A brief history of Washington’s economy.
As the 42nd state in the Union, Washington State missed the first Industrial Revolution and came close to missing the second one. Without an intercontinental railroad, modern conveniences had to be shipped in, which meant a dangerous and uncertain transit around Cape Horn for virtually everything one needed in life.
Once the final mile of the railroad was completed in 1873, progress came with it. Being late to the party actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. As communities on the Eastern Seaboard struggled to accommodate the endless inventions coming their way – electricity, skyscrapers and the “horseless carriage” – to name a few, Washington cities were able to build them into their plans from the start.
The vast natural resources – primarily timber and coal – gave the state’s economy a boost virtually overnight. The Alaska Gold Rush added further fuel to the economic fire as gold fever swept down from the Yukon and into the increasingly crowded cities along the West Coast that supplied the miners. Seattle’s population grew exponentially between 1890 and 1910, from 3,533 residents in 1890 to 237,194 in 1910, a remarkable 6,600% increase. Small wonder one reporter at the time remarked, “Three years seem like a century in these days of fast living.”
Rapid growth did not come without a price, however. As lumberjacks, mill workers and miners tried to keep up with demand, workplace safety became a heated issue. In response, workers formed the first unions that guaranteed workers an eight-hour workday and worker’s compensation for job-related injuries.
A unique spirit of independence.
It was during this period that Washington’s unique spirit of independence evolved. Given that shipments of goods from the eastern seaboard were at the mercy of fickle winds and unforgiving seas, the uncertainty and inconvenience of daily life were not for everyone. It took grit and perseverance to turn adversity into opportunity and opportunity into progress.
The separation of cultures and ethnicities that was common in other parts of the U.S. was less common in Washington towns. The rough and tumble existence of life in these parts required residents to depend on one another to survive. The common ground became the work to be done, not where you came from.
Men, women and children came from all walks of life to seek adventure and prosperity in the state. In the small coal town of Roslyn, with just 700 residents, 24 nationalities were represented in its one-room schoolhouse.
As with other parts of the country, Washington’s fortunes rose and fell with the nation’s economy. During World War I, the state’s shipyards produced a quarter of all ships built during the war. When the Great Depression hit, residents stood in soup lines and lived in shantytowns. Oil replaced coal, closing many of the mines. Lumber continued to provide some stability, but it took a Second World War to bring the region back to life.
During World War II, thousands of workers moved to Washington to build bombers, tanks and other weapons of war. At one point, Boeing’s Seattle plant turned out five B-17 bombers a day as everyone pitched in to win the war.
In the Cascades, loggers felled giant, old-growth fir trees to mill into lumber for airplanes, ships and barracks. In Eastern Washington, workers developed the plutonium used for the Manhattan Project in complete secrecy, transforming the sleepy farm communities of Kennewick, Pasco and Richland – the Tri-Cities – into major population centers almost overnight.
About Washington
Post-war Washington.
After WW II ended, Washington’s economy managed to shift from wartime production to peacetime. Where the economies of Idaho and Oregon were tied to harvesting natural resources – which weren’t needed in such great quantities after the war – Washington’s economy benefitted from Cold War military contracts for new generations of aircraft and ships and the growing importance of strategically placed military bases.
Boeing led the way in this regard, so much so that one economist remarked, “As goes Boeing, so does the Puget Sound region.”
Even with Boeing as the region’s largest employer, Washington State hardly made a blip on the national scene. When someone mentioned Washington, the nation’s capital, not the state, most often came to mind.
It wasn’t until civic planners secured a world’s fair in 1962 that the world began to take notice. Dozens of countries came to Seattle to exhibit at the Century 21 Exposition. The fair attracted not only an international audience but also lots of media attention. The fair’s iconic Space Needle appeared in thousands of newspapers and on the covers of dozens of magazines around the globe. Even Elvis Presley stopped by to make a movie, It Happened at the World’s Fair. (the kid kicking Elvis is Kurt Russell, by the way).
From boom to bust.
The glory days were not to last forever. In the 1970s, the U.S. government canceled its ambitious supersonic commercial jet project, and the layoffs at Boeing followed soon after. With one out of five jobs tied to the aerospace giant, the economy tanked. Famously, one waggish resident purchased a billboard near the international airport that said, “Will the last person leaving SEATTLE – turn out the lights.”
It was a hard lesson to learn indeed, leaning too heavily on a single economic engine. In the intervening years, the state became more diligent in its quest to create a more diversified economy founded on emerging technology sectors. Thanks to the aerospace industry, Washington had a higher percentage of engineers and technology workers than other states, who explored new ideas and created new enterprises. This included bold startups in the nascent information and communication technology industry, such as McCaw Cellular, Aldus and Microsoft.
In Eastern Washington, traditional crops such as apples and cherries began to share the fertile land with grapes and hops. Sales of wine and beer made with premium Washington ingredients began to take off, as did new food manufacturing enterprises. Inexpensive power and plenty of water also gave rise to a new type of farm in Eastern Washington – the data farm – in communities that once relied solely on agriculture and tourism for economic growth.
A new direction.
Indeed, Washington continues to reinvent itself on multiple fronts as a modern economy based on innovation and creativity. Thanks to efforts to expand broadband connectivity statewide, rural communities are beginning to become havens for technology-based startups, from gaming and mobile apps to big data. Urban cores in major cities are enjoying a renaissance, attracting younger workers and families who enjoy the convenience of living and working in energetic downtowns.
Local business legends such as Amazon, Costco, Paccar, Nordstrom and Starbucks are being joined by other companies that want to leverage Washington’s entrepreneurial spirit and reputation for groundbreaking ideas, including Facebook, SpaceX, Twitter, Google and Apple.
As a result, exciting new opportunities are arriving on multiple fronts. Commercial space, electric propulsion, medical devices, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and robotics are creating new jobs and industries around the state, built with the same resilience and perseverance that has gained Washington its international reputation for innovation and invention.
A global pandemic that challenged economies around the world confirmed what state leaders knew all along: that diversification was the key to building a sustainable, robust economy in Washington.
Even as certain sectors experienced downturns – tourism and aerospace among them – the state’s life science, agriculture and technology sectors continued to grow and mature, creating a pathway to rapid recovery and long-term prosperity as a vaccine found its way to market. As the world continues to emerge from the effects of COVID-19, Washington is poised to enter a new age of prosperity and economic growth.
To that end, Washington’s industries continue to lead the way in innovation, blazing new trails in sustainable fuels, electrified aircraft and marine vessels, uncrewed and autonomous systems, space exploration, 5G, quantum computing, gene therapies, clean energy and more.
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