By Knute Berger in Crosscut
Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman speaks with reporters at Pike Place Market during an event celebrating the 69th annniversary of the market. (Seattle Municipal Archives)
Despite numerous threats over the years, Seattle has only twice recalled a mayor. Such efforts have made the ballot just three times in the past 109 years. It is still uncertain if the current move to recall Mayor Jenny Durkan will come to a public vote — she has appealed the ballot petition effort to the state Supreme Court — but now seems like a good time to revisit the moments in Seattle history when popular anger threatened to topple an embattled executive.
Previous successful recall efforts targeted both pro-vice Mayor Hiram Gill, who was ousted from office by reformers and newly enfranchised women in 1911 (he later made a comeback to the mayor’s office), and Frank Edwards, the “business man mayor” who defeated Seattle’s first female mayor, Bertha Knight Landes, in 1928 but was recalled three years later for firing the popular head of the city’s public utility, City Light.