Good morning, South End neighbors. This Friday, we are putting wealth-building back where it belongs: in your hands. Whether you can spare $10, are trying to understand your credit before buying a home, or are weighing a Georgetown storefront, these three guides give you decisions you can make without paying for a sales pitch.

WealthWire Washington — Where Washington State Wealth Gets Built.

South Seattle and its neighboring communities hide some genuinely surprising histories beneath their everyday streets.

• Georgetown's brewing past: Georgetown was an independent city — not part of Seattle — until 1910, and its economy was built largely on breweries that exploited the neighborhood's natural springs. The Rainier Brewery, now a landmark, used those same springs as a cold-storage advantage long before modern refrigeration.

• Columbia City's brief fame: In the 1890s, Columbia City was platted and marketed as a rival to Seattle itself, with investors expecting it to become the dominant commercial hub of King County. It was annexed into Seattle in 1907 before that vision could materialize.

• South Park's industrial river trick: The Duwamish River running through South Park was straightened and rerouted by the Army Corps of Engineers between 1913 and 1920, shortening its length by several miles to make it more navigable for industry — permanently altering the landscape that Indigenous Duwamish people had lived alongside for thousands of years.

• Beacon Hill's secret tunnel: Beacon Hill sits atop one of Seattle's most unusual infrastructure feats — a tunnel bored through the hill for the light rail system required crews to manage an unexpected layer of running sand, significantly delaying construction and raising costs before opening in 2009.

• SeaTac's municipality youth: Despite hosting one of the busiest airports in the United States, the city of SeaTac only incorporated as an official municipality in 1990, meaning it spent decades as unincorporated King County land even as millions of travelers passed through it annually.