D3S -
the history of hatcheries is a pretty broad topic, you may wish to narrow your discussion some. Hatcheries include not only salmon and steelhead but other "fish" inlcuded trout, various warm water species, sturgeon, clams, oyster, a number of salt water species (an interesting case is the white sea bass in Cali.), etc.

Hatchery history is much older than that in this state - As I recall the first hatchery in the State was near Chinook at about 1895 - a number of hatchery/egg take station were developed over the next decade including several in Puget Sound. The first efforts were federal.

In discussing the success or lack thereof one should be careful to define what the purpose of the program was/is.

Once you decide on the breath of your interst a quick search on Google or a visit to the UW fishery library should produce some interesting reading though you may have to sort through a number of documents which may well present conflicting views/opinions. If you take the time to look at the full range of info you will be in a position to developed an informed opinion based on your values. Or you take the easy out suggested by the FishNDoc and rely on one person's thinking on the topic.

Tight lines
S malma