City of Renton Timeline

Native Americans have called the Pacific Northwest home for thousands of years. The Native Americans from the Pacific Northwest area are called the “Coast Salish” people. They made the Salish Sea and surrounding basin their home. The Duwamish are the Coast Salish Native American tribe that have lived in the Seattle area since time immemorial. Known as “The People of the Inside,” the Duwamish lived along the Black, Cedar, and Duwamish Rivers & Elliott Bay.

Despite signing the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855, the Duwamish were not granted a reservation. Some left and joined the Muckleshoot, Suquamish, and other reservations. Some stayed near their ancestral homelands in the Renton area and interacted with white settlers regularly, despite being slowly displaced from traditional hunting, fishing, and food-gathering lands. 

Henry Tobin moved west from Maine in 1853 soon after he married Diana Gilman. He made a 320-acre donation land claim on the Black River and established a mill with O. M. Eaton, Joseph Fanjoy, and R. M. Bigelow. When Diana arrived in 1855 with their son Charles, she found Henry seriously ill. They fled the so-called Indian Wars to Seattle, where Tobin died in 1856. Five months later, Diana married Erasmus Smithers. Smithers owned the land claim just to the south of the Tobin claim on the Black River. They returned to Renton and worked on developing the land. 

By 1860 they had built a thriving dairy farm. Smithers platted the town of Renton on the eastern portion of his land and began selling lots in 1875. Smithers named the town after Captain William Renton, an early investor in the coal mines. The town finally incorporated in 1901.

Smithers was credited with “discovering” coal along the banks of the Cedar River, but it is likely that he was pointed toward the mineral by local Duwamish people. In any case, the first coal operations started in 1874, but it was not until the 1890s that coal was mined on any scale.

Population: 1,176
Area: 1 square mile

By 1901, local coal mining operations had brought enough people, problems, and progress here to allow the city to officially incorporate.

Seattle’s phenomenal growth (nourished by the Alaskan Gold Rushes) brought about the reopening of Renton’s coal mines and an influx of new cash. The Renton Clay Works opened on the banks of the Cedar River and began producing bricks, firmly establishing the town as the “Paving Brick Capital of the World.” In 1905 Pacific Car and Foundry (later PACCAR) relocated from Seattle to Renton. Industries such as these sustained the town. Unlike neighboring coal towns, Renton was actually using its coal for other manufacturing.

In response to a vigorous call for laborers abroad, newly arriving Italian immigrants built their homes in the Talbot Hill area. North Renton was also annexed into the city.

Miners laid the foundations for a thriving community, organizing churches, schools, and the first Renton Public Library. The city’s first high school students graduated from Central School in 1904. Renton also established a municipal water supply, a volunteer fire department, and a sewer system. By the end of this decade the Seattle/Tacoma Interurban Railroad and the Milwaukee Railroad crisscrossed the town. Although officially registered as a 3^rd class town, Renton was on the map.

Population: 2,740
Area: 1.8 square miles

Renton was the second largest industrial center of King County at this time, making the effects of the catastrophic flood of 1911 all the more devastating. The city worked with the King County for the next ten years on taming the Cedar River. The Montlake Cut lowered Lake Washington in 1912, thus eliminating the Black River entirely.

The newly created chamber of commerce promoted Renton as “The Town of Payrolls.” A glass bottle factory, macaroni factory, ice plant, coal briquette plant, two lumber companies, and a shingle mill strengthened that claim while diversifying the growing industrial base. These jobs attracted many new immigrants. Many ethnic groups organized protective organizations in reaction to the bigotry they experienced on their arrival.

Pacific Car and Foundry flourished with non-stop contracts for rail cars, and the brick plant produced 58 million bricks annually. While business boomed for the industries’ owners, Renton coal miners organized strikes in 1902, 1904, 1910, and 1912 – 1914 for higher wages and safer working conditions.

The town’s wives and mothers won the right to vote in elections. By the decade’s end, Hattie Butler was voted in as Renton’s first woman councilmember. Automobiles, once a luxury item for the wealthy, became commonplace along Main and Third streets. The city’s first dedicated high school, Renton High School, opened its doors in 1911, just in time to graduate its first class.

A new Carnegie Library was dedicated in 1914 on lands donated by California rancher Ignazio Sartori. The next year, Prohibition closed Renton’s numerous saloons. Barkeeps either diversified into other products, such as groceries, or went underground. Renton’s comparative remoteness provided ample opportunities for whiskey stills and basement wineries to abound, making enforcement of the federal ban (1919) on alcohol difficult for the town’s small police department.

A number of the city’s young men headed off to World War I in 1918. Others stayed home, only to fight a different enemy: influenza. The epidemic swept through Renton, filling Dr. Adolph Bronson’s new Renton Hospital with sick and dying citizens. Following the war, “City Park” was renamed “Liberty Park,” in honor of the liberation of Europe.

Population: 3,301
Area: 1.8 square miles

Although the privately owned Bryn Mawr airstrip foreshadowed the importance of aviation in the city’s history, the 1920s belonged to the automobile. Renton’s livery stables were replaced by its first auto dealerships, signaling a national trend. By 1928 automobiles and buses effectively did away with the Interurban Railroad between Seattle and Renton.

Asphalt was quickly replacing brick as a covering for roadways, decreasing demand for Renton’s paving brick. In 1927 the Gladding McBean Company purchased the Denny-Renton brick plant, diversifying its product line to give it many more years of life. The “Sunset Highway” to Spokane had just been completed and ran through downtown Renton. Numerous auto camps, the forerunners of motels, began to spring up along this new highway at the outskirts of town. Wooden sidewalks were quickly replaced by concrete.

In 1923 the Central School was replaced by a new Henry Ford School, named in hopes that the automobile magnate would help fund its construction. (He did not, but sent a portrait of himself.) A new city hall was also constructed at this time. The Seattle water pipeline was laid through the middle of Renton, its construction disrupting downtown for month; today it continues to convey water daily to Seattle and surrounding communities from the Cedar River Watershed.

More homes, farms, and businesses were wired for electricity and in 1929 Renton’s Shuffleton Steam Power Plant was built to meet the demand. Foreshadowing Renton’s future in the aviation industry, Charles Lindbergh flew over the town in 1928, just a few years after the Bryn Mawr Airport was created.

As the railroad car industry slumped, Pacific Car and Foundry began building bridge spans. The Ku Klux Klan held its first state convention outside of town at Renton Junction; some Rentonites showed up, but no local chapter was organized.

Many of the shops and stores within Renton were family owned and operated. Startups for this decade included the Owl Café (later Rubattino’s), Stokes Mortuary, and Renton Savings and Loan Association.

Then the stock market crashed, and the Great Depression took hold across the country.

Population: 4,062
Area: 3.4 square miles

The Great Depression of the 1930s was a difficult time. People made do with what they had, or did without. “Hobo camps” for homeless and unemployed men sprang up along the rail lines and at the edge of town.

The federal government repealed Prohibition in 1933, making alcohol sales and saloon operation once again legal. Many of Renton’s famous saloons reopened. Also in 1933, work on Longacres Thoroughbred Horse Racing Track was started; it opened just 28 days later.

In 1935 nationally renowned humorist Will Rogers and pilot Wiley Post landed at the seaplane port at the Bryn Mawr airport, their last stop before both perished in a plane crash in Alaska. The Will Rogers – Wiley Post Memorial Seaplane Base at the Renton Airport was named for these two famous Renton visitors.

Renton climbed out of the Depression slowly. Movie theatre mogul Benjamin Fey erected Renton’s first neon sign on the new Roxy Theatre. The new Triple XXX Barrel drive-in, the first of its kind on the West Coast, opened on Rainier Avenue. Renton High School used federal New Deal funds to remodel the building to accommodate a larger student body and a junior high school. New Deal funds also replaced bridges and financed Fire Station No. 1 on Mill Avenue. Bronson Memorial Hospital opened in 1938.

As the decade closed things were looking better. Money wasn’t as tight and the Renton Lions Club produced its first rodeo, promoting Renton as a western frontier town while turning Liberty Park into a bronco-busting corral for a few days. And the Boeing Co. got its first contract with the U.S. Navy to build seaplanes.

Population: 4,488
Area: 3.4 square miles

World War II changed life in Renton forever. Renton’s population quadrupled from 1940 to 1945, and the city jumped from a fourth-class city to a second-class city almost overnight. When the Boeing Company came to town in 1941 to build planes for the war effort, $4 million in federal money came with it for housing and street improvements. This money was designed to meet the demands of a four-fold population expansion. This reality created both exhilaration and problems for the townsfolk already here.

A new fire station, hospital, an increased water-storage capacity, and immense housing projects in the Highlands and Cedar River Park seemed to spring up overnight. Widespread radio use allowed people to listen to their favorite programs and keep tabs on the progress of the war.

Pacific Car and Foundry began producing the first of 900 Sherman Tanks. Boeing concentrated on B-29s, producing over 1,000 by war’s end. Renton’s African-American population increased significantly, as much-needed workers were recruited from the East and the South. Women who had never worked outside the home now found themselves necessary to the war effort, in positions at Boeing, PACCAR, and Black Bear Manufacturing Co.

Unable to accommodate all of its student body at one time, Renton School District found itself operating three shifts a day. Following President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order, Japanese Americans living in the greater Renton area were rounded up and placed in internment camps for the duration of the war. Black-outs and plane spotters were instituted. Amid the rumble of tanks up Cemetery Hill at night and the roar of B-29s during the day, daily life went on. Renton’s Rotary Club organized, beginning a long period of service within the community.

A brief postwar recession gripped the city’s industries, but it proved temporary. In 1947 the City of Renton purchased the Renton Airport from the federal government for just $1, and the Highlands housing that was meant to be temporary became permanent homes for many.

In the last half of the 1940s Renton promoted itself as the “Land of Opportunity,” citing easy access to everything from snow skiing to its new “wagon wheel”-shaped Renton Hospital. Many of Renton’s “Baby Boomers” proudly proclaim that they were born at McLendon’s, which now occupies the former hospital site. The Renton War Memorial Stadium was built on the site of the old Tonelli Dairy Farm.

Population: 16,039
Area: 14.2 square miles

Renton launched a building boom following WWII, as workers who came for war industry jobs decided they wanted to stay. The Renton Highlands neighborhood officially annexed into the city, and the Renton Housing Authority offered homes there for sale to the general public in 1949. The JC Penney and Woolworth’s chains both built brand new stores in the downtown. The Renton Municipal Pool was opened to the public in Liberty Park in 1955, and city hall moved into a building in the war-surplus Cedar River Housing Park. Women were encouraged to give up their jobs and return home. The resulting postwar “baby boom” laid the foundations for massive change in the 1960s and 1970s.

Television rearranged life in Renton in the 1950s, as established furniture dealers began selling TV sets like hotcakes; its popular culture permeated every aspect of life. In 1956 to move traffic City Council decreed that main surface streets in the downtown would become one-way streets, accidentally setting the stage for the future Renton Loop. The state highway project that would become I-405 was launched as part of the Cold War federal interstate highway system.

At the same time something else was brewing in Renton that would eventually rock the airline industry. While jet airplanes were already widely used in the military, Boeing introduced a new airplane, the Dash-80, the first commercial jet-powered (rather than propeller driven) airplane in the world. The gamble worked; the Boeing Company produced its first 707 in 1958, signaling the beginning of commercial jet aviation worldwide. The plane manufacturer invested some of its earnings in expanding and upgrading the local airport.

Renton became “Jet City,” the birthplace of commercial jet aviation.

Population: 18,453
Area: 14.2 square miles

The early 1960s were boom years in Renton. With the Boeing Company’s production of commercial airplanes in full swing, Renton celebrated the opening of its first shopping center. Interstate 405 forever changed the city’s appearance by cutting a wide swath across the foot of Renton Hill, along the edge of the historic downtown area. The “Renton S Curves” were almost instantly synonymous with traffic jams. The “Renton Loop” in the heart of the downtown became a cruising circuit for Renton teens (and their cars) to see and be seen, but as the practice became rowdier, the city wrote laws prohibiting it.

Pacific Car and Foundry supplied the steel structure used to create the Space Needle for the Century 21 World’s Fair. Rollerland, a popular roller skating palace, burned to the ground.

In 1965 Tukwila’s Southcenter Mall opened, draining Renton’s downtown core of its large retail stores and shoppers. The city’s business district stagnated, and city government looked for downtown revitalization ideas. Under the city’s youngest leader, twenty-five year old Mayor Don Custer, a municipal/civic center was conceived. In 1966 a dramatic new library opened over the Cedar River. Two years later a new Renton City Hall was inaugurated at 200 Mill Avenue. The Renton Historical Society was also founded in 1967, in response to the pace of change.

In the 1960s Valley Medical Center also opened its doors, and Renton’s second high school opened in the Highlands, named for school superintendent Oliver M. Hazen.

Population: 26,686
Area: 16.1 square miles

The postwar baby boom stretched schools to their limit; in 1968 Hazen High School opened and in 1972 Lindbergh High was completed. Teen activity on the Renton Loop, a car cruising circuit in downtown Renton, peaked and then became a nuisance, as far as businesses and police were concerned.

In 1968 Southcenter Mall opened in Tukwila and, anticipating competition, civic-minded leaders in Renton launched a new downtown improvement program. It included plantings and new “Christmas Tree” styled streetlights. The lights quickly proved to be too expensive to maintain and so were removed; a few can be seen in private yards today. A new city hall was constructed at 200 Mill Ave., fulfilling part of Mayor Don Custer’s vision for the city. Elected at age 29, Custer was to date Renton’s youngest mayor.

In 1971 the city’s twenty-year economic boom went bust. Commercial and military airplane orders dropped off significantly as the Vietnam War drew to a close, and Boeing trimmed its workforce by two-thirds. A severe recession gripped Renton, and people fled the city in search of jobs elsewhere. Having lost hundreds of students, the school district laid off teachers. An attempt at a school levy failed—the first time in the history of the city.

In spite of the recession, more than 100 manufacturing firms produced everything from jet planes and railroad cars to coiled springs and plastics. Carco Theatre and  opened during this period. In 1976, its 75th year as an incorporated city, Renton celebrated its Diamond Jubilee. The nation also celebrated its Bicentennial, commemorating 200 years of American history. Both occasions were marked with parades and special events in Renton. Renton Municipal Pool was also renamed in 1976 in honor of Duwamish Native American leader and Renton High alum, Henry Moses.

By the end of the decade, Renton had elected Barbara Shinpoch, the city’s first female mayor.

Population: 30,612
Area: 16.1 square miles

As the city’s downtown core continued to languish, activists that included future Renton mayor Kathy Keolker organized to stop the location of pornographic theaters in the city center. Their work led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres Inc. upholding the rights of cities to regulate adult-themed businesses; it remains the law of the land to this day. The city also put an end to teen cruising on the downtown Renton Loop.

In 1982 Gene Coulon Memorial Beach Park was dedicated in honor of the city's longest serving and most influential parks director. An archaeological excavation was conducted on the site of a Duwamish longhouse, located at the foot of Earlington Hill behind today’s Fred Meyer Shopping Center. Earlington Golf Course closed in 1981, but by 1985 golfers could play at Maplewood Golf Course.

For some time Renton had celebrated its past through a summertime “Western Days” promotion that featured a parade, races, and events in Liberty Park. In 1986 “Renton River Days” put a new spin on the old festivities. Renton Community Center also opened, offering recreational facilities, events, and classes to residents. The Renton History Museum opened in December 1989.

By the end of the 1980s, Renton was swept up in a wave of home-building and business growth that encompassed Seattle and the Eastside. The city’s location at the pivot point between the Eastside and South King County, however, meant growth was always ready to swing into stasis.

Population: 40,500
Area: 16.3 square miles

By the early 1990s Renton had evolved into a more balanced community with a diverse—and thus more stable—economic base, including numerous retail, manufacturing, and distributing ventures. Boeing’s successes continued to lead the city’s employment figures, and late in the decade white-collar workers organized their first-ever strike in the history of the United States, on the part of aviation engineers.

But Renton was moving away from complete dependence on the future of aviation, resulting in a level of diversification that few city founders could have envisioned. Renton Vocational-Technical College—later Renton Technical College—was established in 1991, ready to prepare the next generation of skilled workers. Even as Longacres Race Track closed its doors after 60 years, technology firms, microbreweries, an art glass shop, and the highly successful gaming/trading cards giant Wizards of the Coast represented a new entrepreneurial spirit. Attempts to reinvigorate the downtown core continued, with the proliferation of antique and specialty shops and the relocation of the auto dealers that had occupied Burnett Avenue out to Grady Way.

The youth movement arrived in the form of thousands of music fans who made pilgrimages to the Jimi Hendrix Memorial in Greenwood Cemetery, as his music enjoyed a popular revival. 

The city’s five neighborhoods organized, bringing their needs and desires into sharper focus. Several attempts to annex additional neighboring areas failed—for the time being. With the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, new families began immigrating to the city, contributing new perspectives and cultural traditions.

Toward the end of the decade, city hall moved once again, to a new location on Grady Way on the site of the old Renton Coal Mine. Additionally, the city partnered with other major stakeholders to promote Renton as “Ahead of the Curve.”

Population: 50,052 (2000) – 92,372 (2010)
Area: 23.12 square miles

2001 marked the city’s centennial, and in its honor the Renton Historical Society organized a sidewalk marker walking tour to commemorate the historic buildings lost to time. Also in 2001, a downtown transit center and an adjacent 150-stall park-and-ride garage were completed. Renton increased its population by annexing the Cascade-Benson Hill communities in 2008, as well as other, smaller “Potential Annexation Areas” (PAA), making it the fastest growing city in Washington state in the 2000s. In 2012 the largest PAA—the West Hill community of Lakeridge, Bryn Mawr, and Skyway — narrowly rejected annexation on the ballot.

Renton also became one of the most diverse cities in Washington, with Latino, Asian-Pacific Islander, and other immigrant populations quickly growing. By 2011 Renton had officially become a “majority minority” city, in which racial minorities outnumbered whites. Students in the Renton School District spoke 87 different languages. The Renton School District, Renton Technical College, the Renton Library, the Renton History Museum, and many other organizations considered how to best serve people with a variety of different languages and cultural traditions. Mayor Denis Law’s administration was nationally recognized for their work in this area. Mayor Law served from 2008 to 2019, becoming Renton’s only three-term mayor to date.

In the early 2000s the city focused on improving the quality of life for its residents. IKEA Performing Arts Center at Renton High School opened in 2003, as well as the Piazza Park and its Pavilion at the center of downtown Renton. In 2009 volunteer group RUFF (Renton United for Furry Friends) was the driving force behind the city’s first off-leash dog park on the former NARCO site along the Cedar River.  Surplussed Boeing property in North Renton became The Landing, a highly desirable shopping area, with big box stores, restaurants, and a movie theatre. But the new shopping area, combined with the housing bust and recession of 2008, resulted in a downtown that continued to struggle, despite desirable apartments and excellent independent eateries.

Developers also launched a construction boom that included a 399,000 square foot IKEA, the Lofts at Second and Main, and the Hyatt Regency Lake Washington, a $180 million hotel and conference center adjacent to Coulon Beach Park. The 200,000 square foot Virginia Mason Athletic Center, home of the Seattle Seahawks NFL team, opened in Kennydale in 2008, and the team regularly invited tens of thousands of fans to its training camp every summer. The city’s lower commercial rents also made it a hospitable place for new internet start-ups and entrepreneurs to set up shop. The award-winning Sunset Area redevelopment in the Highlands focused on providing affordable and mixed-income housing, close to a new library, parks, shopping, and public transportation. The project included Renton’s first inclusive playground for all ages and abilities, Meadow Crest Playground.

Boeing remained the city’s largest single employer, with Valley Medical Center a distant second. Renton was still the home of the 737 and by the end of the 1990s, aging international aircraft fleets needed new passenger planes. The airplane manufacturer embarked on a building boom that reached a record 47 737s a month by 2017.

Social media became the communication and news tool of the future, and institutions—including the City of Renton—learned how to reach out to the “digital natives” born after 1990. But the desire for tradition and nostalgia retained its hold, and after Renton’s independent library system consolidated with King County Library System (KCLS) in March 2010, activists defeated the construction of a new library on a downtown site in favor of renovating the iconic “library over a river.” 

Population: 92,372 (2010) – 104,491 (2023)

Area: 25.27 square miles (2025)

Renton entered the 2010s still recovering from the national recession of 2008. As more and more people relocated to participate in the Pacific Northwest tech boom, the housing market tightened, resulting in median home prices increasing by 51% from 2010 to 2020. Homelessness was on the rise in most King County cities, as in most of the U.S., and Renton worked on offering humane solutions consistent with legal requirements and nearby cities’ strategies. The city invested in new subsidized and affordable housing options in the Renton Highlands and elsewhere, and nonprofits like Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI), the Renton Housing Authority, and REACH also worked on creative solutions.

New residents and workers continued to flow into Renton and the city embarked on several multi-year streets improvement projects, on Rainier Ave. S and many others, to accommodate travelers by car and bicycle. In 2020 the city began the process of reversing one-way streets that had been instituted in downtown Renton after WWII. These changes incorporated the Renton Trails and Bicycle Master Plan’s aim of creating an integrated approach to recreational and non-motorized transportation, offering travelers through Renton a more environmentally friendly system. Electric vehicle charging stations also began popping up at City Hall, the Landing, and other locations.

New residents joined the 56,000 Coast Salish people in the United States and Canada today. The petition for federal recognition of Renton’s First People, the Duwamish Tribe, was affirmed by the president in 2001, but immediately overturned by the incoming administration in 2002; as of 2025, their quest for tribal recognition continues. Coast Salish people are integral to Western Washington communities, attending schools and universities, and working as business-owners, educators, healthcare workers, and in many other professions. The Duwamish people encourage everyone to learn more about their culture by visiting with them at local events held at the Duwamish Longhouse.

Renton also accommodated the many new residents by building three new schools. In 2017 Risdon Middle School opened, named for veteran Renton educator Vera Risdon. In September 2018, Sartori Elementary School opened in North Renton as a brand-new STEM-focused school. And in August 2023 Hilltop Heritage Elementary School welcomed kids from the Highlands area. The Family First Community Center also opened adjacent to Cascade Elementary School, to bring healthcare, educational, and training services to the Cascade-Benson neighborhood.

Beginning in March 2020, Renton schools, businesses, and recreational facilities suffered through a yearlong global pandemic of Covid-19 that shuttered public gathering places for months. Like the 1918 – 1919 influenza, healthcare workers and officials struggled to cope with the numbers of sick and contagious people, but unlike 1918 – 1919 a speedy federal vaccine creation and immunization initiative saved lives and helped stores and schools reopen by early 2021. Online tools such as telework, streaming entertainment, online food delivery, and remote schooling helped mitigate the social isolation. Nevertheless, studies showed that kids lost educational ground, adults and teens suffered from social deprivation, and businesses—particularly restaurants and taverns—tried to recover.

The city’s largest employer, The Boeing Co., ran into difficulties during the 2010s. Two high-profile multiple fatality crashes grounded Boeing 737 MAX planes in 2018 and 2019, followed by a series of investigations into safety violations and consequent fines. Delivery of the 777X was delayed until 2025, and problems with door plugs in the 737 MAX 9 in 2024 resulted in renewed scrutiny of the company’s safety procedures. A two-month machinists’ strike in 2024 won them a 38% wage increase, bringing their pay more in-line with King County’s high cost of living. The Boeing Co. announced a planned 10% lay-off and refocus on its core mission.

Renton’s sports growth was a post-pandemic bright spot. The Seattle Sounders soccer franchise joined the Seahawks in selecting Renton as their home, opening a new training facility and soccer center on the grounds of the old Longacres Racetrack in February 2024. Longacres occupied the site from 1933 to 1992, so in their 50^th anniversary year the Sounders pushed Renton’s tradition of sports excellence into the future. Topgolf Renton also opened in July 2022 on former Boeing land near The Landing. In 2025 the city planned a revitalization of the downtown Piazza and Pavilion in advance of the 2026 World Cup of soccer in the Seattle area, during which Renton will be an “experience city.”