HistoryLink Turns 25
January 14, 2024 at 4:10 p.m.
HistoryLink, the free online encyclopedia of Washington state history, turns 25!
Below is an article from their recent newsletter, attributed to Jennifer Ott, Alan Stein, and the HistoryLink Gang. It recounts the esteemed organization's beginnings and changes over the years...
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In this update
HistoryLink Turns 25!
This week we at HistoryLink celebrate our 25th birthday with a look back at our own history. This website debuted on January 15, 1999, at the Seattle Center's Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration, where curious passersby marveled at this new online resource. At the time, HistoryLink's databases contained 300 or so essays pertaining to Seattle and King County history, all written expressly for the Internet. Twenty-five years later, we now offer close to 8,300 articles relating to Washington state history, and that number grows weekly.
Marie McCaffrey, Paul Dorpat, and Walt Crowley, University Book Store, Seattle, April 2006 Photo by David Jensen, photo courtesy HistoryLink.org
Traffic grew quickly following the launch, but an historic event later that year pushed our servers to the limit. In preparation for the upcoming WTO conference, we placed a webcam in the window of our office – then at the Joshua Green building – overlooking Westlake Center. As chance would have it, protests and police action unfolded right in front of our "WTO-CAM". At one point, when news cameras were pushed back beyond the line of sight, we were the only live feed coming out of downtown. The world watched history happen through the eyes of HistoryLink.
WTO protests, 4th Avenue and Pike Street, Seattle, November 30, 1999 Web camera photo, Courtesy HistoryLink
Once the dust settled, people who discovered HistoryLink found a reason to keep coming back as new essays were being added weekly, covering many aspects of local history from yesterday to years gone past. Educators and students were using the site to a great degree, so much so that our traffic used to drop every summer and climb steeply again in the fall. HistoryLink.org was proving so successful as a record of Seattle and King County history that in 2003 we expanded our reach and began documenting the history of the entire state.
And while the internet has evolved greatly over the past two decades, so has HistoryLink. HistoryLink was designed at a time before mobile devices became popular, and in 2016, we redesigned the site so that it could be better viewed on smartphones and tablets, as can our HistoryLink Tours – self-guided walking tours of Washington neighborhoods. We've also expanded into using social media – another phrase you didn’t hear much about in 1999 – and you can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
We're very proud of this website and the vast amount of content we continue to provide. But as HistoryLink celebrates its first 25 years online, we raise our glass to you, our readers. Without your support, your visits, your feedback, and most important your satisfaction, none of this would be possible. We're glad you've enjoyed the past quarter-century of HistoryLink.org as much as we have, and we look forward to the next 25 years and beyond.
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Thank you, HistoryLink!
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