Knute Berger takes a historical look back at Seattle's first female mayor and her struggle to reform the corrupt police department.
Has science really come to a definitive conclusion against the existence of Sasquatch? Listen up, please.
Is the battle between cyclists and drivers even older than the car?
Knute Berger chronicles the car's bumpy ride in early Seattle — and how it came to dominate the road.
Knute Berger explores the dark history of the Silver Shirts, a fascist splinter group that fielded a presidential candidate in 1936.
What did the original Space Needle design look like? Mossback has a secret artifact.
What keeps Mossback awake at night? People calling it "the" Puget Sound.
Kent built a car that was good enough for NASA: the lunar rover.
What it means to be a Mossback — and how you can become one.
What we learned from capturing live orcas — about us and them.
Mossback dives into the Burke Museum's paleobotany collection to find out what Washington used to look like.
Mossback attended the Sky River Rock Festival when he was 14 — and he still has the tickets to prove it.
Mossback finds the answer in an epic geologic journey with Nick Zentner (aka Nick on the Rocks).
Mossback explores Burke Museum and asks: What can cougar remains tell us about attacks, past and present?
Three instances where visions of the future ran up against the Seattle Process.
"I'd rather be in hell, than on the chain gang."
A mix of bold invention and international influence, this menu is perfect for those hungry for history.
Getting around was as easy as remembering that "Jesus Christ made Seattle under protest."
The story of the famed American writer's only visit to the Pacific Northwest.
This ancient shipwreck may have caused the first-ever contact between Europeans and Northwest indigenous peoples.
'Lesser Seattle' wanted to keep the city free of pretension — and Californians.
Today we fight it, but generations ago the city thrived on it.
Allen was a media favorite in his day.
Since the mid-19th century, Seattle and Tacoma have been business rivals. A focus of their fight: what to call Mt. Rainier. Tacomans wanted it renamed Tacoma or Tahoma, said to be the native names for the volcano, but the mountain’s “discoverer” named it for a friend in the Royal Navy. Rainier survives, but discussion has been rekindled after Alaska’s Mt. McKinley was renamed “Denali.”
A century ago, Seattle's hockey team was the best in the world. But it was no match for the Spanish flu, or plans for a downtown parking garage.
A closer look at three famous hoaxes that shook up the region.
He also founded the city’s first daily newspaper.
On this episode of Mossback's Northwest, a look at what happened on June 24, 1947 when a pilot flew near Mt. Rainier.
Knute Berger looks back at March 12, 1974 when a young student left her Evergreen State College apartment and never returned.
On this episode of Mossback's Northwest, Knute Berger looks back at what Puget Sound learned from the Tacoma Narrows bridge disaster.
During a hot summer, we worry about wildfires in our forests and rangelands. But in 1889, the year that Washington became a state, three of Washington's cities burned within weeks of each other.
30 years in the making, plus $10.4M in marketing, the apple still isn’t for everyone — and that’s okay.
Just because you've done a history segment doesn't mean the story is over! Join host Knute Berger as he answers reader mail, uncovers new details from the past and offers commentary about the region's most intriguing stories.
The Pacific Coast’s only indigenous oyster, the Olympia, was eaten into near-extinction. It could be making a comeback.
The deadly Centralia Tragedy saw conflict between the Wobblies and the American Legion — and left behind a debated legacy.
A rare photograph shows President Kennedy's 1961 detour under an unfinished Space Needle. The 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, also called the Century 21 Exposition, was about the future, but it was rooted in the politics of the present. Organizers wanted nothing more than a visit by President John F. Kennedy. It didn’t happen. Or did it?
Sir Thomas Beecham came to conduct the Seattle Symphony and uttered a sentence that has never been forgotten.
The UW "Boys in the Boat' crew is famous for beating the Nazis in the 1936 Olympics, but there was another race that pitted the vaunted Husky team against Native Swinomish paddlers. This is the story of how a race between rival crews brought Native and UW paddlers closer to the sport — and each other.
A racist Oregon Territory law drove George Bush, a free Black man, across the Columbia River to settle near what is now Olympia. Bush was Puget Sound's first settler and paved the way for what would become Washington state. Artifacts uncovered in Bush Prairie, George Bush's 1845 homestead, give clues about the family life of Puget Sound's first settler.
Seattle's 'Ramps to Nowhere,' built 50 years ago to feed an imagined expressway, are finally coming down.
Prospectors headed to the 1897 gold rush in Alaska had to bring tons of provisions with them. Some imagined the possibility of airships carrying freight and gold back and forth to the Klondike, and suddenly, airships were being "seen" all over the world.
Locals have been infamous for icing out newcomers since World War I.
Flotsam from Asia reaches Washington's beaches all the time. But sometimes other stuff comes ashore, like people.
The Seahawks and Mariners called it home for 24 years, but now much of the city doesn’t even know the stadium existed. December 18, 2020
Harry Tracy terrorized the state from one end to the other, even as newspaper readers couldn't get enough of his criminal adventures.
Fifty years ago, Seattle was in the middle of a major economic crisis, the "Boeing Recession." Despite setbacks, the city made major progress in shaping the city we know today. We've faced tough times before the current pandemic and economic downturn and each time, the people of the Pacific Northwest have risen above the challenges.
The smash hit 1930s film was the first Hollywood movie to feature the Emerald City.
The discovery of 14,000-year-old bones on Orcas Island means humans were BBQing a lot earlier than previously thought.
Prohibition couldn’t stop every drinking habit. One particular Japanese tradition never went dry.
Hollywood’s greatest Western stuntman was a rodeo champion from Washington state.
Fifty years after Cooper skyjacked an airplane over Washington state, attitudes toward the incident have changed.
There are said to be things stranger than Bigfoot that lurk in the Northwest. From Puget Sound to Vancouver Island, meet our region’s answers to the Loch Ness monster.
The giant logger Paul Bunyan with his blue ox Babe are the stuff of American folktales. But really, who — or what — was Paul Bunyan?
A succulent topped with Dungeness crab became popular before the 1920s. Hotel and restaurant chefs up and down the West Coast claimed its invention. But some of the stories don't add up.
The 2022 Mossback Special revisits the iconic and determined people of our history, the folks who did it when it “couldn't be done” — like the Smith family, who built the Smith Tower, and Bertha Knight, our first female mayor. The Pacific Northwest has always been a home for pranksters, misfits and people who made their own special mark on history
Photographer Edward Curtis became famous for his portraits of Indigenous peoples, but his younger brother Asahel also made indelible images that have literally shaped how we see the Pacific Northwest, from old growth forests to urban industry. Asahel's career started with documenting the Klondike gold rush, and spent the next forty years recording the rise of the industrial Pacific Northwest. Curtis' life began when the Northwest experienced the first in many industrial and technical expansions up to WWII, and he recorded nearly all of it.
From Lassie to Lewis and Clark, local dogs have made their mark.
A Victorian home in Seattle recently became a landmark due to the story it tells about a Black family’s quest for equality and respect and why their most treasured heirloom is a clock given by Jefferson Davis. The Cayton-Revels were newspaper publishers, influential in state politics and civic life, until they confronted a wave of racism in the early 1900s.
A mad scheme to bring the "Mercer girls," marriageable young women, to Puget Sound’s frontier was the basis for a 1960s TV series, "Here Come the Brides." But it wasn’t all calico and fun.
The legendary lumberjack has been central to American identity. But who does he really represent?
No one really knows who made the first Crab Louis, but some sleuthing reveals an origin spurred by the Gold Rush and railroads.
From Lewis and Clark’s trusted companion to a lifesaving sled dog, these canines have been honored with statues, taxidermy and legend.
The Seattle landmark is best known for its connection to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II — but it has more stories to tell.
The 1900s saw Seattle play an important role in one of history’s greatest explorations.
Paul Robeson found his voice for justice at Blaine's Peace Arch
Was Seattle too tough for Wyatt Earp? When he opened a Seattle casino, trouble followed.
Chief Joseph comes to Seattle to plea for the return of his lands.
Meet the painter from British Columbia who evoked the 'liveness' of the Pacific Northwest's forests.
Why Britain and the U.S. nearly went to war over the border because of a dead pig.
Jazz Age Seattle produced amazing multi-racial musical legacy.
Hear from Mossback himself about what this new season has in store and get a behind the scenes peek at the making to the series. Join us for this virtual event.
In this 30-minute Mossback’s Northwest special, celebrate the stories and myths of our waterways. Nothing helps define the coastal Pacific Northwest more than the wet. From rainforests to the Salish Sea, the Pacific to Puget Sound, we take a tour of watery episodes in our history.
Mossback himself, Knute Berger, hosts a two-hour celebration of the The Very Best of Mossback’s Northwest. Join Knute and series producer Stephen Hegg as they look back at some of the most memorable episodes from the first six seasons of the show. And get a sneak preview of the fun stories coming soon in Season 7!
In 1933, the government transformed the Northwest, from cheap power to rugged trails.
In 1931, a baby whale swam up the Columbia and wound up buried on a Washington mountain. Sound like Northwest lore? Well, it's true.
Why was a Confederate flag flying over downtown Seattle?
The remains of felled trees could be a nuisance — or a dream home.
How Hollywood filmed the Emerald City.
In the early 1900s, two men decided to go back-to-nature and become 'Nature Man.'
Seattle’s iconic candy once drew fans and crowds, and people still want to talk about it.
An eccentric railroad millionaire was inspired to build the mysterious monument over 100 years ago.
Mossback's Northwest explores our region's wild past in new special, Northwest Wild Times. Many people consider the Northwest a natural refuge, a place we can escape to enjoy recreation and inspiration in the wilds. Yet while we love the outdoors, the wilds have their own history. Let’s explore the forgotten landscapes, prehistoric animals, and the passionate admirers of the Northwest’s wild past.
The first flight around the world took off and landed in Seattle.
Grizzly bears once roamed the Cascades, Where are they now?
The urban P-Patch grew from a single Seattle farm.
How racism caused the exodus of Black Americans to Vancouver Island
A Bellingham teacher inspired a Pacific Crest quest.
On the eve of WWI, spies and saboteurs prowled the Northwest.
An extraordinary NW photo archive proves to be a visual trove.
The worst Cascade eruption created an indelible mark across the Northwest.
How a double whammy of catastrophes had a profound impact on the Pacific Northwest. It’s hard to imagine, but in 1910, two separate avalanches days apart swept all before them and still stand as the most fatal ever in the U.S. and Canada.
During WWII, a Hollywood set designer used his skills to fool the enemy. Did it work? John Detlie, a major Hollywood studio set designer, was called up to Seattle to camouflage the factory where B-17 Flying Fortresses were built, aircraft key to the war effort. The challenge: render a major facility with 30,000 workers invisible.
For millennia, clam culture has infused our region with mythology, humor and flavor. Clams were eaten and traded in vast numbers by Indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest. One First Nations people traced the origin of humanity to a clamshell opened by a raven. Settlers too discovered how essential clams were and even sang about them as the key to contentment.
The frontier Barnum, Buffalo Bill Cody, started a trend with Wild West shows – and Seattle was an eager audience. Audiences for Wild West shows were steeped in the mythology of the old West, but performers were presented as “authentic” cowboys, Native people, soldiers and others reenacting a pageant of Manifest Destiny.
We look back at an Olympic park stunt – one that proved to be key in the region’s environmental movement – and how a film of that event has surfaced to help us relook at it. The hike in 1958 was held to protest the proposed construction of a highway on the northern Olympic Peninsula coast. The “protest” hike highlighted the beauty of the coast’s pristine nature.
Minoru Yamasaki sought to uplift humanity with his work in Seattle and on New York’s World Trade Center. Born in Japantown on Yesler Way, he faced prejudice and hardship. He attended the University of Washington’s architecture school and found success, building Seattle’s Pacific Science Center, the downtown Rainier Square complex and the IBM building.
How wood helped fight two wars, and the timber women who also answered the call. WWI transformed the Northwest timber industry as the U.S. military took charge to ensure the supply of Sitka spruce for building airplanes to fight the Red Baron. Women were tapped to work in the woods during both world wars, the so-called “Lumberjills,” and spruce again was drafted to help fight the Nazis.
Back at the turn of the century, a Seattle educator set out to teach that birdwatching made good citizens. Adelaide Lowry Pollock was a pioneering educator who moved from one-room schools to modern ones in the early 20th century and made learning about birds a part of the grade school curriculum at her Queen Anne school. She also wrote two books about local birds.
Long before the Grand Coulee Dam changed the Columbia River, lava, glaciers and epic floods radically reshaped its course. Geology professor Nick Zentner of Nick on the Rocks joins Mossback’s Northwest host Knute Berger to discuss a surprising phenomenon that altered the river ahead of the dam-builders.
In the early 20th century, a new breed of pioneers pushed into the Northwest wilderness with a newfangled invention: the automobile. One of those was the man who launched the Klondike gold rush, a millionaire named George Carmack.
The discovery of bones in the Columbia offered proof of the river’s ancient connections to Indigenous people, trade, and the movement of people. People thrived with salmon, declined with disease and the river was a gateway to colonization from settlers and emigrants. It has been a true lifeline for millennia.
Racism in the early outdoors movement — and among early 20th-century progressives — left a long-lasting imprint on Northwest wilderness recreation. Out & Back host Alison Mariella Désir and Mossback’s Northwest host Knute Berger look at the legacy of that phenomenon in light of new information after the airing of an episode that added to the story of an outdoor advocate.