50 Fun Facts About Pacific Northwest

The 1859 US–British standoff on San Juan Island, Washington, began with the shooting of which animal?

A pig was the only casualty of the so-called Pig War. The dispute dragged on until arbitration under German Emperor Wilhelm I settled who owned the islands.

Which city would Portland, Oregon, be named after had its founders' 1845 coin toss gone the other way?

Boston was the hometown of co-founder Asa Lovejoy, who lost the best-of-three toss to Francis Pettygrove of Portland, Maine. The penny is now on display at the Oregon Historical Society.

Highway engineers in Florence, Oregon, used dynamite in 1970 to dispose of which beached animal?

A sperm whale 45 feet long had washed ashore. The engineer in charge said he was not sure how much dynamite the job needed, and got it because his supervisor had gone hunting.

Which legendary creature has been illegal to kill in Skamania County, Washington, since a 1969 ordinance?

Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, is protected by an ordinance Skamania County passed on April 1, 1969. The first version threatened a $10,000 fine and five years in jail, cut in 1984 to $1,000 and one year.

Which annual holiday was first celebrated in Spokane, Washington, in 1910 at the urging of Sonora Smart Dodd?

Father's Day grew from Sonora Smart Dodd's wish to honor her own father, a Civil War veteran who raised six children as a single parent.

Which animated series took the names Flanders, Lovejoy and Quimby from streets in Portland, Oregon?

The Simpsons creator Matt Groening grew up in Portland and borrowed its street names for his characters. Kearney and Powell come from the same city map.

Which kitchen appliance did Oregon coach Bill Bowerman ruin while making a new Nike running-shoe sole?

A waffle iron belonging to Bowerman's wife gave him the grid pattern he wanted: a rubber sole that gripped yet stayed light. The shoe became the Waffle Trainer.

Which name is given to the hijacker who parachuted from a 1971 Portland–Seattle flight with $200,000?

D. B. Cooper bought his ticket as Dan Cooper; a reporter rushing to meet a deadline garbled the name. The hijacking is the only documented unsolved air piracy case in commercial aviation history.

Which Cascade Range volcano erupted on May 18, 1980, killing about 57 people in southwest Washington?

Mount St. Helens erupted after its north face slid away in the largest landslide in recorded history. Ash from the blast fell on 11 US states.

Which coffee chain, named for a character in Moby-Dick, opened its first shop in Seattle in 1971?

Starbucks took its name from the chief mate in Moby-Dick. It started out selling coffee beans, not drinks, and became an espresso-bar chain later under Howard Schultz.

Which Seattle landmark from the 1962 World's Fair was once the tallest building west of the Mississippi?

The Space Needle rises about 605 feet and took the western height record from a Kansas City office tower that had held it since 1931.

Which company's factory in Everett, Washington, is the largest building in the world by volume?

Boeing's Everett plant encloses about 472 million cubic feet, enough room to fit all of Disneyland inside. It was put up in the 1960s to assemble the 747.

Which body of water, home to Wizard Island, is the deepest in the United States at 1,949 feet?

Crater Lake fills the collapsed Oregon volcano Mount Mazama. No rivers flow in or out, so rain and snow alone keep it topped up.

Which grunge band was formed in 1987 by two former students of Aberdeen High School in Washington?

Nirvana began with Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic, who met at Aberdeen High. Their 1991 album Nevermind was later certified thirteen-times platinum in the US.

Which rock guitarist who headlined Woodstock in 1969 was born in Seattle and is buried in nearby Renton?

Jimi Hendrix was born Johnny Allen Hendrix in Seattle in 1942. A post office about a mile from his grave was renamed in his honor in 2019.

Which Olympic Peninsula town does Bella Swan move to from Phoenix in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight novels?

Forks got the part after Stephenie Meyer searched Google for rainy settings. The old timber town now draws fans of the books and films.

Which Idaho crop made J. R. Simplot a billionaire after he agreed in 1967 to supply it frozen to McDonald's?

Potatoes, sold as frozen french fries on a handshake deal with Ray Kroc, made Simplot the oldest billionaire on the Forbes 400 when he died at 99.

Where did the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics relocate in 2008 after failing to secure a new arena?

Oklahoma City renamed the franchise the Thunder. The Sonics, NBA champions in 1979, left after a $45 million settlement over the lease on their old home.

Which sitcom follows a psychiatrist who hosts a call-in radio show at Seattle station KACL?

Frasier was a spin-off of Cheers, sending Kelsey Grammer's psychiatrist back to his hometown to give advice on air.

Which daredevil tried to leap Idaho's Snake River Canyon in 1974 aboard a rocket called the Skycycle X-2?

Evel Knievel's jump failed when the parachute opened too early, just as the Skycycle left its launch rail. He came away with only minor injuries.

Which active volcano, also called Tahoma, is the highest mountain in the state of Washington?

Mount Rainier was named by explorer George Vancouver for a friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. It is also the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States.

Which city became capital of the Oregon Territory in 1851, taking the title from Oregon City?

Salem, founded in 1842, is still the state capital. It lies about 47 miles south of Portland, the far larger city many people guess.

Which Idaho state capital is home to a college football stadium famous for its blue artificial turf?

Boise State laid its blue field in 1986. The city's name is said to come from French trappers who called its tree-lined waterway the wooded river.

Which city on the southern tip of Vancouver Island is the capital of British Columbia?

Victoria, named for the British queen, has had British settlers since 1843. The much bigger city of Vancouver sits across the water on the mainland.

Which pair of explorers spent the winter of 1805–06 at Fort Clatsop, near the mouth of the Columbia River?

Lewis and Clark built the fort after their Corps of Discovery reached the Pacific. It was the expedition's last encampment before the long trip home to St. Louis.

Which software company, started in Albuquerque in 1975, moved to the Seattle suburb of Bellevue in 1979?

Microsoft was started by childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen. It moved again in 1986 to nearby Redmond, where its headquarters remain.

Which 1990 TV mystery series filmed its small-town exteriors around Snoqualmie and North Bend, Washington?

Twin Peaks creators David Lynch and Mark Frost began their location search in Snoqualmie on a friend's tip. Both towns now celebrate Twin Peaks Day every February 24.

Which martial arts star studied at the University of Washington and is buried in Seattle?

Bruce Lee moved to Seattle in 1959 and enrolled at the university two years later, studying drama and philosophy long before his films made him famous.

Which Washington span, nicknamed Galloping Gertie, twisted apart in a 1940 windstorm months after opening?

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge tore apart in 40 mph winds. Its only fatality was Tubby, a three-legged cocker spaniel left in a car on the deck.

Which orchard fruit does Washington grow more of than any other US state, well over half the national crop?

Apples from Washington are shipped to more than 60 countries, with about a third of the state's crop sold abroad each year.

Which nut does the United States grow almost entirely in Oregon, in the lowlands along the Willamette River?

Hazelnuts are also called filberts or cobnuts, depending on the species. Turkey grows more than half the world's supply, which leaves Oregon as the American specialist.

Which large burrowing clam, able to live well over a century, is the mascot of Washington's Evergreen State College?

Geoduck clams are the largest burrowing clams in the world, and the oldest on record reached 179 years. The college's mascot is named Speedy.

Which animal appears on the back of Oregon's flag, the only US state flag with two different sides?

A beaver, the state animal, fills the back, while the front carries the shield from the state seal. Two-sided flags faded elsewhere because they cost more to make.

Which inlet with Seattle on its shore was named in 1792 for one of George Vancouver's lieutenants?

Puget Sound honors Peter Puget, a Huguenot lieutenant who sailed with Vancouver. The captain claimed the waters for Great Britain that June.

Which gorge carved by the Snake River is the deepest river gorge in North America, at nearly 8,000 feet?

Hells Canyon runs along the border of Oregon and Idaho and drops 7,993 feet, which makes it deeper than the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Which two-tiered cascade in the Columbia River Gorge is Oregon's tallest waterfall at 620 feet?

Multnomah Falls drops 542 feet in its upper tier and 69 in its lower. Simon Benson developed the land around it, and a path and lodge followed in 1925.

Which West Coast landmark, opened in 1907, is known for fishmongers who throw customers' fish?

Pike Place Market in Seattle is among the country's older continuously run farmers' markets. The fish throwing began in the 1980s, when a stall near bankruptcy set out to become famous.

Which 1890s stampede north made Seattle a boomtown as the main supply point for prospectors?

The Klondike Gold Rush hit Seattle in July 1897, when the steamer Portland docked with returning miners and their haul. A local newspaperman's publicity drive then made the city the main outfitting stop.

Which 1963 hit by Portland band the Kingsmen drew a 31-month FBI investigation into its lyrics?

Louie Louie was written by Richard Berry in the 1950s. The FBI lab finally concluded that the Kingsmen's recording could not be interpreted, and nobody was prosecuted.

Which 1965 science-fiction novel grew from its author's trip to study shifting sands at Florence, Oregon?

Dune author Frank Herbert went to Florence to report on a federal effort to pin the drifting sand down with grasses. The article was never finished, but it sparked his interest in deserts and ecology.

Which element did Washington's Hanford Site produce for the Trinity test and the bomb dropped on Nagasaki?

Plutonium came from Hanford's B Reactor, the first full-scale reactor of its kind in the world. The site's existence was only made public in August 1945.

Which line of latitude did the 1846 Oregon Treaty set as the US–British border west of the Rocky Mountains?

The 49th parallel already split the two powers east of the Rockies under an 1818 treaty. The 1846 deal ended joint occupation after American expansionists had demanded land as far north as 54°40′.

Which name is shared by the largest Pacific salmon, a warm wind and a Pacific Northwest trade language?

Chinook derives from the Chinookan peoples. The fish is also sold as king salmon, and about 15 percent of the trade language's words came from French.

Which marine mammals form the J, K and L pods that live in the Salish Sea for much of the year?

Orcas of the southern resident community form a single clan of three pods. Because they keep to sheltered coastal waters, scientists can study them more easily than most cetaceans.

Which river on the Olympic Peninsula gives its name to the rainforest that holds the Hall of Mosses trail?

The Hoh Rainforest gets about 140 inches of precipitation a year, and its maples hang with heavy growths of spikemoss.

Which crab, a West Coast seafood favorite, shares its name with a sand spit on Washington's Olympic Peninsula?

Dungeness crabs share their name with the Dungeness Spit, the longest natural sand spit in the United States, which shelters a shallow bay where they live.

Which ski resort, built by the Union Pacific Railroad, installed the world's first chairlifts in 1936?

Sun Valley, Idaho, was the idea of railroad chairman Averell Harriman, who wanted a Swiss-style resort to fill his passenger trains. Ernest Hemingway worked on For Whom the Bell Tolls there in 1939.

Which Columbia River hydroelectric project is the largest power station in the United States by capacity?

Grand Coulee Dam owes its top spot to a third powerhouse added in the 1970s. The workers who built the original earned an average of 80 cents an hour.

Which tribe has lived for thousands of years around Neah Bay, at the Olympic Peninsula's northwestern tip?

The Makah carved whole trees into seagoing canoes, and their 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay kept their right to hunt at sea.

Which spotted horse breed, long bred by the Nez Perce, was named the state horse of Idaho in 1975?

Appaloosa grew out of Palouse horse, the settlers' name for the animals, probably after the river that ran through the heart of Nez Perce country.