Skid Road: An Informal Portrait of Seattle - Softcover

Morgan, Murray

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0295743492 ISBN 13: 9780295743493

Publisher: University of Washington Press, 2018

Synopsis

Skid Road tells the story of Seattle “from the bottom up,” offering an informal and engaging portrait of the Emerald City’s first century, as seen through the lives of some of its most colorful citizens. With his trademark combination of deep local knowledge, precision, and wit, Murray Morgan traces the city’s history from its earliest days as a hacked-from-the-wilderness timber town, touching on local tribes, settlers, the lumber and railroad industries, the great fire of 1889, the Alaska gold rush, flourishing dens of vice, general strikes, the 1962 World’s Fair, and the stuttering growth of the 1970s and ’80s. Through it all, Morgan shows us that Seattle’s one constant is change and that its penchant for reinvention has always been fueled by creative, if sometimes unorthodox, residents.

With a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic Mary Ann Gwinn, this redesigned edition of Murray Morgan’s classic work is a must for those interested in how Seattle got to where it is today.

About this title

Review

Murray Morgan brings the early days of Seattle roaring to life on the page in all their rowdy, bawdy, clangorous glory. Always informative, but never dry, Morgan is more than a historian, he's a great storyteller. When did reading history become so fun?

Author: Jonathan Evison, author of West of Here

From the Author

Murray Morgan (1916–2000), a journalist and historian, was the author of more than twenty books, including the well-loved Skid Road and The Last Wilderness. He worked for Time magazine, the New York Herald Tribune, and CBS News and hosted the early morning radio show “Our Town, Our World.” Mary Ann Gwinn writes for the Seattle Times, Booklist, and other publications. She won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1990, was one of three jurors for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in fiction, and serves on the board of the National Book Critics Circle.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0295743492
• ISBN 13: 9780295743493
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 360