Sons of the Profits or There's No Business Like Grow Business: The Seattle Story 1851-1901 Paperback – January 1, 1967

There is a lot of folklore about the history of Seattle that is of questionable accuracy. This book digs into what the founders of Seattle were really like and makes for entertaining history.

Love the book, he puts a good twist on how things we're back then,

If you're interested in a true history of Seattle, without the whitewash to make the founding fathers sound like saints, then I think you'll really enjoy this book. I've read it a couple of times, and I send it to friends often.

very interesting about the early days of how Seattle came to be

What an informative book as well as a funny book about Seattle.

Tells how Seattle started. Great book.

I bought this book despite the reviews here about it’s bad writing. But I should have listened! The subject matter is interesting if you enjoy early Seattle history, but the writing makes it hard to slog through. The author uses ellipses like he got paid for each one. I think it would be a great book if it was edited, but as it is, it is almost unreadable. Unfortunately, it is one of the few books about this time period that is non-scholarly, but Spiedel seems to have gone way too far in the other direction. If this book were written today, it probably would be full of ‘lol’s’ and emojis. You can imagine the author lagging at his own jokes throughout.Buy Skid Road if you want the same info in a readable version.

I don't know how many copies of this book I've given to new residents of Seattle. It tells the real (seedy) history of Seattle and explains the independent spirit of those who chose to settle here.