I recently completed a monumental project that (thanks to COVID) has taken over a year to complete. The Cowlitz County Historical Society received a grant from Cowlitz County Tourism to produce an audio tour that narrates the drive from Castle Rock, WA, to the Johnston Ridge Observatory at the end of State Route 504. As drivers undertake the journey along Spirit Lake Memorial Highway, the tour entertains and educates them
I recently had the opportunity to visit Lopez Island in San Juan County. If you have the chance, do stop by the Lopez Island Historical Museum in Lopez Village. You can learn all about the story of the Lopezians (including how to pronounce that word…”low-PEE-shuns”) and see pictures from the island’s past – including this one of their first ferry terminal. One word of advice, however. Despite an eternity as
I’ve always thought that was a strange name for a state park. After all, not too many people may even know what a lime kiln is, let alone how they played a role in developing Washington’s history. As it turns out, the lime kilns on San Juan Island are significant for a number of reasons (which I’ve detailed in another blog post), but the site of the island’s lighthouse within
It’s the 41st anniversary of the most devastating volcanic eruption in modern U.S. history, and since we didn’t get to commemorate it properly for its 40th (thanks to COVID), I’m posting this new Juxtapose composite with links to previous MSH material I’ve written. If you get the chance, get up to the mountain this year to experience the awesome and terrible power of nature, and learn about how the mountain
Near a very busy intersection in the Olympia-Tumwater area sits the base of what was once an oft-photographed icon of a bygone era in local history. Located at the site of the old Olympia Brewing Company headquarters is the base of a fountain that once greeted not only visitors coming in from Interstate 5 and Highway 101, but employees of the massive brewery complex who would pass the fountain on
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | RSS | More
Just after one o’clock in the morning, on a frigid, starless night in March 1910, more than a hundred souls aboard Great Northern Railway’s Spokane Local No. 25, a passenger train, and Fast Mail Train No. 27 slept tightly bundled in their cars. They’d been stuck near Wellington in King County, Washington, for almost a week…waiting as railroad crews attempted to clear the tracks of snow, which had been accumulating
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | RSS | More
Two weeks after Valentine’s Day, 2001, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the south sound region of Washington state near where the Nisqually River empties into Puget Sound. It was nearly 11 a.m. on a Wednesday, and the state legislature was in full swing. The violent tremors lasted nearly a minute, rocking the state capital of Olympia and the nearby cities of Lacey, Tumwater, Nisqually, DuPont, and Shelton. The shocks registered
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | RSS | More
Born Esther Pariseau in 1823, the third of 12 children, in a farmhouse three miles from Saint-Martin, Laval, Quebec, this Canadian Religious Sister grew up to lead members of her congregation to the Pacific Northwestern United States where they established a network of schools and healthcare facilities to serve the American settlers in that new and remote part of the country. She was the first female architect in British Columbia,
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | RSS | More
Marcus and Narcissa Whitman were Christian missionaries who left their homes in upstate New York and traveled with another missionary couple, Henry and Eliza Spalding, to what was then called Oregon Country in 1836. Their mission? To “Christianize” Indians. In fact, Oregon wasn’t even a territory yet. The United States government didn’t have any programs in Oregon Country, which at the time consisted of the present-day states of Washington, Oregon,
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | RSS | More
Slade Gorton was an esteemed intellectual, an accomplished attorney, a shrewd political opponent, an Air Force colonel, a baseball nut…and one of the greatest public servants Washington State has ever known. After 92 years of working on behalf of others, the nonagenarian solon died last month, on August 19th. If you’ve never heard of Slade Gorton, you’ll get a great idea of who the man was by reading his obituary