The Mercer Girls: Seattle’s Mail Order Brides
What first comes to mind when you think of Seattle?
Rain. The Space Needle. The Cascades and Olympic Mountain Ranges. The eruption of Mt. St. Helens. Grunge Music. Microsoft and Amazon. Coffee. Lots of tree huggers.
Those things are all part of Seattle today, and of its recent history, but if you go back a hundred years or more Seattle was an entirely different kind of place.
Here’s a little look back —-
In the mid-1800’s, Seattle was a timber town, and many of its founding fathers made large fortunes in the timber industry. The term “Skid Road” came out of Seattle during this time, specifically referring to the street that is known today as Yesler Way. It was called Skid Road after the skidding of the logs down the hill to Henry Yesler’s saw mill. This slang term eventually became a part of common usage, although with a bit of a different meaning.
It was during this time that Seattle pioneer Asa Mercer got the idea to make Seattle a little more civilized by marrying off the men and getting them settled down. But there weren’t many women in Seattle during this time and he had to import them from the east coast. The Mercer Girls were some of the first “mail-order” brides.
If some of this sounds a bit familiar, it may be because you saw it on television (or DVD) rather than studied it in history.
The television series Here Come the Brides was loosely based on the Mercer Girls arrival in Seattle, and starred heart throbs David Brown, Bobby Sherman, and David Soul. The series was part western, part romantic comedy/drama, and aired from 1968-1970.
Take a minute and listen. Does this song sound familiar?
No?
Keep reading and see if your memory returns?
That song was “Seattle” and was sung on the show at various times by Bobby Sherman and Perry Como. You may also know it under the title “The Bluest Skies You’ll Ever See Are in Seattle.”
Maybe this video clip of the opening credits will jog your memory:
Seattle is no longer the rough and tumble frontier town of those former days, but a lot of what you see and hear about the people who lived in Seattle then also applies to the people who live there today.
Image credit: All Posters
____________________________________________
5 Comments
Here Come the Brides was one of my favorite shows and I was so going to marry Bobby Sherman!
Thanks for your submission to this week’s Carnival of Cities. You can read Away.com’s roundup at: http://blogs.away.com/travel_guide/
Kim: You and thousands of other teenage girls!
The actor’s name is Robert Brown, not David Brown. Very nice article, though!
Good catch, Nancy! I got carried away with typing David! Thanks for pointing out the typo.