Seattle's waterfront had been occupied by Native Americans for thousands of years before white settlers arrived in the mid-1800s. The natives fished for salmon, dug clams, lived relatively happy lives, and rarely entered the deep forests of huge (200-ft) trees rising straight from the saltwater shore. The American settlers started cutting down those trees right after their arrival. A sawmill was followed by a waterfront business district, warehouses, canneries, and factories; shipyards soon followed. After the Klondike Gold Rush, the port grew; trade with Alaska has been one of the mainstays of Seattle's economy ever since. In 1916 William Boeing built his first airplane in a local barn---and the rest is history. The greater Seattle area has benefitted from the presence of Boeing plants for three-quarters of a century. More recently, Microsoft and other high-tech companies have had a major impact on the local economy and on the local lifestyle, turning a mainly blue-collar region into a white-color one.