Tag: Bertha Landes

When I started my job with the City of Seattle, I attended a day-long orientation. This event probably could have been reduced to about a half a day except they peppered it with “ice-breakers”. You know what I’m talking about. Those awkward little group participation  projects that you’re forced to do with the total strangers around you that most of us hate and view as a massive waste of time, but trainers feel are highly effective.

During one of these we had to split off into groups of four and work together on a quiz about Seattle. As much of a time-waster as it was, it did pique my interest about this city. Seattle is definitely in a class by itself. So here are things I learned about Seattle from that quiz, as well as from the websites Seattle Living and Nileguide.com.

• The Seattle Department of Transportation owns and maintains 40,000 trees.
• Seattle is the most literate city in the country, and its library system has the highest percentage of library card-holders per capita. It also has the highest percentage of residents with a college degree or higher, and the highest number of book stores per capita.
• Seattle is the only city in the United States that owns its own watershed. (And the water tastes GREAT here!)
• The only place in the world that has more glassblowing studios than Seattle is Murano, an island near Venice, Italy.
• Bertha Knight Landes was the City’s first woman mayor back in 1926. That would be strong evidence of how enlightened this city is. Unfortunately, it hasn’t had a woman mayor since then.
• When you think of Seattle, you think of rain. But it actually has less annual rainfall than Houston, Chicago or New York City. The difference here is it’s light and pretty much continual for much of the year, whereas the three other cities mentioned tend to get it out of the way in downpours and then let you go on about your sunny business.
• Seattle was the first American city to play a Beatles song on the radio.
• The city’s first official ordinance was for the prevention of drunkenness.
• City Light achieved carbon neutral status, in other words, zero net greenhouse gas emissions, in 2005. Pretty impressive, considering that the world’s first gas station was opened here.
• Seattle has 6,189 acres of parks and open areas. That’s 11.52% of the city.

Overall, this is a pretty fascinating place. I can’t wait to get out there and learn more about it!

Seattle from space.

[Image credit: Pinterest.com]