Saturday, July 31, 2010

How Seattle became the Emerald City

One of the great new traditions that has started in recent years at the Winkie Convention is an elaborate program book. It not only contains essential information about the convention itself, but also background and insight into the weekend's programming. I have (finally) just started reading this year's book, and it sparked me to write today's entry. This year's convention celebrated the centennial of The Emerald City of Oz, and I offered to write an essay for it. Sadly, time and priorities ran away from me, and I wasn't able to complete my task. It would have been about how Seattle got the nickname "The Emerald City" and what that has meant. To make up for my lack of an essay, I sent David Maxine, the editor of the program book, a link to an essay about it from a Washington state history website. For whatever reason, he didn't include it in the book. So I thought, "Hey, I can direct people to it through my blog!" And so, here it is, the story of how Seattle became the Emerald City.

1 comment:

David Maxine said...

Uh-oh! Shame on Editor of the Program Book!

Alas I was spread a bit too thin to track down permissions from the site - and somehow wasn't making the connection between Seattle's nickname and this years Winkie theme. I blame it on overwork, too many commitments, and the usual last minute stress.

But thanks for the praise :)