Dorothy Stimson Bullitt - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

Dorothy Bullitt died on June 27, 1989 at the age of 97. She was interred at Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park. By the time of her death, King Broadcasting owned six television stations in four states, and radio stations in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, as well as a cable TV company, broadcast sales companies, and mobile production facilities; its estimated $300–400 million market value made it one of the most valuable privately held media companies on the West Coast. Bullitt bequeathed ownership of King Broadcasting to her daughters, Priscilla "Patsy" Bullitt Collins and Harriet Bullitt, who sold the properties to the Providence Journal Company in 1991 in a sale brokered by Ancil Payne. All three Bullitt children have donated substantial amounts of money and time to the Bullitt Foundation, founded by Dorothy in 1952 with a mission to protect the natural environment of the Pacific Northwest, and to other charitable organizations and causes. Patsy Bullitt Collins, who died in 2003, was ranked 16th in that year's "Slate 60" list of the nation's largest charitable donors for bequests to the Nature Conservancy, CARE USA, and the Trust for Public Land totaling $71.1 million.

Today, King Broadcasting is a subsidiary of Belo Corporation, based in Dallas, Texas, which still runs KING-TV. Bullitt's original KING AM station changed owners, frequencies, and call letters several times in the 1990s; its old 1090 kHz frequency is currently occupied by progressive talk station KFNQ. When the Bullitt sisters sold the company to the Providence Journal in 1991, they donated KING-FM to a nonprofit organization formed by the Seattle Opera, the Seattle Symphony, and the Corporate Council for the Arts. KING-FM still broadcasts classical music in Seattle today, having never changed formats in almost 60 years of operation.