From the desk of Evan Robb

The Washington Rural Heritage initiative is pleased to announce several new digital collections–the result of a year’s worth of hard work on the part of four public libraries receiving 2008/2009 LSTA grant funding from WSL. We’ll be featuring material from our new collections all this week.

Our first new addition came from Whitman County Library, which continued to add to Whitman County Heritage for its 2008 grant project. The Library’s primary focus was on the community of St. John, Washington–its early citizens, schools, and surrounding family farms. Harvest scenes figure predominantly in the new collection, and do a good job of documenting the evolution of wheat farming techniques in Eastern Washington. A few of our favorite images include:

• John McCance’s first horse drawn combine.
• Steam engine used in harvesting operations.
• Front Street in St. John, WA. ca.1890.
• Cowboy Charlie Hitchings on his horse.
• Alix Karen Scheidmiller on her horse.

Following upon two successful years of digitization work, this grant project involved Whitman County Library’s first foray into “community digitization”–reaching out to library patrons for historic material held in their own private collections. Whitman County Library was recently awarded another digitization grant for 2009-2010, and will be expanding upon that model, uncovering hidden treasures throughout Whitman County.

Take a look at the entire Whitman County Heritage collection here. Or view all of Whitman County Library’s 2008 grant material here.