From the desk of Nikki Chiampa

The Centralia Daily Hub began as an Independent newspaper on September 29, 1913 with editor George A. Dew and publisher Madison “Elsy” Ellsworth Cue at the helm. The other publisher of the paper was the Hub Printing Company, Inc., an enterprise of which Cue was president. The Daily Hub was issued every afternoon with the exception of Sundays, reporting on both international and local news. Within a year of its inception, circulation of the paper had risen to approximately 1,141 issues, with distribution in Centralia and surrounding towns. During this time, Dew left his post at the paper and was succeeded by Victor Jackson. When Jackson left the paper in 1915, Cue ended up taking on the editorial role as well.

Significant events, including WW1, Women’s Suffrage, and Prohibition initially appeared as headlines on the front page. As time wore on, however, the newspaper shifted its focus to cover more socially inclined news on a local scale. The Daily Hub often took on a moral stance and eschewed objective reporting in its articles. When referring to the “drys,” those fighting for Prohibition, the paper describes the group as the “better element of this city.” In contrast, it berates the “clique” of local bankers and businessmen, declaring that these men defrauded the city during Centralia’s financial crisis of 1914. The Daily Hub remained righteous even when the topic was not political, expressing outrage at provocative movie posters on display at a local theater. The paper claims that “those whose mission it is to uplift, protest, and help to a better living” were being careless and slothful with their duties.

By its third year of publication, The Daily Hub was boasting of its “clear conscience” and the enemies it has gained, labeling their opponents as the “lawless and predatory” populace of Centralia. However, staff of The Daily Hub were not immune to the consequences of their antagonism. In one case, Vera Reynolds, a staff writer, was arraigned in court for libel. She alleged in one of her articles that prosecuting attorney Chester Alan Studebaker and Sheriff Thomas C. Foster were “laid out” by Frank Nehring, whom they were attempting to arrest. Even The Daily Hub’s publisher, M.E. Cue, was tried in court multiple times and charged in 1916 for throwing a pig of linotype metal at Joe Lucas, a local theater manager.

After only five years and with 2,228 papers in circulation, The Daily Hub officially ceased publication on March 30, 1918. It was succeeded by The Centralia Evening Hub, which ran for the month of April that same year. Immediately thereafter, it transformed into the Republican paper, The Centralia Daily Hub, which was issued from May 1, 1918 until publication was suspended on April 10, 1919. During these rapid changes, M.E. Cue and his company remained as publishers up to the final issue of the paper’s demise. Although the Centralia Daily Hub announced plans to return from its “sabbatical,” it had no successors.

The Centralia Daily Hub along with many other early Washington newspapers can be found on our Washington Digital Newspapers website.

The Washington State Library (WSL) has compiled fact sheets to illustrate funding and support from WSL to libraries across the state. We do this annually organized by legislative and congressional district. Our Congressional District fact sheets are now available online and we expect to have Legislative District fact sheets posted on our website by the end of February.

The Washington State Library is the only agency in Washington that is specifically designated by law to assist libraries and to ensure that residents of the entire state have access to library and information services. WSL achieves these goals using federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. We offer numerous projects supporting the enhancement of library services. We provide consulting services on a variety of topics, and provide grants, subsidies and training to libraries.

Local libraries support the educational and lifelong learning needs of the people in their communities. Their staff participate in statewide projects sponsored by the Washington State Library.  While the Congressional Fact Sheets reflect the projects that are funded by LSTA, the State Library offers much more to Washington residents.

Our Central Library Service is a research library which specializes in Washington State and Pacific Northwest history, culture and government.  Historians and genealogists find our resources invaluable as we have information that is unavailable anywhere else. As mandated by State Law [(RCW) 40.06.010 (4)], the Washington State Library collects publications published by all Washington State agencies that are intended for distribution to the state government of the public in print and electronic format. State publications provide current and historical information about State government.  They are a resource for research into Washington’s past and they are a cornerstone for Washington’s future.

WSL is the only state library that has branch libraries in prisons.  There are libraries and librarians in nine prisons and two state hospitals.  These libraries are a lifeline for the patients and inmates providing a small island of normalcy in their lives.  Inmates find not only recreational materials at the library; many use their time to further their education.  The State Library is partnering with the Department of Corrections and local libraries to help prisoners achieve a successful re-entry.

The Washington Talking Book & Braille Library (WTBBL) provides a comprehensive, statewide library service for Washington residents unable to read standard print material due to blindness, a visual impairment, deaf-blindness, a physical disability that makes it difficult to hold a book or turn a page, or a reading disability. Books and magazines are available in audio and braille and sent free by mail or downloaded from the website or app. WTBBL offers materials in Spanish, a youth services program, local book production, and more.

WSL offers several digital collections from its many historical resources, including books, maps, newspapers and manuscripts. These collections will continue to grow as more of our resources are scanned, providing a multitude of information to students, teachers, historians and genealogists on Washington’s rich heritage.

All of these services are offered statewide, and each one impacts your community in both small and large ways. For a more detailed analysis of our work in your community return here in a few weeks to find the newly minted Legislative Fact Sheets.

We received this message from Jamie Allwine, the Library Manager at Timberland’s Winlock Library.  It was such a great story that we asked her permission to share it.  Thanks Jamie, you’ve made our day.

The Winlock Library’s ascent into STEM really started with a WSL workshop that Joe Olayvar and Evelyn Lindberg put on at Timberland’s Service Center.  I had never touched a programmable robot but I left that day KNOWING that the kids (all ages) of Winlock would love them.  On my way out the door, I ran the idea by my supervisor and the director and they both gave me the green light to pursue robotics.  I contacted my Friends group and they enthusiastically funded the purchase of two Legos Mindstorms EV3 Core kits.  We now own four of the Core kits and three expansion sets.  Although we routinely hold formal “Robots Rock” programs, all of our equipment is available on demand.  Kids (often families) can come in any time and ask to use the “toys”, and we happily get them out.

Why am I so committed to STEM?  When I was a kid, we needed to learn the 3 R’s.  But kids today also need a strong foundation in a new language–coding.  As with all languages, the earlier that a child is exposed, the easier they pick it up.  Although there are many schools who provide STEM programs, most are still focused on the teaching and testing of the original 3 R’s.  I read a study that said only 10% of school aged kids have access to STEM programming, and that is often on a limited basis and sometimes not until high school.  For many kids, we are really missing that ideal window of opportunity to introduce coding, construction, robotics, etc.  I believe that through the public library system, we can help bridge that gap.

Winlock currently offers programming with the Legos EV3s, Dash & Dot, Ozobots, Snap Circuits, Code-a-pillars, Eggbots and a wide variety of building toys, such as Legos, Lincoln Logs, K’nex, and Erector sets.  We participated in the Hour of Code™ during Computer Science Education Week.  We have borrowed the Legos We-Do 2.0 kits from our service center and the Roominate kits from the Washington State Library.  Our kids have loved them all!

Here’s a “tickler” from our new newsletter.  Intrigued?  Click here to read the entire issue.  Would you like to have the next issue show up in your inbox? You’ll find a subscribe button in the upper left corner of the newsletter’s page.

A letter from our State Librarian, Cindy Aden

Here at the Washington State Library, we’re excited about the New Year and what 2017 has in store! We’re also excited about the winter 2017 edition of For Your Information, the State Library’s newsletter. We’ve continued to receive helpful comments and constructive feedback on FYI since we published the first edition last July. Because of your feedback, we’ve made tweaks to the design and layout. We think this will make the newsletter easier and more enticing to read.

In this edition, we’ll give you the scoop on what’s new and what’s staying the same at the State Library. We’ll talk about the Office of Secretary of State’s proposal to the Legislature for a new building to house the State Library and State Archives. We’ll share the latest news about the Washington Digital Newspapers and Washington Rural Heritage programs. And we’ll let you know about the Teen Video Challenge contest deadline. Thanks for your interest in the Washington State Library!

From the desk of Rand Simmons

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

You probably recognize the quote as the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States. Perhaps you memorized it in school. The Constitution laid out the system of government and the rights of the Americans. The Constitution became law in 1788 when two-thirds of the states ratified it.

There are twenty-seven amendments to the Constitution and the first ten are called the Bill of Rights. They are changes to the Constitution that specify specific freedoms and rights.

Would you believe that today, December 15, 2016 is the 225 anniversary of the Bill of Rights?

How many rights or freedoms named by the Bill of Rights can you name? You can find the answers at Bill of Rights: 1789-91.

From the desk of Jean Baker – Library Associate, Washington State Penitentiary

I was sitting in the office yesterday and someone pointed to the hallway and said, “Look at all of the puppies”.  I went out in the hallway and found about a dozen puppies spilling out of a basket and climbing over each other.  Standing around in a circle were about 10 grown men some with tattoos and ponytails cuddling, petting and cooing at the little canines thus erasing the stereotype of tough convicts with a few simple gestures.   The men told me they were about 3 weeks old and had every sort of coloring, black and white, brown and red, all brown, all white.

The men and the puppies are residents, some for a longer period than others of Coyote Ridge Corrections Center (CCRC), a medium custody facility in Connell, WA.   One of the prized jobs at CRCC is to be a dog handler.  These men are very dedicated care-takers of their charges who are brought to the prison to receive training and socialization before being adopted out to families in the community.

This program is one of the many normalizing activities these inmates can experience to help them learn new behaviors and skills for when they can re-enter society.   I was very excited to see this interaction of inmates and puppies while visiting the CRCC library.  The library is located in the building where inmate programs are held and is a branch of the Washington State Library.   The Institutional Services program of the State Library operates libraries in nine prisons and 2 mental hospitals in Washington.

I am the Branch Library Associate at Washington State Penitentiary and my visit was to assist newly hired CRCC Branch Library Associate, Justin Dickson with some final details of his training.    The CRCC library is the newest and largest of the institutional libraries, opening in February 2009.  At any time there can be 50-60 inmates using the library for one-hour periods.  Justin has 4 inmate library clerks who handle patron customer service as well as shelving materials and keeping the collection in good order.

The library program at CRCC is another normalizing activities that is highly used and appreciated by the inmates.  It is a neutral, comfortable environment which provides the opportunity to pursue interests, learn something new, find recreational reading and prepare for re-entry to the world outside the prison walls.

No matter what type of library you work in or what your role, we all have something in common.  We care about the people we serve, we care about providing excellent resources and we care about connecting those two things.  Library Development is the branch of the state library which administers federal (LSTA) funds.  We create programs to support the libraries of the state which we hope in turn will benefit the residents of Washington state.  We love what we do, but the nature of our work puts us one step away from our end users.  So we really love it when we hear stories about how our projects impact the lives of our fellow Washingtonians.

Imagine how happy we were to hear recently from Jamie Allwine, the manager at Winlock Timberland Library.  For the last few years the State Library has invested in several STEM kits which circulate around the state.  Allowing libraries to host technology based learning programs without a huge investment of their limited resources.  If you are a regular reader of this blog you will have heard about the Lego Mindstorms kits, or maybe the Snap Circuits or Ozobots.  However in this story the STEM kit which visited the Winlock Library was a Roominate program that was held at her library in September. Winlock is a small library and as such gets to know their patrons well.  Jamie wrote to us about a Latina family who were regulars at the library.  Mom routinely brings her three kids to the library but they only occasionally see the Dad.  Jamie and her staff routinely reach out to this family to join them in a program but until recently they have never attended one.  But something about the Roominate kits got their attention and this time the entire family attended.  Jamie reported that “Dad and Mom started out working with the girls building a Roominate house.  Then their son saw the Dash robot and wanted to play with that, so the father and son broke off and played with the Dash robot for a while, and then came back and helped complete the Roominate house.”

The last of the three great National Parks we are featuring this month is Washington’s North Cascades Park.  It is also the last of our parks to be designated as such, with park status only coming in 1968 with the passing of the North Cascades National Park Act.  The park along with two “National Recreation Areas”, Ross Lake and Lake Chelan, and all are managed as the North Cascades National Park Complex.

However long before it became a National Park this area was well known for its beauty and ruggedness.  One of the chief missions of the Washington State Library is to “Collect, preserve, and make accessible to Washingtonians materials on the government, history, culture, and natural resources of the state.”  In other words, for anything to do with Washington State history, we are a great place to start.

While we do not have a primary source record from the Native American viewpoint we have information about the native cultures of the area.

Mierendorf, Robert R, and Kenneth C. Reid. People of the North Cascades. Seattle, Wash: National Park Service, Pacific Northwest Region, 1986. I 29.2:C 26/6 c.2

Smith, Allan H. Ethnography of the North Cascades. Pullman: Center for Northwest Anthropology, Washington State University, 1988. WA 378.5 Un3eth n 1987

Early settlers to the region also kept accounts of their travels and discoveries. Three books immediately jump to the head of the line.

Küster, Heinrich, and Harry M. Majors. Discovery of Mount Shuksan and the Upper Nooksack River, June 1859. Seattle, Wash: Northwest Press, 1984.  NW 979.5 Northwest 1984

Küster, Heinrich, and Harry M. Majors. First Crossing of the Picket Range 1859. Seattle, Wash: Northwest Press, 1984.  NW 979.5 Northwest 1984

Ross, Alexander, Thomas J. Dryer, and Adella M. Parker. The First Crossing of the North Cascades. Seattle, Wash: Northwest Press, 1980. NW 979.95 Northwest 1980

But what if you wanted to learn about contemporary park management or the environmental aspects of the park?  We not only collect Washington State Documents but as a Federal Repository we collect and provide access to federal documents about the park.

Lesher, Robin. Botanical Reconnaissance of Silver Lake Research Area, North Cascades National Park, Washington. Portland, Or: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1984.

North Cascades: A Guide to the North Cascades National Park Service Complex, Washington. Washington, D.C: Division of Publications, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1986.

General Management Plan and Environmental Assessment: North Cascades National Park, Ross Lake National Recreation Area, Lake Chelan National Recreation Area. , Washington, D.C: Division of Publications, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1987

Ecological Effects of Stocked Trout in Naturally Fishless High-Elevation Lakes, North Cacades National Park Service Complex, Wa, USA. Seattle, Wash.: National Park Service, Pacific Northwest Region, 1999.

Mountain Lakes Fishery Management Plan: Environmental Impact Statement. Sedro-Woolley, WA: North Cascades National Park Service Complex, 2008. Volume 1, Volume 2

What about just the pure pleasure of visiting the park?  Well we’ve got you covered there too.

Spring, Ira, and Harvey Manning. 100 Hikes in Washington’s North Cascades National Park Region. Seattle, WA: Mountaineers, 2000. NW 917.9773 ONE HUN 2000  

Dietrich, William, Craig Romano, Gary Snyder, Christian Martin, and Richard Louv. The North Cascades: Finding Beauty and Renewal in the Wild Nearby. , 2014 NW 508.797 DIETRIC 2014 

Bake, William A. Stehekin: A Wilderness Journey into the North Cascades. Washington, D.C.: Division of Publications, National Park Service, 1977  RARE 917.9759 BAKE 1977

And finally for those of you who stuck with me to the end of this post, I saved the best for last with the prize for most original chapter title being “Run hippie run! Rednecks gonna get ya!”

Harrison, Buckwheat” B. Hippie Tales of the Northwest Woods. Minneapolis: Mill City Press, 2014.  NW 305.568 HARRISO 2014  

From the desk of Jeff Martin 

Army letters from an Officer’s Wife, written by: Frances M.A. Roe

Appleton And Company, New York and London

Publication date: October 1909

Note: In 1871, Lieutenant Colonel Fayette Washington Roe (1850-1916) was sent to Fort Lyon, Colorado Territory. His wife, Frances M.A. Roe, describes their experiences while stationed at the fort in this collection of letters.

“It is late, so this can be only a note to tell you that we arrived here safely, and will take the stage for Fort Lyon to-morrow morning at six o’clock. I am thankful enough that our stay is short at this terrible place, where one feels there is danger of being murdered any minute. Not one woman have I seen here, but there are men any number of dreadful-looking men each one armed with big pistols, and leather belts full of cartridges. But the houses we saw as we came from the station were worse even than the men. They looked, in the moonlight, like huge cakes of clay, where spooks and creepy things might be found. The hotel is much like the houses, and appears to have been made of dirt, and a few drygoods boxes. Even the low roof is of dirt. The whole place is horrible, and dismal beyond description, and just why anyone lives here I cannot understand.”

Excerpt by Frances M.A. Roe

Washington State Library Electronic State Publications – Army Letters From An Officers Wife, 1909

For many people when they think of Washington State the first thing that comes to mind is Mount Rainier. The tallest peak in the state, at 14,410 feet above sea level, Mount Rainier dominates the landscape on both the east and west side of the state and all Washingtonians feel that it is “their mountain.”

On March 2, 1899, Mount Rainier was established as the fifth national park, named so by William McKinley.  The park is a veritable year round wonderland for those who love the outdoors. Possibilities range from fishing, bike riding, hiking, camping, and climbing in the summer, to skiing, tubing and snowshoeing in the winter. For those who like to just sit and admire the scenery, Longmire and Paradise each has a beautiful old inn. Also within the park boundaries are 228,480 acres of wilderness.

But before Mount Rainier became a national park there was of course a long history to the area including Native American legend.  One of the missions of the State Library, that we take very seriously, is to preserve the history of our state. We have many books in our catalog but for this blog post the focus is on our Digital Collections.  In order to make our materials easily accessible, we’ve been working for many years to digitize public domain books and journals in our collection.

When it comes to Mount Rainier, one of the best historic resources is Edmond Meany’s “Mount Rainier: a record of exploration”. This book is a collection of essays about the mountain including its discovery by George Vancouver, the story of the first accent by Hazard Stevens, the natural history of the mountain and an essay on the creation of the park.

Another source for history is our digital newspapers collection.  In the early days of our state Mount Rainier was often called “Mt. Tacoma” or “Mt. Tahoma”, the Native American name. This fact is acknowledged in Meany’s book and born out in the controversy over the name of the new national park.
In the March 7^th Seattle Post Intelligencer an article titled “An insult to Tacoma” heatedly defends the name Rainier. “Some foolish people, including the Ledger, past and present, have tried to change the name of Rainier to Tacoma, but they have failed… If Mount Rainier is worthy of the distinction of a national park, the park should bear the name of the mountain.”

Over the years Mount Rainier remained newsworthy, with articles such as the May 12, 1916 Washington Standard’s “Mt. Rainier’s Flowers – Unequaled in Beauty, Number and Luxuriance, says Uncle Sam” .  In 1910 The Walla Walla Evening Statesman proposed regulating automobiles in the park, however by December 7, 1920 an article in the Seattle Star instead proposed new roads to increase access and travel to the park.

As a Federal Depository the State Library also holds electronic federal documents for the state.  A search of our catalog unearthed “WONDERLAND: An Administrative History of Mount Rainier National Park” by Theodore Catton. This book records the history of the park from the days before it’s designation as a national park  through the end of the 20th century.

Having a national park in Washington also generated a lot of tourist interest and tourist dollars.  The early newspapers show evidence of efforts to take advantage of this.  You find advertisements for tours and postcards, even gasoline to get you there.  Today Mount Rainier continues to be a centerpiece of our state with an average of 1-2 million people visiting each year.  Have you visited lately?

Image sources:

“Gorgeous Mt. Rainier.” Pullman Herald 10 June 1921. Web. 14 July 2016.

Skiing at Mount Rainier National Park