In September of 1910, officials from the Finance Ministry in Paris were scrambling to come up with ways to pay for the French Old Age Pensions bill, a compulsary insurance plan similar to social security. The Minister of Finance, M. Cochery, asked clerks to come up with ideas and was bombarded with suggestions, some ideas were “decidedly original” and some that were “highly impracticle.”
Among the proposed subjects of taxation: “Bachelors and old maids; all unmarried people over 30, unless they can prove that they have twice proposed marriage and been refused, to pay annual tax until they marry; pianos; first class railway tickets; bath rooms in private houses; original paintings; toys; plays which have had more than 50 performances, and books after their first editions.”
Washington Rural Heritage is excited to introduce North Pend Oreille Heritage, coinciding with the town of Metaline Falls’ centennial. This brand new collection from the Metalines Community Library contains stunning images of one of the most picturesque parts of the state and tells the story of the adventurous settlers that made this rugged land their home.
Rock formation blasted in 1936
The library houses several albums that were collected and organized decades ago in order to preserve the community’s history. The albums contain over a thousand early images of the area’s waterfalls, canyons and river views – many scenes have eroded or dammed and are no longer there – and photos depicting daily activities of everyone from the town barber to the founder of the town’s cement plant.
Meet Brownie, an amateur photographer and bartender at Pend Oreille Tavern, and his buddy Black Beauty, a bag-punching dog that slept in a human bed. Fall in love with George Marr and Marie Beach, a couple whose romance on the back of a motorcycle would one day lead to their marriage. And tag along with Art and Gertrude Baker, proprietors of Baker’s Saloon. They picnic at Sullivan Lake, go on hiking expeditions, and use canyon walls for target practice.
Hotel Washington in winter
When locals weren’t playing, they were working hard. Many came to the area for jobs in the mining industry, a huge part of this mineral and metal-rich area’s economy. The Pend Oreille Mines and Metals album contains 81 images, dating from the 1920s up to the 1970s, depicting the company’s longstanding presence in the area. It also holds a few photos of Diamond Match employees – during the 1920s, eighty percent of the county’s timber was used in match production.
Congratulations and many thanks to Lynn Barnes and staff at the Metalines Community Library. Their enthusiasm and passion for preserving local history sparked this project, and their dedication made it a reality – many hours of hard work were needed to make this massive project (958 items!) a success. This collection is such a treasure, and we’re very proud to introduce it to you!
The Puget Sound Argus of Port Townsend (1882-1883) has been added to Washington State Library’s Online Historic Newspapers, available at http://www.sos.wa.gov/history/newspapers_detail.aspx?t=44. The collection now includes approximately nine years of Port Townsend newspapers, ranging from 1875 to 1883. The collection also contains newspapers from ten other Washington cities.
Additional newspapers will be added as soon as indexing is completed. Our volunteer indexers are currently hard at work on the Walla Walla Statesman (1873-1884) and Seattle’s Puget Sound Dispatch (1871-1880). To see our entire Online Historic Newspaper collection, go to http://www.sos.wa.gov/history/newspapers.aspx.
The Washington Rural Heritage initiative is pleased to announce its newest digital collection: Wahkiakum County Heritage. A project of the Cathlamet Blanche Bradley Public Library in partnership with the Wahkiakum County Historical Society & Museum, the collection consists of more than 300 items depicting river life, fishing, forestry, and early homesteading along this lower stretch of Washington’s Columbia River.
Congratulations and a big thank you to: the Cathlamet Public Library’s director for managing the project; the project’s digitization contractor from Lower Columbia Community College Library (for many hours of dedicated scanning and cataloging); and to the Wahkiakum County Historical Society’s curator, whose local history expertise is evident in these wonderfully detailed records!
Seven Washington libraries are currently hard at work on LSTA-funded digitization projects for 2010-2011, and many WRH participants continue to build their digital collections on a non-grant-funded basis. Keep an eye out for two new collections, comprising more than 1,200 individually cataloged items, which will be published in coming weeks!
You can skim through a sampling of this diverse collection below, or visit the site directly at: www.washingtonruralheritage.org.
As part of their 2009 Washington Rural Heritage grant work, funded by LSTA, four libraries have added brand new material to their previously published collections.
Whitman County Library widened their digitization efforts this year and offered scanning services to patrons of all libraries in their district. Whitman County Heritage now includes material from all around the county — users can browse items by community from their home page and are able to view rare images from small towns like Ewan, Sunset, Malden and many more. The collection also includes items from several local cultural institutions. Be sure to check out the Palouse Empire Fair Collection, taken from scrapbooks containing ephemera and photos ranging from fair royalty and 4-H sewing entries to livestock and prize-winning exhibits. Even catch a celebrity sighting — local sons John Crawford and Yakima Canutt, famed actors from the 1970s, visited the fair.
This grant cycle, Columbia County Rural Library District embarked on a new effort to digitize graves from area cemeteries. View individual headstones from Bundy Hollow Cemetery, Covello Cemetery, and Highland Cemetery. Headstones are organized by cemetery and listed alphabetically on the left. Click a name to view the deceased’s headstone.
Newcomer Denny Ashby Library added the Garfield County Schoolhouse Collection to Pomeroy Heritage, featuring now-and-then images of the county’s schoolhouses, class photos and scenes from student life, including a rural tennis match. The collection also now includes images and video footage of the tramways used by area farmers to transport grain in the high bluffs to boats located on the Snake River. This ingenious system enabled farmers to quickly move their harvest several miles and to a much lower elevation without the aid of horses.
A new digital collection from the Washington Rural Heritage initiative highlights the history of Skamania County, located in the heart of Washington’s rugged Columbia River Gorge. For their 2009-2010 grant project, the Stevenson and North Bonneville Community Libraries (Fort Vancouver Regional Library District) worked with local residents and partners to digitize unique material telling the story of life in these communities. The result is a digital collection consisting of two sub-collections and over 250 items.
Stevenson Community Library’s
promotional flyer – History in Pictures Day
In June, 2010 after extensive planning and outreach to local residents, the Stevenson Community Library held its first “History in Pictures” day–a community-based digitization event aimed at gathering historically significant material held in local private collections. The event occurred on a Saturday, in the main room of the Stevenson Community Library. There, staff and members of the Library’s Friends group interviewed contributors, secured necessary permissions (to publish material online), and recorded detailed information about the originals–describing their content as well as their physical format and dimensions. Staff from the Washington State Library were on hand to assist with imaging the materials, which were then returned to their owners along with a digital copy. The event was a resounding success. A few of our favorite “finds” include:
This stunning collection from a longtime resident, detailing early resort life (a bit of work, a bit of recreation) at various hot springs in the Carson River Valley along the Wind River.
Congratulations and a big thank you to the entire crew at the Stevenson and North Bonneville Community Libraries. They spent many hours forming local partnerships, managing the project, cataloging materials, and learning all the hands-on technical minutiae involved in digitization. The results speak for themselves!
