If you had ancestors who lived in the Vancouver area in the late 1860s and you want to learn more about what life there was like back then, the Washington State Library has just the thing for you.

The State Library has added an early Vancouver newspaper to its online offerings. The Vancouver Register, from 1865-1869, is the library’s latest addition to the Historical Newspapers Online Project, which makes available the state’s earliest territorial newspapers to anyone with an Internet connection.

Library staff and enthusiastic volunteers have worked on the Vancouver Register addition. Among the news topics found in the Register included the invention of velocipedes (those forerunners to bicycles that had HUGE front wheels), the spread of the Order of Good Templars (a temperance organization), the idea of a bridge between Vancouver and Portland, and an editorial promoting “Same Pay to Man or Woman for Same Amount of Labor.”

It joins Olympia’s first papers, The Columbian, The Washington Pioneer, and The Pioneer and Democrat, that cover 1852-1857. Also included in the collection are historical newspapers from the cities of Lynden, Port Townsend, Seattle, Spokane, Steilacoom, Walla Walla and Yakima. Additional newspapers will be brought online as they are scanned and indexed.

The newspaper Web site, which is free of charge, was purposely designed for students, genealogists, and historians to easily access historical information. It provides viewers with the ability to search by keywords, dates, subjects, and personal names.

To view the newspapers, please click here.