- North Bend — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
North Bend is a town in King County’s upper Snoqualmie Valley, the ancestral home of the Snoqualmie Tribe. The site, on the banks of the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River, was astride the old Indian trails over the Cascade passes. The first non-Indian settler arrived in the Snoqualmie Valley in 1858. The townsite was platted in 1889 by William H. Taylor (1853-1941) when he learned that a Seattle railroad wanted to establish a station on his farmland. The townsite’s original name was Snoqualmie, but the railroad asked Taylor to change it because another town just four miles away had the name Snoqualmie Falls. So the name was changed first to Mountain View and finally to North Bend, since it was on a bend in the river. North Bend became an agricultural and logging center and was incorporated in 1909. From the beginning, the town attracted tourists because of its spectacular setting at the foot of massive Mt. Si. It has long been a key stop for motorists on the way to and from Snoqualmie Pass, first on the Sunset Highway and today on Interstate 90. North Bend has recently evolved into a prosperous bedroom community for Seattle and its eastside suburbs. As of 2010, the population of North Bend was 5,731.
- Messier 21 (Wikipedia)
Messier 21 or M21, also designated NGC 6531 or Webb’s Cross, is an open cluster of stars located to the north-east of Sagittarius in the night sky, close to the Messier objects M20 to M25 (except M24). It was discovered and catalogued by Charles Messier on June 5, 1764. This cluster is relatively young and tightly packed. A few blue giant stars have been identified in the cluster, but Messier 21 is composed mainly of small dim stars. With a magnitude of 6.5, M21 is not visible to the naked eye; however, with the smallest binoculars it can be easily spotted on a dark night. The cluster is positioned near the Trifid nebula (NGC 6514), but is not associated with that nebulosity. It forms part of the Sagittarius OB1 association.
