On Wednesday, January 3rd, 1923, Cowlitz County Commissioner-elect Benjamin Barr sat in the back seat of his vehicle, when his driver – Arleigh Millard – felt an unsettling shudder through the springs in his seat. Miller glanced nervously at Barr through the rear-view mirror, unable to move the vehicle forward. The pair were stuck atop the Allen Street Bridge here in Kelso, Washington, when seconds later it all came
Nestled just a stone’s throw beneath the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington lies an unassuming National Historic Site filled with stories worth telling. On a recent work trip to the south end of Skamania County, I stumbled upon this great heritage destination. If you’re looking to escape a bustling city without traveling too far into the void of central Washington, Skamania County is an excellent
We need volunteers with a passion for local history to fill two open positions on the Historical Commission, which provides leadership in raising awareness of Lacey’s history and preservation of local historic resources.
With a name like “Fort Spokane” you would expect this 136-year-old former U.S Army installation to be somewhere in the vicinity of its namesake. Then again, a lot of things about Washington aren’t always as they seem.
We’ve all seen those grainy, black and white films of immigrants packed shoulder to shoulder on steamships pouring into America in the early 1900s. You can see them pass the Statue of Liberty and watch as they file out of the ships and into the long lines awaiting them before they are permitted entry into the United States. But we often overlook the fact that scenes like this were taking
Any Washingtonian worth their basalt has – at one time or another – driven through Vantage during the long drive from Seattle to Spokane. Most of us breeze across the bridge and don’t look back as we climb the hills on the opposite side, dodging crawling semis and hoping our radiators don’t overheat. But if you’re more interested in your journey than your destination, you may have taken the time to
Believe it or not, there are actually people who don’t know the Columbia River has another side. Some of those folks have admitted as much to Earlene Sullivan, Executive Director at the Greater Goldendale Area Chamber of Commerce, who unfortunately understands the sentiment. Interstate 84, the fastest way to get inland from the sprawling, urban metropolis of Portland, zips along the northern border of Oregon…the south side of the Columbia River. Many a Pacific Northwesterner are familiar with
The ability to entice visitors to your corner of Washington may lie in your area’s unique local history. Statistics show that more and more people are citing historical—whether it be natural, cultural or heritage tourism as the reason for their travel. You need to stay on the forefront of this emerging trend…but how? What is heritage tourism? The National Trust for Historic Preservation defines heritage tourism as “traveling to experience
In southwestern Washington where the mighty Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean are a string of sites that no historical tourist or lifelong resident of our state should leave unvisited. Between Hungry Harbor and the Long Beach Peninsula are three places that hold not only state but national significance. They are the three places that Captain Meriwether Lewis, Lieutenant William Clark and the entire Corps of Discovery expedition met with
And so have Brewster, Twisp, Malott, and Methow, just to name a few of the resilient communities within north-central Washington. As the Carlton Complex of fires continues to ravage the dry, rolling hills along the Columbia and Okanogan Rivers between Wenatchee and Omak, it can be easy to succumb to the notion that all is lost forever in the wasteland that is still only 50-percent contained. However, these communities of