Ezra Manning Meeker (1830-1928) was born in Iowa and traveled the Oregon Trail eventually settling in what would become Puyallup, Washington, in 1862. He grew hops for brewing beer and he was known as the "Hop King of the World," as his agricultural business made him a wealthy man. Unfortunately, an infestation of hop aphids in 1891 destroyed his crops and took much of his fortune. The artist, Harriet Foster Beecher (1854-1915), traveled to the West Coast to attend the San Francisco School of Design. She moved to Seattle in 1880 and married Captain Herbert Foote Beecher. In 1881, Beecher opened what is thought to be Seattle’s first art studio. She painted Indigenous life in oils and watercolors, portraits of early white Seattle settlers, and landscapes. Beecher played a critical role in expanding the community of artists in Seattle through her work as a teacher at the Territorial University, in her home in Seattle and later in Port Townsend.