NORTHWEST GATEWAY

Perhaps this is a book primarily for the West Coast market, but I found it first rate reading, good Americana, good adventure, good bits of biography, told with zest and a spirit of discovery. The story centers wholly around the city of Seattle; it is not another Middletown, nor yet a Five Cities approach -- it is primarily historical and biographical, with the emphasis on the years of building, from the first settler, a youth who was left to start building the settlement, and who injured himself with an ax and watched some skunks play havoc with his food supply, while he was helpless -- down through the gold rush boom. A dramatic story, abounding in anecdotes which are significant of the frontiers, and touching a wider range of interest than simply the Chamber of Commerce market!