This Week in Cascadia March 19-26 is a weekly segment with interesting facts from around the Pacific Northwest that cover each day in history and are released every Sunday.
March 19, 2011 – Oregon Governor John A. Kitzhaber declares the day to officially be National Corndog Day. Invented by two anonymous men in Corvallis 19 years earlier when a 24 pack of corn dogs was discovered in their freezer while they were watching the first day of the NCAA basketball tournament (four basketball games in a row on the same channel), Corndog Day is now a national secular holiday, with a website, a wikipedia page, and even corporate sponsors and several officially sanctioned public events in the Portland area. You can learn more from the Wikipedia page here.
March 20, 1990 – The Globe ’90 Conference is held in Vancouver, BC to discuss the challenge of applying the wider principles of sustainable tourism. During the meting, provincial environment ministers agree to cut use of disposable packaging by 50% and implement tougher controls on pulp mill polluters. You can read more about Globe ’90 through extracts here.
March 21, 1985 – British Columbian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen embarked on his “Man in Motion World Tour” from Oakridge Mall in Vancouver. His goal: to circumnavigate the globe in his wheelchair to raise money for spinal cord injury medical research.. Although public attention was low at the beginning of the tour, he soon attracted international media attention as he progressed on a 26-month trek, logging more than 40,000 km through 34 countries on four continents. The song “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)” was written in his honor by record producer and composer David Foster and British musician John Parr and performed by Parr for the soundtrack of the film St. Elmo’s Fire. You can read more about Richard Hansen here.
March 22, 1778 – Captain James Cook, commanding the ships Resolution and Discovery during his third and final voyage of discovery, names Cape Flattery. The Cape, home to the Makah First Nation, and now part of the Makah Reservation, marks the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The name that the British explorer bestows is the oldest non-Native place name still in use on Washington state maps. You can read more from HistoryLink here.
March 23, 1967 – Paul Dorpat and associates publish the first edition of Helix, Seattle’s first underground newspaper. Readers snap up the first 1,500 copies of the 12-page, multi-colored “counter culture” tabloid. Creation of Helix grew out of discussions at the Free University of Seattle, an alternative college in the University District, and reflected the rapid rise of “underground newspapers” such as The Berkeley Barb, San Francisco’s Oracle, and New York’s East Village Other. In addition to Dorpat, Tom Robbins, Gene Johnston, Ray Collins, Scott White, and Gary Finholt contributed to the first issue of Helix. Helix published a total of 125 biweekly and weekly editions before folding on June 11, 1970. You can learn more about the Helix from Paul Dorpats website here.
March 24, 1932 – The Jewish Chronicle is launched in Seattle, with Roy Rosenthal as president and publisher and Stella Sameth as editor. Some people believed there was a need for another Seattle Jewish newspaper because The Jewish Transcript was too Zionist. In the first issue the editors promised that “no group will dictate what we print or do not print.” However, it soon folded when people realized that two Jewish papers in Seattle would cause friction within the community. You can read more from History Link here.
March 25, 1921 – The steamship Edmore arrives at Port of Tacoma’s newly constructed Pier 1 to load the first cargo to be shipped from the Port. The Port’s formal entry into commercial shipping comes a year to the day after construction began on Pier 1, and less than three years after voters created the Port. Members of International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Locals 38-3 and 38-30 work around the clock to load 600,000 board feet of lumber in record-setting time. Twenty-four hours after it arrives, the Edmore is fully loaded and sets sail for Yokohama, Japan. You can learn more from this very nice slideshow of early Tacoma here.
March 26, 2000 – At 8:32 a.m. Seattle’s Kingdome stadium, originally called the King County Multipurpose Domed Stadium, is imploded. Thousands of spectators crowd Seattle’s streets, hills, sidewalks, and waterfront to watch the dome’s destruction. Onlookers view the implosion outside a “restricted zone” that extends several blocks around the stadium. The blast sets off a small earthquake measuring 2.3 on the Richter Scale. The implosion took place in two phases, totaling 16.8 seconds, with minimal impact on the surrounding neighborhoods. Standing for 24 years, the Kingdome’s 660-foot concrete dome was the largest in the world, and many onlookers gathered pieces of concrete rubble as souvenirs of the Kingdome and its climactic end. You can read more about the Kingdome from King 5 here.
This Week in Cascadia March 19-26 is a weekly segment. You can view all Weeks in Cascadia history from its main page here.
