Ghosts of Liberty come to life
Liberty – the tiny central Washington town that is slowly becoming one of my favorite places in our great state – has more to offer than just fascinating history and exceptional outdoor recreation opportunities. In fact, “Washington’s only living ghost town” (as it’s known) is home to one of the most interesting “ghosts” I’ve ever met. This one’s name is Wes Engstrrom.
Our introduction began when I got a phone call out of the blue from Gaard Swanson. You may recognize that name. He’s the host of Seattle Refined, a magazine-style program on KOMO-TV. He was shooting an episode that focused on “ghost towns” within a days drive from Seattle, and stumbled upon my blog post extolling the virtues of Liberty. After a brief conversation where I brought him up to speed on the history of the town, Gaard not only thanked me but asked if I was willing to meet him and his photographer in Liberty to shoot part of the episode.
Needless to say, I was excited. This blog, as you may know, is dedicated to sharing the history, heritage, and culture of the great state of Washington with the world. And what better platform from which to do that than one of the most watched television channels in the state? I arranged the details with Gaard, my wife, and my boss, and took the day off to drive up to Liberty.
However, being a big fan of the historic mining town and appearing as an expert on its history are two vastly different things. So I needed to bone up on my Liberty history. Fortunately, the first place I looked had a wealth of information…the Washington State Library.
The WSL is the oldest government institution in the state, dating back to the first territorial days. Located in Tumwater, the WSL houses an impressive collection of books about Washington, for Washingtonians, and written by Washingtonians. It is also the repository of hundreds of thousands of historic state newspaper archives dating back to the pre-territorial era. It was exactly where I knew I would find what I needed to be knowledgeable on camera.
I checked out a number of titles from the WSL, including Spirit of Liberty: The History of a Gold Mining Camp and its School, which was a fascinating read written by a local author. And imagine my surprise when I turned to the last page and found not only the author’s e-mail address but physical address and phone number. He lived right in the heart of Liberty!
I couldn’t pass on this opportunity, and immediately picked up the phone. But what were the odds that he’d still be at that location with that phone number? Or have that old e-mail address? Or still be alive, for that matter? Well, as it turns out, all four were accurate. He answered the phone, and suddenly I was speaking directly with Wes Engstrom, writer, historian, amateur geologist, and one of Liberty’s most animated “ghosts.”
Calling someone out of the blue to explain that not only were you going to be in their town the next day, but will be knocking on their door with a television reporter and photographer in tow is not always met with welcome. And many of the dozen-or-so permanent residents of Liberty reside there specifically because they don’t want to be found, let alone featured on television. But Wes was immediately gracious, accommodating, and willing to assist. This was going to work perfectly.
Wes and Carole’s house on the hill.
I arranged to meet Gaard and his photographer in Liberty around 11, but I wanted to spend some one-on-one time with Wes beforehand. I arrived in town around 10, and knew exactly which house was going to be his. The last time I was in Liberty, I remarked about the size of the big house on the hill, noting that someone who loves Liberty must have built their new home in the style of the other old buildings. Sure enough, that home belonged to Wes and his wife, Carole.
I spent the better part of an hour getting to know Wes and Carole, and subtly trying to reassure them that I wasn’t some stranger who had tracked them down for nefarious purposes (just that I was a stranger who had tracked them down for educational purposes). It turned out that Wes had written and self-published a number of books about Liberty, only a few of which were in the State Library. Without me even asking, he gave me a CD filled with pictures and PDFs of his completed works, along with printouts of his latest research.
I had obviously found the right guy.
When Gaard and the photographer finally arrived just after noon, they didn’t have much time for pleasantries. I’d traveled 140 miles to Liberty from Olympia, and it took a shade under two and a half hours to get there. Liberty is 100 miles from Seattle and takes about an hour and a half. I introduced them to Wes and we got about the business of making television.
Wes and I showed them the homestead of Thomas Meagher, the original pioneer who settled there to mine for gold and after whom the original town – Meaghersville – was named. We took them through Mamie Caldwell’s old house, which has been mostly restored and is the closest thing to a museum that Liberty has. We took them around Wes’ house, which was built on the exact spot where the Liberty schoolhouse used to stand before it burned to the ground in the 1960s.
I spoke on camera about this blog and my reasons for writing about Liberty and its history, and I personally showed Gaard how to work the horizontal arrastra. Visitors today can still turn the giant wheel, dragging heavy chains bolted to huge river rocks to recreate the pulverizing of crystalline gold. Gaard was fascinated by the device and seemed to be truly interested in its mechanics.
As the day wore on, Gaard and his photographer noted that they had to get back to Seattle to upload and begin editing the video. We said our goodbyes and Gaard gave me a rough idea of when the segment would air. I was excited. Finally, some Seattle exposure for my blog and the Washington State history about which I write!
After three weeks of incessantly checking the Seattle Refined website, I finally called Gaard to ask him why it wasn’t posted yet. He said it had aired the previous week, but they hadn’t been able to upload it to the site yet, and to check back the next day by searching for the term “ghost towns.” I followed his instructions, and finally found the video I’d been longing to see.
Imagine my surprise when I realized that Gaard had cut me out of it entirely.
It’s almost exactly 280 miles from Seattle to Spokane, the same distance I had traveled from Olympia to Liberty and back again in the same day. I’d burned an 8-hour vacation day to help create this story for KOMO-TV. It happened to be the same day a vicious windstorm tore through the south sound, knocking over a fence at my house and bringing trees and power lines down all throughout Olympia, Lacey, and Tumwater. Instead of being at home reassuring my family, I was returning from Liberty, where a KOMO reporter had asked me to meet him for an interview. If there were still cutting rooms in the TV industry, my interview would have ended up on the cutting room floor.
On the bright side, I got to meet Wes and Carole, two wonderful people who share a love of Washington State and the Swauk Mining District. And time spent learning more about our great state is always time well spent. Even if unrefined reporters happen to be tagging along.