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WASHINGTON STATE ARCHIVES: PROCESSING AND RESTORING LEGISLATIVE AUDIO RECORDINGS

WASHINGTON STATE ARCHIVES: PROCESSING AND RESTORING LEGISLATIVE AUDIO RECORDINGS

Washington State Archives’ Legislative Audio Project team digitizes, converts, edits, and indexes audio from House Floor sessions, Senate Committee meetings, and other recordings associated with the state’s legislative history. This recorded media document events spanning over half a century and are available online at Washington State Archives – Digital Archives. Consequently, recording technologies, as well as the quality of these recordings, vary greatly from year to year. For example, the majority of House Floor sessions from 1969 through 1996 were…

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Frontier Justice: Convicted Walla Walla land-claim fraudsters pardoned by President Hayes

Frontier Justice: Convicted Walla Walla land-claim fraudsters pardoned by President Hayes

Archivists realize that no matter how well they think they know their collection, it still holds surprises. The Washington Territorial Court Case Files collection at the Washington State Archives Eastern Regional Branch recently delivered such a surprise. Eastern Washington University graduate student and Archives Intern Devrick Barnett has been working on the Territorial case files for a few months now. Also known as the Frontier Justice collection, these consist of the surviving case files from the Washington Territorial Courts (1853-1889)….

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History Degree and Archives Experience is the Winning Combination for Whitney Wyngaert

History Degree and Archives Experience is the Winning Combination for Whitney Wyngaert

Whitney Wyngaert has interned and worked at the Eastern Regional Branch and Digital Archives of the Washington State Archives for the past two years. She was a graduate student in the history program at Eastern Washington University where she successfully defended her graduate portfolio and received her Master’s degree in June. Wyngaert’s graduate project was to assist Digital Archivist Debbie Bahn process part of the Hanford Health Information Archive (HHIA) collection. According to Wyngaert, the HHIA “collected, preserved, and provided…

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cemetery headstones
A tribute to “Cemetery Lady” and State Archives friend Maggie Rail

A tribute to “Cemetery Lady” and State Archives friend Maggie Rail

“Some people collect spoons. Maggie Rail counts dead people,” the Seattle Times observed in a 2012 profile of a familiar, and now dearly-missed, friend of the Washington State Archives. She spent an inconceivable amount of time, even by the standards of professional archivists, doing what fellow enthusiasts call “reading” Washington and Idaho cemeteries to collect ephemeral information off headstones. Years of this work made self-proclaimed “Cemetery Lady” Maggie Rail, who died April 26 in Spokane, the largest single provider of cemetery…

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Spokane and the Great War

Spokane and the Great War

A century ago, more than 10,000 Spokane residents served in the military as soldiers, sailors, and marines in World War I. More than 180 of them didn’t come back. Now, through the diligent work of State Archives graduate assistant Joshua Van Veldhuizen with the long-neglected public records in the Spokane War Committee cards, the experiences of Spokaneites before, during, and in the wake of the First World War have been chronicled at Spokane Goes To War.  To convert the old…

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Old Newspapers
Searching old newspapers is easier thanks to Gordon

Searching old newspapers is easier thanks to Gordon

Meet Gordon Russ. He won the Washington State Digital Archives’ 200 million contest, making the closest guess of December 5th for the day Digital Archives would make its 200 millionth entry into its database. There was no science behind this guess. He picked it simply because of the fact that it was his birthday. Gordon took home an Ancestry DNA kit, a fitting gift for the history buff.  Gordon is a volunteer at the Washington State Library. Retired in 2003,…

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Honoring National Guard Day

Honoring National Guard Day

(Photos courtesy of Washington State Digital Archives) In honor of Friday being National Guard Day, here are two classic photos from our State Digital Archives featuring the Washington National Guard. The photo above is from 1911 and shows officers of the National Guard of Washington at Camp Fortson. The bottom shot, taken in 1906, features five Guard members with Company D, 2nd Infantry. The photos are from the State Digital Archives’ Military Department Photograph Collection, 1890-1975. The collection includes 500…

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From Digital Archives: Vintage pass views & autos

From Digital Archives: Vintage pass views & autos

(Photos courtesy of Washington State Digital Archives.) Anyone who drives across the Washington Cascades gets to enjoy million-dollar views and recreational opportunities of mountain pass highways that are the envy of the nation. The passes also play a crucial role in Washington’s transportation system, connecting the western and eastern sectors of the state and providing speedy farm-to-market roadways. Our Digital Archives has cool classic photos that will get you in the mood for a roadtrip down memory lane! The top…

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Remembering Mount St. Helens & May 18 eruption

Remembering Mount St. Helens & May 18 eruption

(Photo courtesy of Washington State Library.) For many Washingtonians, the eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, is one of those moments forever ingrained in collective memory. Saturday is the 33rd anniversary of the iconic mountain blowing her top. We  feature photos from our State Archives and State Library showing how the mighty mountain and nearby Spirit Lake were popular recreational spots in the years before the devastating eruption. The last photo shows the mountain sending ash thousands…

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Hooray for Digital Archives!

Hooray for Digital Archives!

Congratulations to our Digital Archives for making Family Tree Magazine’s “101 Best Websites of 2012.” Secretary of State Sam Reed said it’s a great honor for the Digital Archives team.  The Digital Archives, housed on the campus of Eastern Washington University in Cheney, was one of earliest and best digital archives in the country and frequently gets visitors from around the world. The facility opened in 2004. Jerry Handfield, the State Archivist, called the shout-out “a testament to the passion…

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