When Seattle Was: How the Queen City Got Its Kicks Before Emeralds, Windows and Cinnamon Dolce Lattes is an anecdotal coming-of-age book about what it was like growing up in Seattle, Washington, before it was radically changed by the 1962 World's Fair.
It was a different time before the fair: of Saturday matinees at the local movie theatre, active participation in a growing rock music scene, and relative freedom to explore the city's historically nefarious underbelly.
Written by former Roosevelt High School classmates Rolin Miller and Michael Barrett, the 177-page softbound book tells tales of teenagers discovering oft-risky ways of entertaining themselves when Seattle was still the Queen — not Emerald — City.
It was a more carefree time, a period of steel and stone rather than glassy skyscrapers and Plexiglass Bubbleators.
The Century 21 Exposition, which operated from April 21 through October 21, 1962, opened the doors to out-of-towners and big-city ideas like never before. The skyline quickly grew to dwarf the Smith Tower, once the tallest building west of the Mississippi River, and Seattle's primary symbol long before the Space Needle became its new icon. Indeed, the fair may have even hastened the arrival of megacompanies Starbucks, Microsoft, Costco and Amazon.com where Boeing had earlier stood alone.
When Seattle Was is a must-read for for anyone old enough to remember the "good ol' days" and for those who came later but want to know what it was like.When Seattle Was contains a number of rarely seen photos of the era from several local historical archives, including the Seattle Library, the Museum of History and Industry, The Shoreline Historical Museum and others.
You can currently find When Seattle Was on Amazon.com; Volume Two (!) of When Seattle Was is expected to be released in Summer 2013.
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