CONVENIENCES

Maybe it’s our geographic isolation, in the northwest corner of the U.S., or maybe we just don’t like walking in the rain, but Seattle has been a hub of delivery service innovations—which perhaps has contributed to a consumer trait we seem to have brought to the world: universal impatience with anything taking more than 24 hours to arrive.

UPS (1907): Founded by two Seattle teenagers as the American Messenger Company, the service took off quickly, merged and moved as it became United Parcel Service.

Amazon (1994): The biggest online retailer in the world, it revolutionized the shopping-from-home industry, starting with the selling of books and continuing to innovate by offering ever-faster delivery options, including same-day.

Homegrocer.com (1997): The first Internet-based grocery delivery service, it boomed in several cities before succumbing to the dot-com bust of the early 2000s. Amazon Fresh and others now deliver in its footsteps.

Signature Moves

We might not have invented them, but we sure are famous for…

Nordstrom customer service (1901): There are books devoted to it and tales (which have perhaps become a little tall) reporting extraordinary acts of it. Nordstrom’s customer service has been so famously good since its foundation as a shoe shop back in the day that the company had to tighten its return policy in recent years, as customers were taking advantage of it by returning items that weren’t even sold there.

Teriyaki: NYC bagels, Chicago deep-dish pizza, Kansas City barbecue, Seattle…teriyaki? Indeed, this town has such a fondness for the Japanese-derived dish that it drew the attention of The New York Times a few years ago. Seattle’s versions of teriyaki are definitely not traditional—you’ll find everything from a Somali take to Thai and Vietnamese variations—but they’re ours. Sadly, however, this cheap and comforting food may be slowly fading from our food scene—along with affordable rent for small businesses.

But we think we invented…

12th Man: Seattle has celebrated “the 12th Man,” aka Seattle Seahawks fans, since as far back as 1984, when the Seahawks retired the number 12 jersey. It wasn’t until the team became Super Bowl contenders that our 12s saw the light, however. While we are among the loudest 12s, we’re not the only—or the first—12s, as institutions such as Texas A&M University have been quick to remind us.

CULTURE



Blame I Can Has Cheezburger? for the LOL cat obsession

I Can Has Cheezburger? (2007): Thank and blame Seattle—and Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami—for taking cute animal pics to the next level, pairing them with funny captions, particularly LOLspeak (e.g., “I can has cheezburger?”). What started as a website became a monetized company, Cheezburger, which now has multiple, similarly addictive websites.

SPECIALIZED AUTOMATION

When delivery isn’t an option, efficiency is still the name of the game, and making machines work for us has certainly been the M.O. for at least a couple of these household-name innovations.

Coinstar (1991): This Bellevue-founded and -based company (now known as Outerwall) made it possible to turn change into cash at your nearest grocery store, no banks or rolling of coins necessary.

Automatic car washes (1951): Even locals may not know that Elephant Car Wash’s iconic pink elephant represents the first automatic car wash in the U.S. The business was the brainchild of the Anderson family, which figured out how to make its Seattle semiautomatic car wash business a fully automatized experience. Other car washes soon followed suit.

PLAY TIME

Gaming is big here—really big. Nintendo of America is based on the Eastside, as is, of course, Microsoft, which developed the Xbox (2001). So many games have been developed here, particularly for computers, that we present just a sampling of some of the most influential.

Pictionary (1985): Robert Angel conceived of the drawing game in Spokane and brought it to market with two other business partners in Seattle.

Wizards of the Coast (1990): The Renton-based gaming company found success with wildly popular fantasy and anime trading-card-based games, including Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon.

Valve (1996): This Bellevue-based video-gaming corporation is the creator of popular online gaming platform Steam and various video games, such as the Half-Life series.

Cranium (1998): This game, which has players use both their creativity and knowledge, was created by former Microsofties Richard Tait and Whit Alexander.

PopCap Games (2000): You know the company for games such as Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies.

Big Fish (2002): The Seattle-based computer and mobile device game creator puts out a mind-numbing number of casual games, from Gummy Drop! to Mahjong to Casino, to soothe your procrastinating soul.

Halo (2001): No game list is complete without a shout-out to this extremely successful first-person shooter game, created by Microsoft acquisition (at the time) Bungie Software.

On the low-tech side of things, the wildly sought-after toys Slinky Dog and Fisher-Price Snap-Lock beads (early 1950s) were the creation of Helen Malsed, a creative homemaker who enjoyed trying out a variety of toy creations on her son in their Magnolia home.



Image by: Petmate

The Seattle-based Chuckit! lets you toss a ball with your dog, slobber-free

Chuckit (1998): Dog owners everywhere have Seattleites Mark Oblack and Mariel Head to thank for saving our ball-throwing arms with this flexible piece of plastic that grabs those slobbered-on balls and flings them far, far away.

MEDICAL INNOVATIONS

Defibrillators (1962): Portable defibrillators enable first responders to work on a stopped heart before a patient arrives at the hospital. Karl William Edmark, M.D., created the device, using direct current, which made it safer and more effective than ever before.

Scribner shunt (1960): Belding Scribner, at the University of Washington, eased the stress and damage on the veins of kidney patients by inventing a device that enabled patients to connect to a kidney dialysis machine without requiring new incisions into their veins each time. Shortly after, Scribner and his team asked colleague Dr. Albert Babb to design a portable kidney dialysis machine (1964); he did, and the machine allowed patients to receive dialysis treatment at home, rather than at hospitals only. Scribner also helped form Northwest Kidney Center, the world’s first outpatient dialysis treatment center.

Doppler ultrasound (1967): The technology, developed by Donald Baker at the University of Washington, changed ultrasound imaging forever, creating clearer images when used with ultrasound devices.

Bone marrow transplant (1963): E. Donnall Thomas, M.D., developed this transplantation process, which is primarily used to treat diseases such as lymphoma, multiple myeloma and acute myelogenous leukemia, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, which became the world’s first bone marrow transplant facility. He won the Nobel Prize in 1990 for his work. His wife, Dottie, was credited as “the mother of bone marrow transplantation” because of her hands-on help with lab work, drawing blood and editing her husband’s scientific papers.

Firsts: We're No. 1

First female mayor of a big U.S. City (1926)

Bertha Knight Landes remains the only female mayor of Seattle (and the namesake of our city’s—and the world’s—largest tunnel boring machine).

First $15 minimum wage (2014)

Seattle was the first big city in the United States to pass a $15 minimum wage into law; other cities and states followed suit soon after.

First Outdoor Shopping Mall (1950)

It almost seems quaint these days, but Northgate Mall was the first suburban shopping mall in the U.S. Designed by Seattle architect John Graham Jr., it was also the first mall to have public restrooms.

First Flying saucer sightings (1947)

Private pilot Kenneth Arnold reported the world’s first post-WWII flying saucer encounter while flying by Mount Rainier on the way to Yakima from Chehalis. He received nationwide news attention for his sighting.

Original naming rights (1853)

We’re the only city ever named for a then-living native person, Chief Seattle.

First Stanley Cup victory (1917)

The Seattle Metropolitans were the first American team to win the cup, shortly after the championships moved from being exclusively Canadian to including the U.S.

First Living Building (2015)

The Central District’s Bullitt Center is the first office building in the world to earn the Living Building certification, a benchmark of sustainability. Among the ways it earned the accolade: It produces 60 percent more energy than it uses, via solar panels.

First U.S. Organic Chocolate (2006)

Fremont chocolatier Theo Chocolate made and sold the first organic chocolate in the U.S.