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Diablo Dam incline railway climbing Sourdough Mountain, 1930. Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, 2306.
Children waving to ferry, 1950. Courtesy Museum of History and Industry.
Loggers in the Northwest woods. Courtesy Washington State Digital Archives.
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8/6/2026
A Ferry Tale
One hundred years ago this week, on August 12, 1926, Alexander Peabody took control of the Puget Sound Navigation Company (also known as the Black Ball Line) following the death of his father. He soon began consolidating rival ferry lines, buying older vessels and retrofitting them, and ignoring union demands for more pay and fewer hours. Within a few years he had a virtual monopoly on cross-sound traffic.
During World War II the ferries were an integral part of the home-front effort, but after the war Peabody's business practices came under fire. In 1947, striking ferry workers shut down the Black Ball Line for six days, which created havoc for commuters and travelers. A year later, Peabody himself shut the ferry line down after state officials refused to grant his request for a 30 percent fare increase. Residents of Vashon Island – who were dependent on ferry travel – responded by starting their own ferry service and were willing to fight to keep their commutes running smoothly.
Meanwhile commuters from all over Puget Sound, fed up with rate hikes and shutdowns, importuned Governor Mon Wallgren to do something to fix the situation. Wallgren moved to develop a state ferry system under the Washington State Toll Bridge Authority, but Captain Peabody's hopes were raised when Wallgren lost the 1948 gubernatorial election to Arthur Langlie, a Republican who believed in free enterprise. Peabody's relief was short-lived, as Langlie also supported a publicly owned ferry system. It wasn't until 1951 that Washington finally took over the privately owned ferry system, at which point the Vashon islanders gladly dissolved their ferry district and sold its assets to the new Washington State Ferries.
A Scary Tale
Isaac Ebey was one of the earliest surveyors of the many waterways around Puget Sound. Years after he settled on Whidbey Island, Ebey met a tragic fate when a Native American war party – likely members of the Kake Tribe of Tlingits led by a woman warrior – sought revenge for the killing the previous year of their chief and 26 others in a shelling by the American warship USS Massachusetts. On August 11, 1857, the Kake landed at Whidbey Island and, unable to find their primary target, shot Ebey and chopped off his head.
Ebey's name has since been memorialized in a variety of places throughout the region, including Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve, Ebey Slough, Ebey Slough Bridge, and Ebey Waterfront Park in Marysville. A blockhouse that Ebey's father, Jacob, constructed still stands overlooking Ebey's Prairie, and Isaac Ebey is buried in Coupeville.
On August 9, 1873, Thomas Prosch began publishing Tacoma's first newspaper, the Pacific Tribune. Prosch later became publisher of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which got its start on August 5, 1867. Another noteworthy news anniversary this week marks August 10, 1896, when The Seattle Times published the first edition to be edited by the paper's new co-owner, Alden J. Blethen.
This week marks the anniversaries of two events in which women reached for the sky. On August 10, 1890, Fay Fuller became the first woman known to reach the summit of Mount Rainier. And on August 7, 1930, Maud Bolin – the first Native American woman from Washington to obtain a pilot's license – landed at Seattle's Boeing Field as part of the Pacific Northwest Air Tour.
On August 7, 1909, the first bridge connecting Camano Island to the mainland was dedicated. And on August 12, 1961, a five-mile-long line of cars waited to be among the first to cross the Hood Canal Bridge linking the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas.
On August 6, 1945, a Boeing B-29 named the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, killing tens of thousands of people and vaporizing an area of four square miles. Three days later another B-29 detonated a similar device over Nagasaki, and Richland residents finally learned the truth about what they were producing. Key atom-bomb components, including the plutonium used in the Nagasaki bomb, came from Hanford.
Celebrants at Seattle's early Seafair festivities occasionally got to witness extraordinary sights. On August 7, 1954, attendees at a garden party in the Mount Baker neighborhood got a surprise when the hydroplane Gale IV, piloted by “Wild Bill" Cantrell, lost its steering on Lake Washington and ended up on their lawn. The following year Seafair fans saw something even more amazing when Boeing test pilot Alvin "Tex" Johnston unexpectedly rolled the Dash-80, prototype for the 707 jetliner, over Lake Washington – twice.
On August 10, 1969, hundreds of teens clashed with police at Alki Beach in West Seattle. The following night the battle shifted to the University District and turned "The Ave" into an intergenerational war zone before neighborhood volunteers enforced a tense truce on August 15. Attorney and civic leader Cal McCune helped to restore peace to the neighborhood, which led to Seattle's first Street Fair the following year.
On August 8, 1932, swimmer Helene Madison won the first of three gold medals at the 1932 Summer Olympics.
"On the Black Ball ferry line up in Seattle
Every single GOP and Democrat'll
Hear those whistles blow and the bells go
As the ferry boats are chuggin' right along."– Bing Crosby, "The Black Ball Ferry Line"
