Seattles waterfront has served as a central hub for people, transportation, and commerce since time immemorial. A low natural shoreline provided the Duwamish-Suquamish people with excellent canoe access to permanent villages and seasonal fishing camps. High bluffs served as a sacred place for tribal members final journey to the spirit world. When the first settlers arrived in the 1850s, Seattles shoreline began to change drastically. Emerald hills covered with dense forests were logged for timber to make way for the new city. As time passed, Seattle constructed a log seawall, wooden sidewalks, wharfs, buildings, streets, railroad trestles, and eventually, a massive concrete viaduct over the original aquatic lands, changing the natural environment to a built environment. Today, Seattles shoreline continues to change as the city demolishes the viaduct, rebuilds the seawall, and creates an inviting new waterfront that all will enjoy for generations to come.

Despite the often astonishing changes in the landscape, authors Paul Dorpat and Jean Sherrard searched high and low, determined to find the same locations and angles as their predecessors. The result is a portrait that reflects not only the amazing changes brought on by time, but also a record of what has remained in this most scenic western state.

"A Michael J. Repass Book" -- Title page.

The Puget Sound region was inhabited by Native Americans for thousands of years before settlers arrived. After initially landing at Alki Beach in West Seattle, the Denny Party established a settlement on the eastern shores of Elliott Bay in 1852. For years, the cultural and commercial life centered around Yesler's Wharf and Sawmill. The city grew rapidly following the 1870s after the discovery of coal in the Cascade foothills. The entire commercial district was incinerated in the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, but it was quickly rebuilt out of enduring brick and stone. The city stumbled economically following the Panic of 1893, but it recovered after the Klondike Gold Rush began in 1897. By the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, Seattle was the undisputed leader in the Pacific Northwest.