Culture
Shady landlords and bootleggers ruled Seattle's last pandemic
During the 1918 flu, bad actors ripped off renters, exploited dead sailors and drank illegal whiskey.
Knute Berger
Knute “Mossback” Berger is an editor-at-large and host of "Mossback’s Northwest" at Cascade PBS. He writes about politics and regional heritage.
Latest work
Inside Cascade PBS
Crosscut is entering its teen years in a very different Seattle
Mossback recaps Crosscut's history and puts an eye toward where stories of the Great Nearby will take us next.
Opinion
Premature optimism in a pandemic can be deadly
Seattle leaders relaxed containment rules during the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, fueling a second wave of infections.
Opinion
Coronavirus is not our first apocalypse
Why we should keep our heads and live 'beyond fear' in the face of existential scares.
Opinion
What will historians make of Seattle 500 years from now?
The Emerald City will be Atlantis 2.0, brought down by climate change and a plague of disasters.