WA Secretary of State Blogs

Davenport Public Library – Providing Broadband Access to their community

Monday, December 1st, 2014 Posted in Articles, For Libraries, For the Public, Grants and Funding, Technology and Resources | 1 Comment »


davenportOver in Lincoln County the Davenport Public Library is doing business, but not quite as usual. In 2013 they were the beneficiaries of a Broadband Technologies Opportunity Program (BTOP) grant as well as a LSTA grant both administered by the Washington State Library. We recently heard from Katy Pike, a librarian at the Davenport library about some of the ways that implementing this grant has impacted the Davenport community. First the numbers. Their speeds used to be a slow 1.5 mbps download and .5 upload. After on average they now receive 20 mbps download and 22 mbps upload speeds. Quite a change.

Katy reports that before the grant it was impossible to run a public and staff computer on the same internet line without competing for the very limited bandwidth.  With the upgrades this is no longer true. Other benefits to the patrons are that many people in the community now use the library computers for filing tax returns, applying for DSHS benefits, career development, online education, and information or entertainment needs. And because of the broadband the Davenport Library now has the capacity to run Microsoft IT Academy from its public computers which will allow the local residents to increase their computer skills, which hopefully will lead to better jobs.

But the best part of the story is not about numbers but about people. Katy told us three of the kind of stories we love to hear, and they seemed like stories to share.

As soon as the library was set up with higher speeds, a teen girl in our community was able to utilize DPL’s internet to meet her homework and entertainment needs. Originally, the internet speed was not sufficient enough to load online programs that were accessible to visually impaired patrons. Now, this young lady uses the library’s downloadable book service and Wi-Fi.

Our fire station across the street from DPL utilized the library’s Wi-Fi when retraining volunteer firefighters in CPR/First Aid. (It was needed to access the instructor’s online education materials.)

The sewing business next door to DPL is utilizes the Wi-Fi to teach crafting classes and to conduct other business transactions.

Katy said that while the library is open only sixteen hours a week, the Wi-Fi extends beyond the walls of the library. People often use the library’s Wi-Fi just by sitting in their cars after hours. All in all, it sounds like the library’s broadband is having a wide range effect on the Davenport community.

Finally a quote from Katy, “E-rate, the equipment awarded from the 2013 Broadband grant, and technology expertise from the Washington State Library allowed the Davenport Public Library to successfully participate with the BTOP grant. The [Davenport] library doesn’t have consistent tech support and doesn’t have the necessary infrastructure to have participated without guidance from the Washington State Library.”

The Washington State Library is working diligently to help support the libraries and by extension the residents of Washington State. Thanks to Katy for sharing her story with us. How has the State Library impacted your community?

Mr. Fairweather Goes to Olympia

Thursday, March 28th, 2013 Posted in Articles, For the Public, Random News from the Newspapers on Microfilm Collection, State Library Collections | Comments Off on Mr. Fairweather Goes to Olympia


FairweatherFrom the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

Although the word “snarky” wasn’t really used in 1889, the concept was there– as we shall see.

In this case study we should start with the 1889 Constitutional Convention held in Olympia, where delegates from across Washington Territory met in order to hammer out a guiding document. When I read through the WSL copy of The Journal of the Washington State Constitutional Convention, 1889, I find an entry for July 17 describing a proposition submitted by a generally quiet gentleman from Lincoln County with the literary name of Handford Wentworth Fairweather:

“Relating to Bribery of Officers. By Mr. Fairweather. Referred to Committee on Legislative Department.”

H.W. Fairweather, 37 years old, was a former railroad executive turned banker from Sprague. You might recall his name as a narrator in our blogpost about Amore de Cosmos.

Apparently Mr. Fairweather’s action at the Convention amused the folks back home. The random reel this week is from The Wilbur Register for July 26, 1889. They just don’t write political commentary like this these days. I have tried to keep the original spelling and punctuation as true as possible while still keeping it readable:

Fairweather 3

“At last Delegate Fairweather has been heard from. Lincoln county, through her delegate, has become famous, and the delegate won renown, which handed down to posterity, in generations to come, will shine with such brilliance as to illume a world with its glory, until the bones of all the honored dead now in peaceful repose at Westminister shall grow restless and turn green with envy.”

“Delegates from other counties might devote their entire attention to such unimportant, common place matters as schemes for state, county, and municipal government, legislative and executive powers, the bill of rights, revenue and taxation, or the judiciary to the exclusion of others of such vital importance that a state government formed without them would surely prove uninduring. No such neglect is to be charged to this renown member from Lincoln. To his fertile brain is to be ascribed the keystone plank of the constitution without which it never could have proven durable.”

“Mr. Fairweather has figured considerably in legislative and public affairs. In such matters his is the wisdom of experience. He has necessarily stood by, a disinterested spectator of course, and witnessed the corruption, bribery and dishonesty that creeps into legislative bodies, prostitutes public servants, pervades our elections and even contaminates railroad employees. Of course there are men who have taken to this state of things like ducks to water or swine to a swill barrel. But not so with Mr. Fairweather. Oh no! not he. He has revalted at the sight. His pure and lofty character became horrified at these spectacle and turned from them with loathing and disgust. That a nature such as Mr. Fairweather’s should grow restless while his country was polluted with such enormities is not to be wondered at. Indeed to his sensitive nature it was extremely cruel. Perhaps those acquainted with Mr. Fairweather have observed an anxious troubled expression lurking on his saintly countenance, but now, the cause of its existence having disappeared serenity and peace once more there reigns supreme.”

“There is a day distinguished from all others in the life of every man. Mr. Fairweather had his day in the territorial constitutional convention last week.”

“‘Mr. President,’ rang out in a clear tone, and the richness that sounded in that voice was conclusive to those who listened there was nothing of the spurious about it. The convention was at once hushed in rapt attention and the gaze of every member was directed toward the member from Lincoln county, who stood in his place, his towering symetrical form the impregnable fortress of the keenest sense of honor, while the frank, open countenance, for which he is noted, was directed at the presiding officer. The occasion will long remain fresh in the recollection of those who witnessed it as a momentus event. There stood Mr. Fairweather, The delicate flush on his pale cheeks proclaimed the humility, bashfullness and retiring reserve that had sought and found seclusion there. His large, black eyes, the realms of sincerity, whose borders of pearl like purity the ideal madonna has yet to equal, that appear as the entrance to caverns stored to overflowing with the gems of honesty and saintly integrity, that shown forth in a hallow of glory compared to the low, calculating, cunning discernable in the small, keen opticts of several surrounding colleagues.”

Fairweather 2

“Then when Mr. Fairweather sent to the clerk’s desk and had read a provision to be embodied in the constitution prohibiting bribery and bribe taking by public servants the blow of the mighty avenger of political corruption fell. Think of this great blessing, Mr. Fairweather secures to your future state, fellow citizens. The state of Washington is not to be contaminated by this form of public corruption because it will be prohibited by the constitution and to this member from Lincoln county is to be ascribed all honor and glory.”

“Every member present recognized the great importance of this provision. As Mr. Fairweather took his seat numerous were the glances of admiration directed toward him. For so far-reaching a stroke a statescraft he would have, without doubt, been the unanimous choice of the convention had a vote then and there been taken, for U.S. Senator. Still here and there were noticeable members not at all pleased. The good and righteous Judge Turner winced a little as his recollection was carried back to former campaigns and future necessities in Spokane county politics. President Hoyt closely scrutinized Mr. Fairweather to ascertain if anything of a personal nature was intended. Delegate Moore remembering the ‘personal explaination’ a heartless reporter had compelled him to make, by casting base reflections on his recently received consignment of Kentucky’s choicest brands, could not suppress a preceptable quivering of the lips, while Tom Griffiths, constantly on the look out, was not a little chagrined to think so favorable an opportunity to cover himself with glory and bask in the rays of public attention had escaped him.”

“Had the dome of the capitol been otherwise than secure and durable without doubt a dove would have descended, with a similar message to that conveyed to John the Baptist as he stood in the midst of the Jordan over eighteen hundred years ago. Had Mr. Fairweather at that moment murmured ‘it is finished’ and expired, as did that good man from Calvery’s Cross, all the hosts of the earth, even unto the present day, would have proven unequal to the task of preventing his assent to the realms of eternal bliss.”

Fairweather 11

“After so worthy an occurrence and historical event undoubtedly the convention immediately adjourned for the day in commemoration thereof, but upon this point our information saith not.”

H.W. Fairweather went on to be elected to the very first Washington State Senate and served one term. A essay he wrote about the history of the Northern Pacific Railroad can be found in the Washington Historical Quarterly v. 10, no. 2 (Apr. 1919).

Creston Celebrates the Capture of Harry Tracy, “The Last Desperado”

Thursday, July 19th, 2012 Posted in Articles, For the Public, Random News from the Newspapers on Microfilm Collection, State Library Collections | Comments Off on Creston Celebrates the Capture of Harry Tracy, “The Last Desperado”


Random News from the Newspapers on Microfilm Collection: Creston Celebrates the Capture of Harry Tracy, “The Last Desperado”

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

So this week when I grabbed a reel at random from the Newspapers on Microfilm Collection, I found myself viewing the Creston News, a paper covering the happenings in the area of Creston, Washington from 1901-1941. As fate would have it, within a minute or two I accidentally stumbled across an article covering what was probably the most famous event ever to take place in this Lincoln County neighborhood– the capture of Harry Tracy, one of the most notorious killers in Washington State history.

Tracy was a career criminal who has been regarded as the last of his kind by several historians. He was an outlaw who performed his misdeeds on horseback and crossed paths in the course of his journeys with authentic bad men of the Old West. His biography has yet to be fully sorted out, thanks to a wave of sensationalistic dime novels that followed immediately after his death. Jim Dullenty points out the most persistent myth concerning this murderer in his book Harry Tracy, the Last Desperado (1989), “Harry Tracy was almost certainly not a member of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch though he has been reported as such so many times it is nearly accepted as fact. It is true, however, that at some point during his travels in the West he may have been in Wyoming or Colorado long enough to have met some members of the gang. The idea that Tracy was a member of the Wild Bunch is the single hardest myth to knock down primarily because so many respected writers have made the claim.”

However, calling him “King of Bandits” was probably an accurate regional description of him at the time of this news story. No other criminal in the Northwest was as famous in 1902.

Rather than being a representative of the Old West outlaw, Harry Tracy’s sociopathic resume of perhaps as many as two dozen murders really anticipated the modern rampage killer. After his escape from the Oregon State Penitentiary, his ability to elude authorities for two months terrorized the Pacific Northwest as he killed anyone obstructing his way, starting with three guards at the prison. But his fugitive flight came to an end August 6, 1902, in a farm field a little southeast of Creston.

This article comes from the Creston News, August 8, 1902. It includes a truly chilling graphic of Tracy’s mug shot. I have not seen this piece cited in any of the Tracy bibliographies:

 TRACY’S EXIT.

 The Bold Outlaw, Surprised and Mortally Injured, Commits Suicide.

 THE GLORY IS DUE TO CRESTON MEN ALONE.


 “Harry Tracy, after eluding the officers of Oregon and Washington, officers credited with courage and capability, for two months, finally came to the terminus of his remarkable career at the hands of five resolute men of the village of Creston.”

“It may have been fate that led the outlaw into Lincoln county and into the vicinity of Creston; it was not fate that delivered him into the hands of this particular band of avengers of his many misdeeds. These men went about their work as others who failed should have done. When they received information of the whereabouts of their man they immediately drove to the neighborhood disposed of their team and made a direct approach on the rendezvous of the bandit without beating about the bush and consequent loss of time, with the opportunity it might afford their man to learn of their approach and prepare to defend himself. As it was managed, he was surprised and taken at a disadvantage. The result was an easy victory. It is just as well to state at this juncture that it would be difficult to pick up in any given locality five men better fitted for the work done than were this quintet, C.A. Straub, Dr. Lanter, Maurice Smith, Joe Morrisson and Frank Lillengren. They possess the courage, self-possession and knowledge of the use of the gun necessary for the undertaking.”

The Story.

“The story of the tragedy, as briefly as we can tell it, is this. On Sunday afternoon Tracy, who was camped and eating his supper on a ridge near the Eddy ranch, south of Fellows’ siding, which is eight miles east of Creston, invited a boy named Goldfinch, who was passing, to stop and take supper with him. This was declined, and he was then ordered to go ahead to the Eddy place and announce that Tracy was coming. The program was carried out as ordered. When the place was reached the latter took charge of matters in characteristic way, the details of which go beyond our present limits of space, but which have been given thru the Spokane dailies. The boy was allowed to go with the threat that if he told of Tracy’s whereabouts before Wednesday the latter would kill both the Eddys and Goldfinch.”

“Monday Tracy assisted the Eddy’s in their farm work, took a bath and shaved himself. The boy went back Monday evening to see if the Eddys were still safe. He was allowed to go again, and the next morning came to Creston and telegraphed a long story to Sheriff Gardner at Davenport. He attempted to keep the matter from people here, but it got out and the party was promptly organized and left a little after noon.”

“Arrived at Mrs. Anderson’s ranch, two miles north of Eddy’s ranch, they put up their team and walked acrossthe country. They came to the ranch undiscovered, and from a rise of ground saw Tracy in the barnlot. The first impulse was to shoot and investigate afterward. But the possibility of making a mistake caused them to hesitate. Two of the party then went to Mr. Eddy, who was cutting hay in a field near the barn, for information. They were informed that the man seen was Tracy. They then boldly approached in open, but undiscovered, until within fifty yards of Tracy who was helping Eddy, who meanwhile had driven his mower into the barn lot, to unhitch his team. They covered him with their guns and commanded hands up. Tracy instantly stepped behind Eddy and asked who these men were. Eddy had not seen the men in that direction, and Tracy pointed them out. Eddy said he supposed they were hunters. He then got a horse between himself and the guns and commanded Eddy to lead the horse to the barn door. This was a shelter while reaching his own weapons, which were in the barn. When near the door he jumped into the barn and soon emerged on the opposite side with rifle and revolver. He fired two or three shots at his pursuers, but without effect, and then ran down a draw toward a cover of rocks and bushes, followed by a shower of lead. He dodged behind a projecting rock and again returned a few shots, some of which came uncomfortably close but did no harm. Then he threw himself into a field of wheat and crawled away, the men firing a volley into the grain whenever they saw it shaken by movements.”

“Then another shot was heard, and the rest was silence. The desperate man had sent a ball from his revolver thru his own brain. It was now near dusk.”

“The field was guarded thru the night, and Wednesday morning the trail was taken up again. A little way into the field Tracy was found cold in death. The discovery was made by Smith and Lanter, who started at the rock. His right hand grasped his rifle, while the left, the thumb on the trigger, was under his face. A ghastly hole just above the bridge of the nose, torn by a 45-caliber ball, told the story of the end of the tragedy, the fall of the curtain.”

“Examination showed that Tracy had suffered two injuries, either of which would no doubt soon have proved fatal. The right leg was broken above the ankle by one shot, and the tibial artery of the same leg was cut by another. This wound, without surgical care, would have caused death from loss of blood. He had vainly attempted to stop the hemorrhage by buckling a strap tightly round the limb.”

“Thus ended the unequal battle of one man against mankind, or more specifically against the officers of several counties of two states. The man is not an ordinary character who has eluded for two months men and blood hounds, living a life that could not be but one of constant and nervous strain as well as privation.”

 Where Honor Is Due

 “The honors for the capture of the outlaw belong to Creston, and her alone. The other men in pursuit were earnest and vigilant no doubt, but they were miles away when the battle was fought and won. Tracy had been dead for hours before Sheriff Gardner and his deputies arrived at the scene. Our men could not in justice to themselves or to anyone else, admit their claims to any participation in the fight, or as contributing anything to its success. And Sheriff Gardner, after some parley, agreed to acknowledge their claim to the higher authorities. The body was then turned over to him and he had it conveyed to Davenport where it was prepared for shipment to Salem, Oregon, and was viewed by hundreds of the curious from all available points. The coroner, Dr. Moore, held the remains until yesterday afternoon, when they were turned over to deputy Straub. Sheriff Gardner made a determined effort to get possession of the body, but found himself up against the men who got Tracy, and who stood by their rights. Serious trouble was probably avoided by disinterested parties who prevailed on Gardner to abandon his attempt.”

“The body was taken to Oregon last night in charge of Straub, Lanter, Smith and Sheriff Cudihee, representing Governor McBride.”

Between the lines in that bit at the end about who had possession of the body was the question of who would get the reward money. Naturally the issue went to court, with the Creston citizen posse winning the case in 1903 instead of the Sheriff.

A wave of Harry Tracy pulp novels surfaced after he died. Several of these are part of the Washington State Library collection, along with serious later works by historians. My favorite work about the Tracy capture is “I Touched Harry Tracy’s Corpse” by Charles M. Anderson, M.D., an article in the quarterly The Pacific Northwesterner v. 17, no. 4 (Fall 1973). Anderson gives a colorful firsthand account of the scene in Davenport when Tracy was killed.