THEN: A stunning photo captures the Oct. 23, 1979, crash of Miss Budweiser during its attempt to break the world water speed record. Driver Dean Chenoweth, ejected from the cockpit, was injured but survived. The hydroplane itself was destroyed. (Cary Tolman, Seattle P-I)NOW: David D. Williams, executive director of the Kent-based Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum, Thunderboats.Maestroweb.com, hoists a display print of the 1979 crash, standing beside Miss Budweiser’s virtually identical replacement boat, which has been fully restored by the museum on site. (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on July 31, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on August 3, 2025
What’s the big deal? A longtime Seattleite finally catches Hydro Fever
By Jean Sherrard
After two hours this spring at Stan Sayres Pits on Lake Washington, I finally flipped for the hydros. The impossibly sleek, brightly colored, vintage unlimited hydroplanes streaking across blue-gray waters on a cloudy morning sent my aging heart all a-flutter.
Miss Bardahl streaks across Lake Washington in front of the Mercer Island floating bridge. (Jean Sherrard)
When I grew up in Seattle, the hydros’ throaty roar left me underwhelmed. I never leashed a plywood model
The 1958 Miss Bardahl, nicknamed the “Green Dragon,” was the first boat built by acclaimed designer Ron Jones. (Courtesy Hydroplane and Race Boat Museum)
of Miss Bardahl to my Stingray and raced through puddles trying for a roostertail. Crossing the Lacey V. Murrow floating bridge during the Seafair races was the closest I got to the action.
David D. Williams, executive director of the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum in Kent, hooked and landed me during the museum’s spring testing event.
Lovingly restored Miss Bardahl and Miss Wahoo are displayed at Stan Sayres Pits during the Hydroplane Museum’s spring testing event. “The best way to explain their history,” Williams says, “is to watch these dynamic, beautiful machines in action.” (Jean Sherrard)
“Our mission is to honor, celebrate and preserve the legacy of hydroplane racing,” Williams says, and it’s only after seeing them “on the water bouncing around at 160 mph that you will truly understand how they captured the imagination of an entire city.”
With a lifelong passion for the sport and a breadth of knowledge of history, technology and the culture of speed, Williams is head torch carrier for a golden age of hydroplanes. “My childhood,” he says, “was a tent raised on two tent poles. There was Christmas and there was Seafair.”
The Notre Dame roars away from the pits.
After World War II, hydroplane racing scaled up exponentially, inspiring and transporting legions of fans. By 1955, Seattle’s population reached 457,000. That year, 500,000 people from across the state crowded the shores of Lake Washington to watch the races live.
In his seminal 2007 book, “Hydroplane Racing in Seattle,” Williams details what might be described as an inevitable arranged marriage. “We were the boating capital and the aviation capital of the country — and the best of both of those worlds coalesced into hydroplanes.”
Before Seafair and its “hydro fever,” there were only two games in town: Husky football and Pacific Coast League Seattle Rainiers baseball. Today’s deep civic pride in the city’s major sports franchises, Williams says, “was born and bred … when Seattle sports fans first found their collective voice cheering for the hometown’s Slo-Mo-Shuns.”
Today’s turbine-driven hydroplanes, while safer, quieter and faster, somehow sidestep the intimate if raucous sensory nostalgia — and admittedly lethal
Visitors tour the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum in Kent. “There’s no one else in the world,” Williams says, “doing what we do on this scale.” (Jean Sherrard)
danger — of an earlier age, documented by the Hydroplane Museum and its dedicated volunteers.
“These [older] boats were the heart and soul of our community for the better part of 40 years,” Williams says. “In noise and spectacle and goosebumps, they win hands down.”
Seeing and hearing the vintage boats do their thing in person goosed my own bumps. Who knew a rooster tail could make this boomer crow with joy?
WEB EXTRAS
To check out our narrated 360 degree video shot in the Stan Sayres Pits, speed on over here.
More photos from the pits — plus some other extras!
And a few from the Hydro Museum:
Several contributions from Seattle historian Peter Blecha:
A homemade hydro from 60-70 years ago from the collection of historian Peter Blecha. (Courtesy Peter Blecha)A homemade hydro from 60-70 years ago from the collection of historian Peter Blecha. (Courtesy Peter Blecha)A homemade hydro from 60-70 years ago from the collection of historian Peter Blecha. (Courtesy Peter Blecha)A homemade hydro from 60-70 years ago from the collection of historian Peter Blecha. (Courtesy Peter Blecha)
Several contributions from Dina Skeels, Seattle Times designer:
Aug. 4, 1962, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, showing Bill Benshoof, a Boeing electrical engineer, as part of the crew atop Miss Bardahl. (Courtesy Dina Skeels)In 1968, Kevin (left) and Doug Benshoof pose with an in-construction limited hydroplane built by their dad, Bill Benshoof, in the Lake Hills neighborhood of Bellevue. (Courtesy Dina Skeels)In 1968, Doug Benshoof poses inside an in-construction limited hydroplane built by their dad, Bill Benshoof, in the Lake Hills neighborhood of Bellevue. (Courtesy Dina Skeels)
(Above) A friend of Dina Skeels pilots the same hydro in a canal at Ocean Shores in 2021 before the boat was restored.
THEN: Hoisted by a Seafair Pirate in 1956 is Seafair Queen Dixie Jo Thompson. (Courtesy Dixie Jo Thompson Porter)NOW: Wearing her 1956-57 Seafair robe, Dixie Jo Thompson Porter poses at Mirabella Seattle retirement community with a display of photos from her year in the queen’s role as an 18- and 19-year-old. (Clay Eals)
Published in The Seattle Times online on July 24, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on July 27, 2025
Nearly 70 years later, Seafair queen
looks beyond ‘bubblehead’ image
By Clay Eals
THEN: Grace Kelly as she accepted the 1955 Academy Award for Best Actress for “The Country Girl.” (The Kobal Collection / Associated Press)
Seattleites could be forgiven in 1956 when they opened their newspapers and thought the new queen for the seventh year of the city’s Seafair celebration might be Grace Kelly.
While her resemblance to the previous year’s Oscar-winning best actress was uncanny, the regal honoree was 18-year-old Laurelhurst resident Dixie Jo Thompson.
NOW: Dixie Jo Thompson Porter stands with her daughter Kim Brillhart while modeling her 1956 Seafair gown following a June 10 “Resident Revelations” speech at Mirabella. (Clay Eals)
Today, when daughter Kim Brillhart says others likely compared her to the movie star, the nearly 88-year-old — who uses her married name, Porter — scoffs at references to her appearance. “Maybe I look more like Grace Kelly than their dog did,” Porter says. “Really, are you kidding me? Well, I was blonde and white-skinned.”
The animated resident of the Mirabella Seattle retirement community wields a tongue both thoughtful and tart, countering what she says could be seem as the “bubblehead” image for a festival queen. Her observations frequently turn to a cogent conclusion: “Seafair was something that happened to me rather than something that I chose to do.”
THEN: One of six chatty but feisty columns that Dixie Jo Thompson wrote for The Seattle Times soon after her crowning in August 1956. Here, she wrote that because of the difficult, exhausting job, all she wanted was “to sit down and have a good cry. But I couldn’t. I had to get dressed and go someplace else again. … You must do what the public wants you to do.” (Seattle Times online archive)
Her fate, she says, was dictated by her parents, who determined that the Utah native and only child attend the University of Washington and join the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, which, she says, “assigned” her to compete for Miss University District. Winning that title eventually led to her being named the city’s “Queen of the Seas.”
It was a time (and perhaps still is) when society’s view of women focused on looks. To a degree, Thompson confounded that. Her 3.4 freshman grade-point average triggered this Seattle Post-Intelligencer headline: “Beauty, Brains All In One Royal Package.” But the paper also thrice reported her body measurements, even in a headline. Said another P-I head: “She Dimples Her Way To City’s Heart.”
THEN: Waving from the Seattle City Light float in the Capitol Hill parade on Aug. 8, 1956, are (clockwise from upper left) Queen Dixie Jo Thompson, state Republican and Greater Seattle leader William Culliton as King, with saluting Rainier Brewery and chamber leader Alan Ferguson, “ladies in waiting” and a faux soldier. (Seattle Municipal Archives)
Even then, she saw herself as “part of a fake kingdom, like being in the theater,” and she played the part to full expectations. Her oft-reported quote was, “It’s like a fairy tale.” In this volunteer role, she donned a crown and gown to smile and preside at countless events. She also endured repeated waist clutches from countless older men whom she dutifully kissed on the cheek.
Gradually, she left the role behind. A YWCA leader starting at the UW in the 1950s, she married Tom Porter, raised three children and became a financial adviser.
NOW: Dixie Jo Thompson Porter consults with daughter Jaimee Mader prior to her June 10 “Resident Revelations” speech at Mirabella. (Clay Eals)
Last month, as requested by a Seafair fan at Mirabella, she delighted a crowd of 139 with her life story and details of Seafair’s evolution as part of a “Resident Revelations” series. She told of her “personal fear beyond belief” of the unrestrained Seafair Pirates. “Sorry, pirates,” she said, “you can trash me sometime.”
THEN: About to be smooched by celebrities Bing Crosby (left) and Phil Harris upon their arrival in Seattle on July 30, 1957, is reigning Seafair Queen Dixie Jo Thompson. (Courtesy Dixie Jo Thompson Porter)
She also said she tired of visits from celebrities like Bing Crosby and Phil Harris, who “pawed me like I was some kind of cat” during required photo ops that she thinks influenced later Seafair changes.
Indeed, titles and programs evolved at Seafair over the years. What started as Queen of the Seas (1950-71) became Miss Seafair (1972-2024) and was replaced this year by a Community Hero. From 1950 to 1999, a King and Prime Minister were selected, but in 2000 the King became King Neptune, the Prime Minister was dropped and Queen Alcyone was added.
She cheered this year’s Queen Alcyone selection of former Seattle police chief Carmen Best. And with a grin, she cracked that since her younger years, “I have lost 5 inches of height and 22 pounds of weight, so yeah, this is what you’ve got to deal with now.”
NOW: Dixie Jo Thompson Porter chats with well-wishers following her June 10 “Resident Revelations” speech at Mirabella. (Clay Eals)
WEB EXTRAS
Big thanks to Judy Waring, Kim Brillhart, and especially Dixie Jo Thompson Porter for invaluable help with this installment!
No 360-degree video this time, but below you will find video of Porter’s Mirabella talk, along with a transcript. You also will find 6 additional photos and, in chronological order, 68 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com, Washington Digital Newspapers and other sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.
Click the above image to see Dixie Jo Thompson Porter’s one-hour talk on June 10, 2025, at Mirabella. The sound is a little murky, so click here to open a transcript of her remarks and use it to follow along.
THEN: Surrounded by civic leaders including Harry Strong, president of the University Commercial Club, left of her, and Mike Mitchell, Seattle City Council member, right of her, Seafair Queen Dixie Jo Thompson snips a ceremonial ribbon on March 29, 1957, to open a newly widened East 45th Street Viaduct to University Village. (Seattle Municipal Archives)THEN: Protected by an umbrella wielded by Harry Strong, president of the University Commercial Club, Seafair Queen Dixie Jo Thompson prepares on March 29, 1957, to cut a ceremonial ribbon to open a newly widened East 45th Street Viaduct to University Village. (Seattle Municipal Archives)THEN: Waving from the Seattle City Light float in the Capitol Hill parade on Aug. 8, 1956, are (above from left) Queen Dixie Jo Thompson and state Republican and Greater Seattle leader William Culliton as King. (Seattle Municipal Archives)NOW: In an alternate view, wearing her 1956-57 Seafair robe, Dixie Jo Thompson Porter poses at Mirabella Seattle retirement community with a display of photos from her year in the queen’s role as an 18- and 19-year-old. (Clay Eals)NOW: By request, Dixie Jo Thompson Porter models her 1956 Seafair gown following her June 10 “Resident Revelations” speech at Mirabella. (Clay Eals)NOW: Dixie Jo Thompson Porter holds up a photo display documenting her ungowned August 1956 visit while Seafair queen to the Yakima Firing Range. “Maybe I was the Hound Dog,” she says. The visit led to meeting her husband, Tom Porter, aide to the deputy commanding general of Fort Lewis. Tom Porter died in 2021.
THEN1: An Anders Wilse 1898 portrait of Seattle’s bustling waterfront depicts where many merchants sold supplies to eager Alaska-bound stampeders. Out of more than 100,000 treasure hunters, 30-40,000 reached the Yukon interior, of which an estimated 4,000 found gold. Only a few hundred became rich. (Paul Dorpat collection)NOW1: John (left) and Steve Lundin, co-authors of “From Cheechakos to Sourdoughs,” stand near Pier 58, near soon-to-be-completed Waterfront Park. Originally the site of Schwabacher’s Wharf, here was where the S.S. Portland docked on July 17, 1897. (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on July 17, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on July 20, 2025
In 1898, their grandfather and a school chum answered the cry of ‘GOLD!’
By Jean Sherrard
On July 17, 1897, after the steam ship Portland docked in Seattle bearing treasure from the Yukon, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s front-page-topping headline incanted, “GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! GOLD!”
A day later, the New York Times ran its own front-page article, “Wealth of the Klondike.”
With the rest of the country, two Cornell Law School students, Mark Odell and Ellis Aldrich, read these accounts of vast easily acquired wealth and tossed their hats in the ring.
By March 1898, the ambitious chums had secured funding from a syndicate of investors, likely including Syracuse’s Lyman C. Smith, after whom Seattle’s Smith Tower was named. They dropped out of school and boarded a train for the Northwest.
NOW2: Published by Last Word Press, “From Cheechakos to Sourdoughs” runs 340 pages, with 111 black-and-white photos.
In their just-released book, “From Cheechakos to Sourdoughs: Two Ivy Leaguers’ Quest for Yukon Gold,” Odell’s maternal grandsons Steve and John Lundin tell a compelling tale drawn from journal entries, letters and 12 rolls of photographs found in a shoebox.
Hot on their grandfather’s trail to the Yukon, the Lundins offer an indelible portrait of the young “stampeders” and their transformation from greenhorns (“cheechakos”) to veteran prospectors (“sourdoughs”).
Within a week of arriving in boomtown Seattle, the industrious Odell and Aldrich purchased more than a ton of supplies from local outfitters and booked passage on the S.S. Alki to Skagway. Throughout, Odell’s observant voice enlivens the narrative.
Steaming up the Inside Passage, he marvels at the “wonders of the sea” whose “delicate changing azure tints” seemed to conceal “mermaids [who] had just slipped off into the dark green waters.”
Arriving in lawless Skagway on April 3, the pair prepared for the first of their countless ordeals — many days of hauling their mass of supplies over
THEN2: Hundreds of would-be prospectors climb the “Golden Stairs” at Chilkoot Pass, each carrying loads weighing 50 to 100 pounds. Dozens of trips were required to transport each ton of supplies.
legendary Chilkoot Pass. “From a distance … it looks much like a string of ants creeping up a small mound,” Odell wrote. “Such scenes I never saw nor imagined.”
The snowbound cabin at Wolverine Creek
Over grueling months, the partners continued their northbound journey, often narrowly skirting disaster. Building a cabin near Wolverine Creek, a Yukon River tributary, they mined and prospected throughout a brutal winter, digging 30-foot deep
A placer mine in the snow
“placer” shafts through permafrost in forbidding temperatures. “Holy Smut!” Odell noted on Nov. 11. “It was 51 degrees below last night!!!!!”
Approaching mental and physical exhaustion, the two ended their quest for treasure, making a laborious
Inside the cabin
return from the Yukon February-March 1899, a full year after setting out.
After 126 years, the Lundins write, one mystery remains. Contemporary newspaper accounts suggested that Odell and Aldrich arrived in Seattle laden with gold. But both sourdoughs firmly denied it to the end of their lives.
THEN3: Mark Odell circa 1920. After his Yukon adventure, he made his home in Seattle. Formerly a celebrated Cornell rower, he helped start the first University of Washington crew program. (Courtesy Steve and John Lundin)
WEB EXTRAS
For a narrated 360 degree video of this week’s column, click right here.
For a fascinating 90-minute PNW Historians Guild lecture by the Lundins, head in this direction!
John Lundin holds his grandfather’s billfold which traveled to the Yukon and back. Steve holds up Mark Odell’s tiny diary.A close up of the Odell diary, with notes from April 1898, shortly after arriving in Skagway.
The cover of Pacific NW magazine of The Seattle Times for July 13, 2025: Seattle’s waterfront makes a vivid backdrop for this risky film shoot atop the Space Needle in “The Parallax View” (1974). Stuntman Chuck Waters, second from left, whose character has just shot the character of a U.S. senator inside the Needle’s observation deck, tries to elude three would-be captors before falling off the edge to his apparent demise. In reality, he fell to a plywood platform. (Chuck Waters Papers / Pepperdine University Special Collections and University Archives)
Cinema with a Splash
How to visually anchor a feature film in Seattle?
Just add … water!
We are delighted that PacificNW magazine of The Seattle Times granted Clay Ealsthe opportunity to prepare a cover story to complement the special waterfront section of The Seattle Times on the print date of Sunday, July 13, 2025. Clay’s story addresses the made-in-Seattle feature films over the years that have featured the waterfront. Below are links to:
This magnificent work of art by one of the northwest’s greatest indigenous artists is well worth a visit.
Oliver’s ‘Salish Welcome’ was first installed 15 years agoDuwamish Tribal Chair Cecile Hansen addresses the gatheringThe UW Shellhouse Canoe Family offered traditional songsJason Huff from the Seattle Office for Arts and CultureSeattle Public Utilities Landscape Restoration Manager Josh MeidavOwen Oliver, son of sculptor Marvin Oliver, shares recollection s of his late fatherMarylin Oliver Bard with Cecile HansenCecile Hansen, Lisa Steinbrueck and Brigette EllisThe UW Shellhouse Canoe Family gather at the base of the 16′ Salish Welcome sculpture
THEN: Ron and Marjan Petty stand at the base of Animal Storm in August 1985, shortly after its installation. (Courtesy Ron Petty)Ron and Marjan Petty repeat their pose, joined by 28 Wallingford residents, business owners and Historic Wallingford activists: (back, from left) Jason Gosthnian, John Adams, Larry Bush, Jack Martin, Timothy Radtke, Cheryl Waldman, Ron Waldman, Mike Ruby, Ryan Long, Trish Breekha, Eric Breekha, Kathy Boran, Lynne DeLano, Jay Jeffries, (middle, from left) Patrick Long, Rhonda Bush, Maile Sprinkle, Kelle Kleingartner, Steve Garmire, Melinda Hannah, Edith Ruby, Barb Bansenauer, Martha Hyde, Pauline Emerson, Kim Tassin, (front, from left) Blake Garfield, Sarah Martin and Tyson Baty with his dog, Short Rib. For the July 12 parade, the Pettys will be grand marshals. (Clay Eals)
Published in The Seattle Times online on July 3, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on July 6, 2025
For 40 years, Wallingford’s critter column
has sensed the Animal Storm all around us
By Clay Eals
In a sense, it’s all about the senses.
THEN: A goose takes shape in Petty’s Wallingford home in February 1985. (Marjan Petty)
In 1975, sculptor Ron Petty, then 36, moved to the hillside neighborhood north of Lake Union and took note of “the tremendous amount of wildlife here.” Ten years later, thanks to $30,000 contributed by Wallingford residents and businesses, he shaped life-size versions of more than 60 critters from 32 species clambering around and peeking out from a monumental column of bronze and aluminum.
To great fanfare, he installed the 16-foot tower on July 27, 1985, across from the old Food Giant at the southeast corner of Wallingford Avenue and 45th Street. He named it Animal Storm.
NOW: Geese gather near the bottom of Animal Storm. The narrow bars represent rainfall. (Clay Eals)
“It was just kind of like a storm cloud raining animals,” he reflects today, summoning another palpable fact of local life, what some call Seattle sunshine. In fact, on the pillar Petty even represented our legendary showers as narrow, rectangular bars slipping angularly between the creatures.
July 12, 2025, Wallingford parade poster. (Cynthia Payne)
Rain or shine, the sculpture draws people who want to see, photograph and touch it close-up, especially kids. And at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 12, 2025, during the 2025 “Wild in Wallingford” parade, Petty’s first and best-loved major creation will get a 40th-anniversary salute. Amid drill teams and floats, inhabitants are encouraged to attend in animal garb.
NOW: The left hand of Historic Wallingford’s Sarah Martin points out the peace-sign pendant worn by a dog on Animal Storm. (Clay Eals)
That would please Petty, who relishes seeing newcomers and returnees examining the pole and finding its squirrels, birds, geese, slugs, bats, cats, fish (one is concave with eggs inside), raccoons, ducks and even a dog wearing a tiny peace-sign collar pendant. He delights in recalling a class of blind grade-schoolers who caressed and identified the critters.
THEN: The model for Petty’s pole-topping figure, “Mama Cat” rests at home in 1982. She lived 19 years. (Courtesy Ron Petty)
Capping the pedestal is a pounce-ready feline modeled after the artist’s “Mama Cat” at the time. “When I was doing the drawings for the piece, the cat kept walking across the drawing table,” he says. “One of the final times I kicked the cat off, I told her if she stayed off the table, I’d put her on top of the sculpture. And I did.”
A Seattle Public Schools history of the Interlake School building, today’s Wallingford Center, that stands southeast of Animal Storm.. (Courtesy Sarah Martin)
Circled by a base of engravings and a broad, curved bench and backed by courtyards of the landmarked Wallingford Center retail and service hub (formerly Interlake School, built in 1904-1908), Animal Storm quickly became the community’s most prominent visual and tactile showpiece.
Nov. 1, 1987, Seattle Times, p23.
Petty, also known for his similar but more somber 1988 memorial sculpture at Ballard’s Fishermen’s Terminal, remains grateful for the early faith that Wallingford placed in him to create an enduring tribute to the smaller breathing beings nearby us all.
It’s a profusion, he says. “We just don’t realize that until we actually look close to see what is here.”
THEN: Ron and Marjan Petty at the base of Animal Storm, August 1985. (Courtesy Ron Petty)NOW: Ron and Marjan in the same pose, May 29, 2025. (Clay Eals)
WEB EXTRAS
Big thanks to Ron and Marjan Petty and especially Sarah Martin of Historic Wallingford for invaluable help with this installment!
The Historic Wallingford page on Animal Storm has lots of background information, photos, news clips and videos, including the filmed 1985 dedication ceremony, thanks to Sarah Martin.
To see Clay Eals‘ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.
THEN: Holding a sculpted raccoon, Petty assembles the bronze base of Animal Storm in February 1985. (Marjan Petty)THEN: A shopping bag available at Wallingford businesses in 1995 salutes the Animal Storm sculpture. (Courtesy Historic Wallingford)THEN: The back of the shopping bag. (Courtesy Historic Wallingford)NOW: A raccoon pokes out from Animal Storm. (Clay Eals)NOW: A concave fish on Animal Storm displays internal eggs. (Clay Eals)NOW: A gull swoops on Animal Storm. The narrow bars represent rainfall. (Clay Eals)NOW7: A squirrel from Animal Storm readies to spring away. (Clay Eals)NOW: The Animal Storm counterpart of the Pettys’ “Mama Cat” perches on the pole. (Clay Eals)THEN: At Ballard’s Fishermen’s Terminal, Ron Petty assembles his Fishermen’s Memorial, which was dedicated in 1988. (Kurt Smith, courtesy Ron Petty)Aug. 30, 1984, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p30.Dec. 27, 1984, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p25.Aug. 23, 1997, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p22-23.Feb. 8, 2009, Seattle Times, Paul Dorpat’s “Now & Then” column.
