’m standing on the steps I turn to my dad—I hate it here there’s nothing to do. He said when we were kids we used to make games up. And I said oh really why don’t you go make a game up then," said Frank Pritchard, son of Pickle Ball founder.
So Pritchard did, enlisting his friends Bill Bell and Barney McCallum to invent a game that could be played on a scruffy badminton court. Pickle Ball became a smash hit -- it’s the fastest growing sport in America and has spread to dozens of countries from Spain to India to Argentina.
Recently, the governor declared Pickle Ball the official sport of Washington state.
The legacy continues
You’ve seen the many ways Seattle area companies, organizations and people have already changed the world -- but it's not over. The legacy continues.
For evidence, look no further than the University of Washington. Recently, the university was ranked the 6th best University in the world. And separately, the top public university in the world for Innovation -- #1!
It was the University of Washington's reputation that drew Alex Rosenberg of Chicago and Charlie Roco of Virginia.
"I actually didn't know the University of Washington was in Seattle when I applied. I knew it was somewhere in the state of Washington," said Alex Rosenberg, Parse Biosciences cofounder and CEO.
The two now run a company called Parse Biosciences spun out of their University of Washington research involving a cutting-edge technique called single cell RNA sequencing. They didn’t invent the sequencing itself, but developed technology to do it on a large scale using only a small kit instead of expensive special instrumentation.
But how? They had no idea how to move forward.
The answer was a long-standing University of Washington program called CoMotion, which offers everything from a physical space in a startup incubator to advice and community connections.
Parse Biosciences is already having a global impact on research into cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s and infectious diseases.
"At the end of the day we empower researchers to save lives," said fellow Prase Biosciences cofounder and CEO, Charles Roco.
And, Parse Biosciences is no one-off. CoMotion incubates roughly a hundred startups a year in its three labs. Startups like Anavasi Diagnostics, whose founders invented a PCR-quality rapid test for COVID-19. It’s like having a lab in a box.
Most importantly, Anavasi is expanding its tests to include detection of Influenza, RSV and MPox, with potentially lifesaving consequences.
But Seattle isn’t just known for innovation in science and technology, but also in the arts, especially the art of eating.
Foodies rejoice
Two decades ago, Seattle entrepreneur Kurt Dammeier decided Seattle needed a signature cheese. So he consulted with experts.
"They told me, no, that’s not a very good idea. In fact, cheese is going the wrong way, in fact, cheese is declining. And this is probably not a very good business," said Dammeier, the founder of Beecher's Handmade Cheese.
In true Seattle fashion, Dammeier wasn’t deterred, he invented an artisan cheese he named Beecher’s Flagship. It wasn’t just the recipe that was magic, but Dammeier’s vision for where he set up his cheesemaking operation.
"Opening it in the middle of a city and having it grow to become a brand that is as deeply loved as Beecher’s could only happen in Seattle and it could only really happen at Pike Place Market," said Dammeier.
At the historic Pike Place, foodies from the Pacific Northwest mingle with tourists from around the Globe and Beecher’s gets a lot of attention.
"We’re now making cheese in three locations, and will probably make five million pounds of cheese this year," said Dammeier.
Beecher’s "World Famous Mac and Cheese" is now sold in every state and 12,000 grocery stores across America.
A few miles away, in Seattle’s Central District, a new restaurant is gaining global attention. Communion was recently named one of the top 12 best new restaurants in the world. Chef Kristi Brown described her style as Seattle soul.
"I feel a lot of times food is used to separate people actually it works together, so you might say fish sauce and BBQ together don’t make any sense, but it totally does," said Chief Brown, owner of Communion.
Brown took a big risk opening her restaurant just as the pandemic hit. Located in a building that once housed the first Black owned bank in the Pacific Northwest, Communion is as much about community as food.
"Us being here says there is a chance for us to all coexist together," said Brown.
The fairy dust
As we talk about Seattle’s fabled brands and breakthroughs, questions arise.
Why, why did it happen here? What’s the magic fairy dust?
We heard from experts who’ve studied from the outside and lived it from the inside.
"What think of when I think of Seattle as the birthplace of innovation is that because we are so far removed from the rest of the populated parts of the United States that we have a welcoming attitude toward newcomers, we have a flat social hierarchy," said Garfield. "You don’t have to have a famous family or come from great wealth."
"It seemed like a place you could do anything," said McConaghy. "If you could just find the right people, find the right resources, find the right problem to solve."
"People who live in Seattle, they really want to live in Seattle," said Rosenberg.
Writing our future
We’ve seen how Seattle has moved the needle the world over. But writing our future, are we still an audacious city determined to lead, not follow?
Futurist Glen Hiemstra has made a career out of advising communities on the importance of finding their guiding star.
"What Seattle could really use now would be a cohesive ambitious vision of its long-term future," said Hiemstra. "The act of people coming together and saying, in my dream we would look like this, and we’d have these features. The act of doing that creates an almost sense of a purpose that pulls people forward... I think it does matter what a city decides it wants to be. It’s not easy to do because of course cities are collections of all kinds of people who want to be all kinds of things."
And there’s no question Seattle has problems to solve. Yet, historians who’ve studied the city’s remarkable track record remain encouraged.
"I think the wonderful thing about Seattle is it’s young enough that we’re all writing our stories still. All of the children of people raised here in Seattle will have a chance to write a story," said Lee Rhodes, founder and owner of Glassybaby.
Optimism is a hallmark of creators. They see a problem and instead of feeling discouraged, they’re energized by a curiosity to find solutions.
"We're not the biggest city in the world population wise, but we punch way above our weight," said Garfield. "And I think that we can feel very, very proud of that. And I don't see any reason why that won't continue into the future. In fact, I would say that if we're looking for what they call superstar cities on the global scene, Seattle is one I think it will stay one. And honestly, it’s up to us to make sure that happens."
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The "How Seattle Changed The World" documentary will air on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023 at 9 p.m. on KOMO 4 Television. It will be broadcast on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2023 at 3 p.m. on KOMO 4 Television. You can also watch the documentary in the header at the top of this story and on YouTube.
