Name your hometown's "firsts."

[Beware the Beast Man]

This is an extension of 5thgendemocrat's thread. What "firsts" are your city famous for? Obviously, if you live in a major city like NYC or Chicago or LA, there's many.

Pittsburgh firsts-
the Big Mac
The full-service gas station
Public Television station (WQED)
Commercial radio station (KDKA)
Hosted first World Series (Pirates vs. the Boston Pilgims- the Pirates lost).
First professional football game.
First museum of modern art (the Carnegie)
First internet smilie (invented at Carnegie Mellon)
First retractable dome (the Civic Arena, now known as Mellon Arena)
First Polio Vaccine
First Zippo lighter
First Bingo game.
First banana split.
More here:
http://pittsburgh.about.com/cs/aboutpittsburgh/a/facts_2.htm

[Droopy]

1. Just off the top of my head

Dayton, Ohio

The first airplane was built here.
The first cash register.

[cssmall]

2. *laugh* You don't want to know.

I'll give you a hint. It's something about Jim Crow and says: "don't let the sun set on your . . ." on the city's greeting sign.

[asthmaticeog]

3. For your adopted hometown, BtBM, I give you Cleveland firsts:

• First U.S. newspaper for African-Americans

• First electric streetlight, traffic signals and electric streetcar

• First indoor shopping center (The Arcade)

• First padded bicycle seat, and also, presumably, first pervy sniffer of padded bicycle seats

• First modern golf ball

• Cleveland Indians – First charter team of MLB’s American League

• First African-American Cultural Center (Karamu House)

• First Gas Mask

• First automatic windshield wiper invented here in 1921

• First municipal airport (Cleveland Hopkins International Airport) and first air-traffic control tower

• Superman!

• First Public housing (that sounds sketchy, perhaps further research is called for on that one)

• First U.S. college to admit students regardless of race, sex, creed or color (Oberlin College - not quite Cleveland, about 30 miles out)

• First Rock ‘n’ Roll concert, "The Moondog Coronation Ball"

• First African-American mayor of a major city (Carl Stokes)

• This one, I think you'll dig: the first "Monday Night Footbal" game was played in 1970 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium with the Cleveland Browns defeating the New York Jets, 31-20

[Beware the Beast Man]

4. First flammable river.

First war over a bridge.
Michael Stanley.
I could go on and on. :D

[asthmaticeog]

7. Good ones all, except

I think there were probably other guys named Michael Stanley before our shameful bar-rock ambassador.

I wonder if Torso would count as the first modern serial killer? Nah, nevermind, he was very much in the Jack the Ripper mold...

[johnnie]

15. You two are fuckin hilarious

I could only think of the stoplight thing myself.

We need to get together for a few Straubs soon. It's been too long.

[asthmaticeog]

18. Check your PMs. n/t

[progmom]

5. first women's rights convention: 1848

[ghostsofgiants]

6. The first person from my province to play in the NHL

Alex Faulkner.

My mom's uncle actually.

[RoyGBiv]

8. Ummm ...

Well, I'm pretty sure my hometown newspaper was the first daily to report a black hole found near the sun. Seriously. Front page. Not even April 1st. Complete story. Odds given on it affecting Oklahoma. Weird. I think the editor had had a few too many the night before.

It also may have been the first town to name an environmental research labratory after a man famous for helping pollute ground water with his oil business.

[RagingInMiami]

9. First Burger King

[5thGenDemocrat]

10. Saginaw

First electric street lighting. This one can be debated, but Saginaw experimented with arc lights (at Genesee and Washington, our main downtown intersection) way back in the 1870s, and we'll claim it. The towers for the lights were well over 100 feet tall.
First American health insurance plan: The sisters at Saint Mary's Hospital collected five dollars from each lumberjack prior to the winter logging season in exchange for health care, should they get injured out in the woods. This was in the early 1880s.
First practical power steering (we still build as many automotive steering components as any city in the world).
Second American city with a black mayor (after Gary, Indiana and coincidentally with Cleveland). Also, Saginaw was one of the first American cities with a council-manager form of government (after, I think, Kansas City) in 1935 (our mayor is chosen by the council from amongst its members). We will be voting on whether to change that form of goverment here soon.
And "Spic and Span" was invented here.
John
Our river flows north. That's kind of weird, too.

[Beware the Beast Man]

12. Ugh. I hate to burst your bubble,

but all the rivers in NE Ohio flow north as well. :)

[5thGenDemocrat]

17. Yeah, it's really not all that uncommon

Probably fewer rivers flow north than any other direction, but it's hardly unique (I think the Red River in North Dakota flows north, too).
John
Another civic note: The city of Saginaw is the result of a merger of East Saginaw and Saginaw City (in 1890). Until the late '20s, we had two separate school systems (one on each side of the river) and until 1963 we were the only American city besides New York to have two main post offices.
We're catching up with the rest of the country. I figure we're up to about 1978 or so, now.

[meisje]

11. First Stolen Election

Columbus, Ohio

[RagingInMiami]

21. No, that happened down here

[Omphaloskepsis]

13. Not much that I can think of..

The first Saturday Market.

The first pair of Nike shoes.

The first Taco Time.

[sakabatou]

14. My hometown is not on it...

But I do give: HP!

[Reverend_Smitty]

16. In Trenton NJ...

apparently we had the first professional basketball game played here in 1896 http://www.state.nj.us/hangout/famous.html

and we invented the first Italian hot dog http://www.trentondowntowner.com/default.php?article=814

so uh there...

[LaraMN]

19. First town to burn to the ground in 1918. n/m

[StellaBlue]

22. Hey, that's funny..

My town burned to the ground in 1916!

:/

[LaraMN]

24. Great. I guess that makes my town the copy-cat poser, then.

stupid town.
:P

[StellaBlue]

27. hahahaha

Nah... I'm sure some other town burned to the ground as early as perhaps 1688.

[StellaBlue]

20. First mass-marketed lynching.

No, I am not kidding.

[Dr. Death]

23. First Hardees

Don't have a hometown, but first Hardees restaurant opened in town I just moved to, though the original no longer exists I'm told.

[Beware the Beast Man]

25. More Pittsburgh firsts:

-first use of the Mr. Yuk poison control sticker.
- first all-aluminum building (Alcoa building)
- first Ferris Wheel
- first NFL team to win 4 Superbowls (woo-hoo!)
- first World Series night game
- birth place of the American Federation of Labor (basically the first workers' union).
First heart/liver/kidney transplant
first motion picture theater

[yvr girl]

26. The 4 minute mile was broken in Vancouver

by Roger Bannister.

[Nikia]

28. First public building wired for electricity in the U.S.

It was a church and it was personally wired (or at least supervised) by Thomas Edison himself.
This happened in the city of my birth where I grew up, not where I live now. It was also one of the first cities with its own electric plant. It could have been a very prosperous place. It is just too bad really.

[Danmel]

29. I'm from Brooklyn NY- First suspension Bridge

The beloved Brooklyn Bridge- if I knew how to post a pic I would!

[Dukkha]

30. First Wendy's and Max & Erma's

First junior high school was the Indianola Junior High School in Columbus, Ohio. The school opened on September 7, 1909.

First metric distance markers on a state highway were put up on Interstate 71 by the Ohio Department of Transportation in 1973. Signs showed distance in both miles and kilometers.

First presidential candidate to make a campaign speech was made in 1840 when William Henry Harrison, who spoke on June 6, 1840 from the steps of the National Hotel in Columbus, Ohio.

First state School for blind students was the Ohio Institution for the Blind opened on July 4, 1837. The school was held in the Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ohio and had five pupils when it opened.

[intheflow]

31. Friendly's Ice Cream

That won't mean anything to 2/3rds or the country, but it is Wilbraham, Massachusetts' claim to fame.

Just to be consistent with the "Name a Fmous Person From Your Hometown" thread, though, I'll add that what I consider my hometown, Springfield, MA, is the birthplace of basketball.

[miss_kitty]

32. Starbuck's (ewww)

Boeing headquarters and airplane manufacturing (cloth covered wooden sea planes made down the road from me), United Airlines (a conglomeration of little Boeings that were trust busted) grunge music, UPS. First mega PC software company.
I'm sure there is other shit Seattle was first in

[Zomby Woof]

35. First covered shopping mall

Northgate started this mess with covered shopping malls that are everywhere now.

This link has lots of Seattle firsts:

http://www.see-seattle.com/seattlefirsts.htm

[miss_kitty]

36. Oh yeah. I forgot Northgate

Actually, it wasn't covered until after Southcenter started drawing away custom. Northgate was the first shopping mall though. Took over a truck farm.

Northgate was a bloody cold wind tunnel in my misspent youth
:)

Thanks for the memory and the link.

[Left Is Write]

33. The first indoor shopping mall in the United States.

Not my hometown, but a nearby city that has special connections for me.

[Zomby Woof]

34. Seattle had the first gas station

This is well known among the locals:

The world's first gas station opened in 1907 at Western Ave. and Holgate St. (Standard Oil Co. yard).

Link:

http://www.see-seattle.com/seattlefirsts.htm