And where were you on September 15, 1983, if you were living anywhere near 4401-4th Ave So, in Seattle? Were you among the crowds on that historic opening day of the new Costco wholesale store?

The Costco Connection, July 2026, told the story titled “Golden Anniversary.” The concept of a warehouse club began in San Diego in 1954 with FedMart. In 1976, the first Price Club warehouse opened in San Diego. Partners Brotman and Sinegal pioneered a new warehouse club company in Seattle and called it Costco. By 1983, Costco and Price Club had merged and in 1997 the company became simply, Costco. Our own Evergreen State became the birthplace of the company’s iconic no-frills, membership-based warehouse model with headquarters in Issaquah, Washington. 

The partners were ambitious visionaries. In direct competition from other retail competitors, Costco in 1987 opened their Optical, Bakery, Produce and Meat departments. The famous “hot dog and soda” combo debuted in 1985 and still is only $1.50. 

There are now 35 Costco warehouse stores in Washington. And surely more will come. And there are 650+ stores spread all across America………….Maui or Fairbanks, Costco is the same! (Except for snow.)

Costco customers in 1983 in that first store in Seattle could choose from a nice selection of corded telephones. 

Did you know that Washington State has ties to the Father of our country, George Washington?? Read on…………..

The Columbia Basin Herald, issue 12 Aug 2026, told the story:  “Tucked away in a quiet neighborhood (in Ephrata, Grant County), pushed up against the Beezley Hills, guarded by a white picket fence is a piece of Americana with ties that go all the way back to the founding of this country.” 

“Historic documents traced the footsteps of Bushrod Corbin Washington (1839-1909) and his family’s trek west from West Virginia. Bushrod was the great-great-great-grandson of George Washington’s brother John. History would tie two great families together on the new frontier. Bushrod’s wife Emma Edwards Willis was the great-great-great-granddaughter of James Madison, the father of the fourth president of the United States and called the Father of the Constitution by some.”

Artifacts belonging to President George Washington and his descendants, the first Washington family to move to the Evergreen state, proudly line the walls for all to enjoy in this home, now placed on the Washington State Historical Registry.

Built in 1909, by his grandfather and father, where Nathaniel “Nat” Washington, Jr., who was a Washington state legislator for 30 years ,lived. Today the home is a historic tourist destination and a small hotel run by the current owner. 

Maybe plan a visit to Ephrata? Besides its natural hot springs, its history as a World War II training base and nearby access to Grand Coulee Dam, add a visit to the Nat Washington house………… come learn about Washington’s connection to Washington.

“The Hood Canal waters journey from China, from San Francisco and from Alaska, past Victoria and down the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Leaving Puget Sound with a hard right, as if the water had a mind of its own, it cannels below the snow-capped Olympic Mountains for 45 miles until it eddies into Annas Bay….. when it elbows east it seems to hook into a separate ecosystem, not only of geography but also of mind; it becomes a source for creamers, drifters and vagabonds. It creates a vacationland of warm days and inspiring scenery and its shores attracted four of America’s great fortunes: California gold, Alaska gold, Washington timber and Seattle’s Microsoft…”

So begins the Images of America book on Hood Canal. This delightful read has fully four pages of the history of Hood Canal. I quote from this book……………..

Named after the Right Honorable Lord Samuel Hood, member of the British Board of Admiralty, by Capt. George Vancouver in 1792 who called it the “mouth of the loveliest river.” The first building on Hood Canal was a blockhouse at Union (which has an interesting history itself). In 1851, loggers arrived; Pope and Talbot built a mill at Port Gamble. The treaty of Point No Point in 1855 scattered the local tribes. By the 1860s, tug boats were hauling logs up the Canal to Port Gamble. Lake Cushman sprouted a new dream for the area: tourism, which continues to this day. In the late 1930s, the CCC corps constructed many improvements around the Canal.

“The Hood Canal is a jewel of mountain scenery and beautiful water and it has been loved….first by native peoples, then by loggers, then artists and the wealthy and now by all the rest of us.”