History of Bellingham, Washington
Encyclopedia
The history of Bellingham, Washington
, involves the settling of Whatcom County in the mid-to-late 19th century. The name of Bellingham is derived from the bay on which the city is situated. George Vancouver
, who visited the area in June 1792, named the bay for Sir William Bellingham
, the controller of the storekeeper's account of the Royal Navy
.
Bellingham was officially incorporated on November 4, 1903. It was the result of the consolidation of four towns initially situated around Bellingham Bay: Whatcom, Sehome, Bellingham, and Fairhaven.
, later to become famous as a Confederate
General in the American Civil War
. Pickett's house remains to this day as the oldest house in the city.
In 1858, the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
caused thousands of miners, storekeepers, and scalawags to head north from California
. Whatcom grew overnight from a small northwest mill town to a bustling seaport, the basetown for the Whatcom Trail
, which led to the Fraser Canyon
goldfields, used in open defiance of colonial Governor James Douglas
's edict that all entry to the gold colony be made via Victoria, British Columbia
. The first brick building in Washington was built at this time, the T. G. Richards and Company Store
. The first newspaper in Whatcom County, the Northern Light, was published by William Bausman during the boom. Just as soon as it started, the boom went bust with the miners being forced to stop at Victoria, B.C. for a permit before heading to the mining fields. Whatcom's population dropped almost as quickly as it had grown, and the sleepy little town on the bay returned.
Coal mining
was commonplace near town from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. Coal was originally discovered by Henry Roeder off the northeastern shore of Bellingham Bay. In 1854, a group of San Francisco investors established Bellingham Bay Coal Company. By 1866, Darius Ogden Mills purchased and reorganized the company, making it a subsidiary of his Black Diamond Coal Mining Company. The Sehome Coal Mine at the present Laurel Street in Bellingham, employed 100 people in 1860. Under the management of Pierre B. Cornwall, the mine operated profitably until its closure in 1878. By this time, Black Diamond had acquired a considerable amount of land around Bellingham Bay, and throughout the next 19 years, Cornwall focused the company’s efforts on the sale of its real estate. The Blue Canyon mine, at the south end of Lake Whatcom, opened in 1891 with solid investment, and supplied lower-grade bituminous coal
for the United States Pacific Fleet
. Twenty-three workers died in huge explosion on April 8, 1895, Washington's worst industrial accident to date. The Blue Canyon mine closed in 1917, having produced 250,000 tons of coal. That same year, the Bellingham Coal Mines opened near present-day Northwest and Birchwood Avenues. The mine extended to hundreds of miles of tunnels as deep as 1200'. It ran southwest to Bellingham Bay, on both sides of Squalicum Creek, an area of about one square mile. It employed some 250 miners digging over 200,000 tons of coal annually, at its peak in the 1920s. It was closed in 1955.
In the early 1890s, three railroad lines arrived, connecting the bay cities to a nationwide market of builders. The foothills around Bellingham were clearcut after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
to help provide the lumber for the rebuilding of San Francisco. In time, lumber and shingle mills sprang up all over the county to accommodate the byproduct of their work.
In 1889, Cornwall and an association of investors formed the Bellingham Bay Improvement Company (BBIC). The company was mostly composed of wealthy California businessmen who were investing heavily into Bellingham with the vision that it would one day become an important urban center for commerce and trade. The BBIC invested in several diverse enterprises such as shipping, coal, mining, railroad construction, real estate sales and utilities. Even though their dreams of turning Bellingham into a Pacific Northwest metropolis never came to fruition, the BBIC made an immense contribution to the economic development of Bellingham. The BBIC had the franchise for providing electricity to the city of Bellingham, which at that time primarily went to street lighting and electric streetcars. However, by 1903 the small generator powering Bellingham was proving to be inadequate for the growing city. The BBIC began developing a hydroelectric plant on the north fork of the Nooksack River, below Nooksack Falls
. However, all the difficulties of maintaining a generator and trying to construct the Nooksack site took its toll on BBIC. In 1905 the board of directors announced the sale of its utility holdings to Stone & Webster.
BBIC was not the only outside firm with an interest in Bellingham utilities. The General Electric Company of New York purchased Bellingham's Fairhaven Line and New Whatcom street rail line in 1897. In 1898 the utility merged into the Northern Railway and Improvement Company which prompted the Electric Corporation of Boston to purchase a large block of shares. Stone & Webster
was also involved in Puget Sound area railways including a considerable amount in Seattle, Tacoma and Everett. By 1902, Stone & Webster had acquired the Fairhaven and New Whatcom. Over the next several months Northern Railway and Improvement sold the rest of its holdings which included Fairhaven Electric Light, Power and Motor Company and the Whatcom-Fairhaven Gas Company. Stone & Webster organized these under the umbrella name of the Whatcom County Railway and Light Company.
By 1903, there were four cities on Bellingham Bay where Bellingham is now.
.
The Bellingham Riots
occurred on September 5, 1907. A group of 400-500 white men with intentions to exclude East Indian immigrants from the local work force mobbed waterfront barracks. The white men beat and hospitalized 6 Indians while 410 Indians were jailed. No actions were taken against the perpetrators.
Fishing has also played an important part in the development of the region. By 1925, eight salmon canneries were doing business in Whatcom County - two on Bellingham Bay, the rest at Lummi Island, Semiahmoo and Chuckanut Bay. Together, they packed nearly a half-million cases of salmon one year.
Increased efficiency in the canneries, combined with the cold efficiency of the fish traps, decimated the area's salmon runs. Traps were banned in the 1930s, prompting canneries to move their fish-catching operations to Alaska, where salmon were still abundant and traps were still legal.
Bellingham's proximity to the Strait of Juan de Fuca
and to the Inside Passage
to Alaska helped keep some cannery operations here. P.A.F., for example, shipped empty cans to Alaska, where they were packed with fish and shipped back for storage.
near Whatcom Creek, leaking 237,000 US gallons (897 m³) of gasoline into the creek. The NTSB determined that the probable cause of the accident was the damage done by an IMCO construction crew while conducting modifications to a water treatment
plant, but not reported to Olympic or any agency authorities. The 400 miles (643.7 km) pipeline
carries gasoline
, diesel and jet fuel
from four refineries to the Renton, Washington
distribution center and to locations as far south as Portland, Oregon
, including all the fuel for Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
. The four refineries are the BP
's Cherry Point Refinery
and ConocoPhillips
' refinery both at Ferndale, Washington
and Shell Oil Company
's refinery and Tesoro
's refinery both at Anacortes, Washington
.
The vapor layer from the spill overcame an 18 year old man, Liam Gordon Wood, who was fishing in the creek; he fell into the creek and subsequently drowned. An explosion was set off by two young boys playing with a fireplace lighter and burned over a mile (1.6 km) of the creek bed and sent a black smoke cloud over 30,000 feet (10 km) into the air. Steven Tsiorvias and Wade King, both age 10, were students at nearby Roosevelt Elementary School. They were discovered by firefighters immediately and rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital. The boys were airlifted to Harborview Medical Center
in Seattle. They died the next day due to extensive burns from proximity to the blast. Although some buildings were destroyed, due to road closures and evacuations around the creek, there were no further fatalities. The explosion resulted in over $45 million in property damage. Several years later, the families of the pipeline victims sued Olympic Pipeline Company and settled for around $100 million in damages, which they pledged would help support pipeline safety and provide legal representation for pipeline accident victims.
Because of the efforts of the Tsiorvias and King families, whose children died in the tragedy, the U.S. Department of Justice worked to make $4 million of the criminal settlement with the pipeline companies available to start the independent Pipeline Safety Trust. The Pipeline Safety Trust is now the only independent non-profit organization working to ensure greater safety of the pipelines that run through communities nationwide.
Bellingham, Washington
Bellingham is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It is the twelfth-largest city in the state. Situated on Bellingham Bay, Bellingham is protected by Lummi Island, Portage Island, and the Lummi Peninsula, and opens onto the Strait of Georgia...
, involves the settling of Whatcom County in the mid-to-late 19th century. The name of Bellingham is derived from the bay on which the city is situated. George Vancouver
George Vancouver
Captain George Vancouver RN was an English officer of the British Royal Navy, best known for his 1791-95 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of contemporary Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon...
, who visited the area in June 1792, named the bay for Sir William Bellingham
Sir William Bellingham, 1st Baronet
Sir William Bellingham, 1st Baronet was an Irish-born British politician and the "controller of the storekeepers' accounts" for the Royal Navy. Bellingham was charged with organizing and procuring provisions for the Vancouver Expedition...
, the controller of the storekeeper's account of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
.
Bellingham was officially incorporated on November 4, 1903. It was the result of the consolidation of four towns initially situated around Bellingham Bay: Whatcom, Sehome, Bellingham, and Fairhaven.
Four Towns
The first white settlers reached the area in 1854. Local history and legend credit one "Blanket" Bill Jarman as the first white man to reside in the area. The original settlement was named Whatcom, located where Whatcom Creek empties into the bay. A stockade, "Fort Bellingham", was built on Peabody Hill, and commanded by Captain George E. PickettGeorge Pickett
George Edward Pickett was a career United States Army officer who became a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War...
, later to become famous as a Confederate
Confederate States Army
The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...
General in the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Pickett's house remains to this day as the oldest house in the city.
In 1858, the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thompson River in British Columbia at its confluence with the Nicoamen River. This was a few miles upstream from the Thompson's confluence with the Fraser River at present-day Lytton...
caused thousands of miners, storekeepers, and scalawags to head north from California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Whatcom grew overnight from a small northwest mill town to a bustling seaport, the basetown for the Whatcom Trail
Whatcom Trail
The Whatcom Trail was an overland trail from the Puget Sound area of Washington Territory during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858. Named for the then-chief of the Nooksack people on Bellingham Bay, where the trail began at Fairhaven , the route used went via a route known as the Columbia...
, which led to the Fraser Canyon
Fraser Canyon
The Fraser Canyon is an 84 km landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley...
goldfields, used in open defiance of colonial Governor James Douglas
James Douglas (Governor)
Sir James Douglas KCB was a company fur-trader and a British colonial governor on Vancouver Island in northwestern North America, particularly in what is now British Columbia. Douglas worked for the North West Company, and later for the Hudson's Bay Company becoming a high-ranking company officer...
's edict that all entry to the gold colony be made via Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
. The first brick building in Washington was built at this time, the T. G. Richards and Company Store
T. G. Richards and Company Store
The T.G. Richards and Company Store, also known as Whatcom County Courthouse and James B. Steadman Post No. 24 , is the first and oldest brick building in the state of Washington, USA, and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places....
. The first newspaper in Whatcom County, the Northern Light, was published by William Bausman during the boom. Just as soon as it started, the boom went bust with the miners being forced to stop at Victoria, B.C. for a permit before heading to the mining fields. Whatcom's population dropped almost as quickly as it had grown, and the sleepy little town on the bay returned.
Coal mining
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
was commonplace near town from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. Coal was originally discovered by Henry Roeder off the northeastern shore of Bellingham Bay. In 1854, a group of San Francisco investors established Bellingham Bay Coal Company. By 1866, Darius Ogden Mills purchased and reorganized the company, making it a subsidiary of his Black Diamond Coal Mining Company. The Sehome Coal Mine at the present Laurel Street in Bellingham, employed 100 people in 1860. Under the management of Pierre B. Cornwall, the mine operated profitably until its closure in 1878. By this time, Black Diamond had acquired a considerable amount of land around Bellingham Bay, and throughout the next 19 years, Cornwall focused the company’s efforts on the sale of its real estate. The Blue Canyon mine, at the south end of Lake Whatcom, opened in 1891 with solid investment, and supplied lower-grade bituminous coal
Bituminous coal
Bituminous coal or black coal is a relatively soft coal containing a tarlike substance called bitumen. It is of higher quality than lignite coal but of poorer quality than Anthracite...
for the United States Pacific Fleet
United States Pacific Fleet
The United States Pacific Fleet is a Pacific Ocean theater-level component command of the United States Navy that provides naval resources under the operational control of the United States Pacific Command. Its home port is at Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii. It is commanded by Admiral Patrick M...
. Twenty-three workers died in huge explosion on April 8, 1895, Washington's worst industrial accident to date. The Blue Canyon mine closed in 1917, having produced 250,000 tons of coal. That same year, the Bellingham Coal Mines opened near present-day Northwest and Birchwood Avenues. The mine extended to hundreds of miles of tunnels as deep as 1200'. It ran southwest to Bellingham Bay, on both sides of Squalicum Creek, an area of about one square mile. It employed some 250 miners digging over 200,000 tons of coal annually, at its peak in the 1920s. It was closed in 1955.
In the early 1890s, three railroad lines arrived, connecting the bay cities to a nationwide market of builders. The foothills around Bellingham were clearcut after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...
to help provide the lumber for the rebuilding of San Francisco. In time, lumber and shingle mills sprang up all over the county to accommodate the byproduct of their work.
In 1889, Cornwall and an association of investors formed the Bellingham Bay Improvement Company (BBIC). The company was mostly composed of wealthy California businessmen who were investing heavily into Bellingham with the vision that it would one day become an important urban center for commerce and trade. The BBIC invested in several diverse enterprises such as shipping, coal, mining, railroad construction, real estate sales and utilities. Even though their dreams of turning Bellingham into a Pacific Northwest metropolis never came to fruition, the BBIC made an immense contribution to the economic development of Bellingham. The BBIC had the franchise for providing electricity to the city of Bellingham, which at that time primarily went to street lighting and electric streetcars. However, by 1903 the small generator powering Bellingham was proving to be inadequate for the growing city. The BBIC began developing a hydroelectric plant on the north fork of the Nooksack River, below Nooksack Falls
Nooksack Falls
Nooksack Falls is a waterfall along the North Fork of the Nooksack River in Whatcom County, Washington. The water flows through a narrow valley and drops freely 88 feet into a deep rocky river canyon. The falls are viewable from the forested cover near the cliffs edge. The falls are a short 2/3...
. However, all the difficulties of maintaining a generator and trying to construct the Nooksack site took its toll on BBIC. In 1905 the board of directors announced the sale of its utility holdings to Stone & Webster.
BBIC was not the only outside firm with an interest in Bellingham utilities. The General Electric Company of New York purchased Bellingham's Fairhaven Line and New Whatcom street rail line in 1897. In 1898 the utility merged into the Northern Railway and Improvement Company which prompted the Electric Corporation of Boston to purchase a large block of shares. Stone & Webster
Stone & Webster
Stone & Webster is an American engineering services company based in Stoughton, Massachusetts. Stone & Webster was founded as an electrical testing lab and consulting firm by electrical engineers Charles Stone and Edwin Webster in 1889. It was acquired by The Shaw Group in 2000. The company...
was also involved in Puget Sound area railways including a considerable amount in Seattle, Tacoma and Everett. By 1902, Stone & Webster had acquired the Fairhaven and New Whatcom. Over the next several months Northern Railway and Improvement sold the rest of its holdings which included Fairhaven Electric Light, Power and Motor Company and the Whatcom-Fairhaven Gas Company. Stone & Webster organized these under the umbrella name of the Whatcom County Railway and Light Company.
By 1903, there were four cities on Bellingham Bay where Bellingham is now.
Fairhaven
In 1861 "Dirty Dan" Harris purchased much of the land that is now Fairhaven for $53.75. He platted the land in 1883, giving it its current name. A group of investors in Seattle and Tacoma purchased the town for $70,000, hoping to create a metropolis that would rival Seattle and Tacoma. Fairhaven's population in 1903 is estimated at 5,500. Major industries included fishing, sawmills and shipyards. A single canning facility employed a thousand people.Early Bellingham
Bellingham was officially incorporated on November 4, 1903. It was the result of the consolidation of four towns initially situated around Bellingham Bay: Whatcom, Sehome, Bellingham, and Fairhaven. A fictionalized account of the history of Bellingham in this era is "The Living" by Annie DillardAnnie Dillard
Annie Dillard is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for General...
.
The Bellingham Riots
Bellingham riots
The Bellingham riots occurred on September 4, 1907, in Bellingham, Washington, USA. A mob of 400-500 white men, predominantly members of the Asiatic Exclusion League, with intentions to exclude East Indian immigrants from the work force of the local lumber mills, attacked the homes of the Indians....
occurred on September 5, 1907. A group of 400-500 white men with intentions to exclude East Indian immigrants from the local work force mobbed waterfront barracks. The white men beat and hospitalized 6 Indians while 410 Indians were jailed. No actions were taken against the perpetrators.
Fishing has also played an important part in the development of the region. By 1925, eight salmon canneries were doing business in Whatcom County - two on Bellingham Bay, the rest at Lummi Island, Semiahmoo and Chuckanut Bay. Together, they packed nearly a half-million cases of salmon one year.
Increased efficiency in the canneries, combined with the cold efficiency of the fish traps, decimated the area's salmon runs. Traps were banned in the 1930s, prompting canneries to move their fish-catching operations to Alaska, where salmon were still abundant and traps were still legal.
Bellingham's proximity to the Strait of Juan de Fuca
Strait of Juan de Fuca
The Strait of Juan de Fuca is a large body of water about long that is the Salish Sea outlet to the Pacific Ocean...
and to the Inside Passage
Inside Passage
The Inside Passage is a coastal route for oceangoing vessels along a network of passages which weave through the islands on the Pacific coast of North America. The route extends from southeastern Alaska, in the United States, through western British Columbia, in Canada, to northwestern Washington...
to Alaska helped keep some cannery operations here. P.A.F., for example, shipped empty cans to Alaska, where they were packed with fish and shipped back for storage.
Pipeline Accident
On June 10, 1999, the Olympic Pipeline ruptured in Whatcom Falls ParkWhatcom Falls Park
Whatcom Falls Park is a park in Bellingham, Washington, USA. The falls are on Whatcom Creek, which leads from Lake Whatcom to Bellingham Bay...
near Whatcom Creek, leaking 237,000 US gallons (897 m³) of gasoline into the creek. The NTSB determined that the probable cause of the accident was the damage done by an IMCO construction crew while conducting modifications to a water treatment
Water treatment
Water treatment describes those processes used to make water more acceptable for a desired end-use. These can include use as drinking water, industrial processes, medical and many other uses. The goal of all water treatment process is to remove existing contaminants in the water, or reduce the...
plant, but not reported to Olympic or any agency authorities. The 400 miles (643.7 km) pipeline
Pipeline transport
Pipeline transport is the transportation of goods through a pipe. Most commonly, liquids and gases are sent, but pneumatic tubes that transport solid capsules using compressed air are also used....
carries gasoline
Gasoline
Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...
, diesel and jet fuel
Jet fuel
Jet fuel is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is clear to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial aviation are Jet A and Jet A-1 which are produced to a standardized international specification...
from four refineries to the Renton, Washington
Renton, Washington
Renton is an Eastside edge city in King County, Washington, United States. Situated 11 miles southeast of Seattle, Washington, Renton straddles the southeast shore of Lake Washington. Founded in the 1860s, Renton became a supply town for the Newcastle coal fields...
distribution center and to locations as far south as Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, including all the fuel for Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
The Seattle–Tacoma International Airport , also known as Sea–Tac Airport or Sea–Tac , is an American airport located in SeaTac, Washington, at the intersections of State Routes 99 and 509 and 518, about west of Interstate 5...
. The four refineries are the BP
BP
BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...
's Cherry Point Refinery
Cherry Point Refinery
The Cherry Point Refinery is the largest oil refinery in Washington. It is located about south of Blaine and miles northwest of Ferndale, a few miles south of the Canadian border, on the Strait of Georgia between Birch Bay and Lummi Bay. The Project was overseen by George W. Glade, President of...
and ConocoPhillips
ConocoPhillips
ConocoPhillips Company is an American multinational energy corporation with its headquarters located in the Energy Corridor district of Houston, Texas in the United States...
' refinery both at Ferndale, Washington
Ferndale, Washington
-Demographics:As of the census of 2009, there were 11,681 people, 3,901 households, and 2,303 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,409.1 people per square mile . There were 3,292 housing units at an average density of 529.7 per square mile...
and Shell Oil Company
Shell Oil Company
Shell Oil Company is the United States-based subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, a multinational oil company of Anglo Dutch origins, which is amongst the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 22,000 Shell employees are based in the U.S. The head office in the U.S. is in Houston, Texas...
's refinery and Tesoro
Tesoro
Tesoro Corporation is a Fortune 100 and a Fortune Global 500 company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, with 2008 annual revenues of $28.3 billion, and approximately 5,600 employees....
's refinery both at Anacortes, Washington
Anacortes, Washington
Anacortes is a city in Skagit County, Washington, United States. The name "Anacortes" is a consolidation of the name Anna Curtis, who was the wife of early Fidalgo Island settler Amos Bowman. Anacortes' population was 15,778 at the time of the 2010 census...
.
The vapor layer from the spill overcame an 18 year old man, Liam Gordon Wood, who was fishing in the creek; he fell into the creek and subsequently drowned. An explosion was set off by two young boys playing with a fireplace lighter and burned over a mile (1.6 km) of the creek bed and sent a black smoke cloud over 30,000 feet (10 km) into the air. Steven Tsiorvias and Wade King, both age 10, were students at nearby Roosevelt Elementary School. They were discovered by firefighters immediately and rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital. The boys were airlifted to Harborview Medical Center
Harborview Medical Center
Harborview Medical Center, located on Seattle's First Hill, is a public hospital in King County, Washington and is managed by UW Medicine.-Overview:...
in Seattle. They died the next day due to extensive burns from proximity to the blast. Although some buildings were destroyed, due to road closures and evacuations around the creek, there were no further fatalities. The explosion resulted in over $45 million in property damage. Several years later, the families of the pipeline victims sued Olympic Pipeline Company and settled for around $100 million in damages, which they pledged would help support pipeline safety and provide legal representation for pipeline accident victims.
Because of the efforts of the Tsiorvias and King families, whose children died in the tragedy, the U.S. Department of Justice worked to make $4 million of the criminal settlement with the pipeline companies available to start the independent Pipeline Safety Trust. The Pipeline Safety Trust is now the only independent non-profit organization working to ensure greater safety of the pipelines that run through communities nationwide.
See also
- Bellingham riotsBellingham riotsThe Bellingham riots occurred on September 4, 1907, in Bellingham, Washington, USA. A mob of 400-500 white men, predominantly members of the Asiatic Exclusion League, with intentions to exclude East Indian immigrants from the work force of the local lumber mills, attacked the homes of the Indians....
- Royal Dutch Shell environmental issues#Shell pipeline rupture in Washington
- PIER SystemsPIER SystemsPIER Systems, Inc. is a company that develops and supports an on-demand, web-based, communications software called The PIER System. Their product is designed for information management, crisis communications, business continuity, disaster recovery, public relations, mass notification, news...
- Pipeline transportPipeline transportPipeline transport is the transportation of goods through a pipe. Most commonly, liquids and gases are sent, but pneumatic tubes that transport solid capsules using compressed air are also used....
- List of pipeline accidents