author
Clarence Bagley
1843–1932
A Seattle pioneer turned historian, he preserved the stories of early Washington with a reporter’s eye for detail and a deep personal connection to the people he wrote about. His big, ambitious local histories still matter because they capture the texture of a region as it was being built.
1 Audiobook
The Waterways of the Pacific Northwest
by Clarence Bagley
About the author
Born in Illinois in 1843, Clarence Booth Bagley came west with his family first to Oregon and then to Seattle in 1860, when the town was still very young. That early arrival gave him a firsthand view of pioneer life in the Pacific Northwest, and it shaped the work he would later become known for.
Over the years he worked as a journalist, publisher, public official, and collector of regional history. He is best remembered for major historical works including History of Seattle from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time and History of King County, Washington, books that drew on careful research as well as his own long familiarity with the region and its people.
Bagley died in 1932, but his writing remains valuable for readers interested in the early history of Seattle and Washington State. Even when modern historians revisit or refine the story, his books still stand as rich records of local memory, personalities, and everyday detail.