Skid Road: An Informal Portrait of Seattle (Signed!) [MM0054]

1971 signed MMPB revised Comstock edition of the 1951 original, with wear including a 3/4-inch cover tear (see photo). 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, and the 1919 general strike, and the tumultuous politics of city and state that have made history in the Northwest. 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. "No one who has ever written Pacific Northwest history can match Murray Morgan's craftmanship, the signal virtues of which are pace, precision, humor, and a keen eye for the characterizing detail." -Norman Clark, Pacific Northwest Quarterly. "Mr. Morgan's book is the sort of corrective history that all communities should welcome." -Stewart Holbrook, New York Herald Tribune.

From Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "An imaginative way of sharing a narrative history of a city. Each chapter tells a different period in the growth of Seattle through the biography of someone in the period. After reading it's no wonder how this book is still recommended reading for Seattle history 75 years after publication."; "Really cool to notice names in this book that are prominent in present day Seattle: street names, park names, etc. kept popping up that I recognized. Would recommended to any of my Seattle transplant friends"; "Interesting read on Seattle history. Follows the different troublemakers that took Seattle from a pioneer town to a major metropolis. Crazy anecdotes and some humor, learned a lot about the history of the city."; "A concise and insightful local history of the first 100 years of Seattle, with some touches of magic."

"One of my favorite history books to read for fun. Seattle is a microcosm of the political history of the United States in the 20th century. With wild swings between anarchy, socialism, and conservatism, and emphases on spectacle, deception, and opportunism, the city is practically a petri dish of the forces that dominate public life today. Morgan engages with this history in a brilliantly entertaining and accessible fashion."