From the desk of Marlys Rudeen – Deputy State Librarian Traipsing through issues of the San Juan Islander for January-April 1907 is serious business. For the islanders are a litigious lot and there seems to be a fair amount of news regarding lawyers, courts, suits and arrests in what we think of today as an idyllic vacation spot. I’ve picked out a few events that struck me as interesting, but there is far more to be explored. Feel free to…
From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library: The term “yegg” really has some power to it and was used frequently by reporters in the course of telling the story of Blackie Carroll and Irish Slim. Melisa Sevall, a Public Services librarian who had worked in the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center Library before the WSL Central Library staff, pointed me to the reference work, Language of the Underworld / by David W. Maurer…
From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library: Three mysteries emerge from an episode back when Spokane was known as Spokane Falls, one of them concerns a ghost, another is geographic, and the last is bibliographic. No, I’m not talking about a spirit scouring the online catalog– that is called BOOlean searching (heh-heh, get it?). This series of questions emerge from the following article in the Spokane Falls Review, March 21, 1885: SPOOKS…
From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library: Somewhere long ago I read a quote from the late great Larry Fine, the “Stooge in the Middle” of the always underestimated Three Stooges. He said something to the effect that real comedy always works in threes. Either in timing, or in personalities. Library cataloger’s note: I wonder if this where the AACR2 “rule of three” came from– a Stooges fan in the rulemaking woodwork?…
From 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…
From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library: From 1909 to 1921, give or take a few years, there was a woman who created a local news stir wherever she went, but somehow evaded the radar of national media. She criss-crossed the United States on foot and went under the name “Hiking” or “Hikin’” Nell. Nearly all the information sources I can find on Nell come from newspapers around the U.S. The following…
From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library: The town of Sidney, Washington once had a newspaper with the unusual title of People’s Broadax. The first issue, dated Oct. 27, 1889, was published just before statehood, and the final issue appears to be June 6, 1891. The Washington State Library has a complete run on microfilm. It was in the very last issue I found this interesting bit of news we can add…
Hatfield and towers in Hemet, California, 1912 From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library: The reel grabbed at random this week contained The Big Bend Empire, the first newspaper established in Waterville, Washington. The issue for May 13, 1920 included this intriguing article: EPHRATA TO TRY OUT RAINMAKER “The people around the Grant county seat want rain, and in fact they are willing to try any old scheme to get it, even…
From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library: The microfilm reel grabbed at random this week contained The Puyallup Valley Tribune. The following article was found on the front page of the issue for January 14, 1922: “122-Year-Old” Newspapers Are Well Preserved “Some people are willing to admit that ‘Barnum was right.’” “Others insist on absolute proof. Many schemes have been formulated to substantiate Mr. Barnum’s observations, but one of the latest is…
From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library: This entertaining bit of creative thinking was covered by the Leavenworth Echo, March 25, 1904, page 3: WEDNESDAY’S FIRE SECOND THIS YEAR G.S. Merriam’s House and J.H. Mitchell’s Household Goods a Total Loss SNOW BALLS SAVED THE HOUSE Mrs. H.A. Anderson’s Lodging House Saved by Heroic Work “As if to show how utterly this town is at the mercy of the elements, and…