From the desk of Marlys Rudeen:

A sampling of the local news from the Colville Examiner from Oct. 31, 1907-Jan. 1908 provides a vivid view of life in the north half of Stevens County. One thing that stands out is that the Colvillians were a traveling bunch. They visited and were visited on a regular basis, travelling to family and friends in other small towns, the big city of Spokane, and relatives in the Midwest or eastern states. Departures and arrivals are noted carefully in the local sections of the paper.

The editor, J. C. Harrigan, also includes articles and short snippets on roads, railroads, mines, church events, clubs, appointments of government officials, and entertainments. Births are welcomed, marriages celebrated, and deaths mourned. The overall picture is of a vigorous, social community that is busy laboring, building businesses, and seeking entertainment.

I’ve recorded below some bits that caught my eye, but I encourage you to visit the Colville Examiner on your own through Chronicling America Choose the browse option, choose a year and an issue, and dive in.

Nov. 9, 1907

p. 13 “Lizzie Paschilke, who enjoys the unenviable reputation of being under indictment for horse stealing, entered a plea of guilty in the Superior Court last Saturday and was sentenced to a term in the state industrial school in Chehalis. Her mother was convicted of a similar charge in the Spokane County court last week and sent to the state penitentiary.”

 “George H. Bevan of Kettle Falls was in Colville Thursday. Mr. Bevan is a road commissioner… He is also a democrat and has no hesitation in letting it be known.”

 Nov. 16, 1907

p. 11 “The Colville high school football team met defeat at Coeur d’Alene last Saturday, but by a smaller margin than that of the previous game, which shows our boys are improving with practice…”

 Nov. 30, 1907

p. 17 “ Chewelah possesses a dancing school which meets every Thursday evening at the Odd Fellows Hall…”

 Dec. 7, 1907

p. 13 “For the benefit of any persons interested, it is announced that the cells for the new county jail will not be installed before the first of January. Of this take due notice and govern yourselves accordingly, for the time cometh when Sheriff Graham will not be obliged to sit on a nail keg with a shot gun all night to keep prisoners from escaping from the old fort building.”

 Dec. 14, 1907

p. 7 “The Ungathered Spinsters will hold their annual state convention some time in January. Watch for date.”

p. 17 “The Echo basket ball team is practicing twice a week and is busily engaged at all times in studying the rules of this popular indoor sport. The great interest manifested thus far found expression in an exceptionally forcible argument last Sunday.”

 Jan. 4, 1908

p. 13 “The moving picture subjects at the opera house this week are: The Adventuress, Love’s Tragedy, Following in Father’s Footsteps, The Bargain Fiend, An Artful Husband, How to Cure a Cold and Playing Pranks on the Gardener.”

Jan. 25, 1908

p. 13 “ Notice has been served upon the unsuspecting public of Colville that unless police interference is made, the Colville Imperial Minstrel Club will give its first series of gigantic girations at the opera house next Friday evening, Jan. 31. The public is invited to come and hear as much of the program as may seem reasonable. An admission fee will be charged for the purpose of keeping the club from giving another performance soon. Several new features will be introduced which have not yet been proscribed by law. A large orchestra of the city’s best musicians will accompany a chorus of the city’s worst vocalists as far as the new jail. A packed house will undoubtedly be present, and the sorrowing friends of the 15 young men in the minstrel club will anxiously wait for their safe return that evening.”

 The Colville Examiner was digitized through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities under the National Digital Newspaper Program. The Star and many other American newspapers can be found online at Chronicling America  at the Library of Congress.

Additional newspapers for Washington can be found at Historic Newspapers at the Washington State Library’s web site. The State Library is a Division of the Office of the Secretary of State.

“Judy is my bulldog. She’ll sink her teeth into a project and finish it!” These are the words of Judy’s supervisor Marlys Rudeen, Deputy State Librarian.

What a great picture this paints of a woman with a long and varied career with the Washington State Library. Judy started in 1998 at WSL as a prison librarian working at Washington Corrections in Shelton. She loved this job because she felt that it was like all libraries rolled into one. Depending on the patron she could be called upon, in any given day, to be a medical librarian, a school librarian or a public librarian. Before moving to Washington, Judy had worked as a school librarian at some tough inner city schools in Virginia and said the transition to working in the prisons was really not that hard.

In 2002 Judy left the Prison library and came to work in Digital Collections for WSL and has been there ever since. Judy sees her work as building on itself over time. Her work as a school librarian made her a better prison librarian. Her experiences at both libraries made her understand the importance of the digital collections; how they could be used by school children for research and how the prisoners could use state agency information.

Marlys also said that with the turnover in the last few years that Judy has been invaluable as she has completed many projects which other people have started and left.   Their department is considerably smaller than when Judy first came to work in Digital Collections but it hasn’t slowed her down. In addition to the work she completes on her own, Judy also works with volunteers to help with the digitization projects. She has worked on the Emma Smith DeVoe papers, the Josephine Corliss scrapbook, the digitization of Washington Newspapers, has digitized Historical Maps and oversees the Classics in Washington History. Then there is her pet project, digitizing the Washington State Voter’s pamphlets which she does when she needs a relaxation break. Judy sees these as full of a rich history that would be fascinating and informative for school projects. One example she gave is the sorts of initiatives that were being proposed during prohibition. Speaking of interesting initiatives Judy discovered a gem from 1952 – Initiative 180 – a proposal to the voters to allow yellow coloring to be added to margarine. You can read the arguments for and against on pages 6+7 of “A Pamphlet containing…”   As you can imagine these voter’s pamphlets contain a snapshot of history and what was important to people of the time. In 1952 apparently margarine was high on that list!

One of Judy’s main jobs is to run herd on the State Agencies digital publications. It is the law as well as the mission of the State Library to collect all documents that are published by Washington State agencies, no small task. She accomplishes this in a variety of ways. If she is lucky the agency sends her a copy of a newly published document, sometimes electronically through email or FTP, sometimes on a CD or DVD. But she also has a special tool, a “Page Checker’ built for this specific purpose. Whenever a state agency makes a change to their page Judy will receive a notification through the checker. She then is able to go in, download the document and begin the process of adding it to the State Library’s collection. After a weekend there can be as many as 50 pages to check. Imagine what it’s like after a vacation! All this hard work creates a rich resource in our catalog for researchers to learn about the work of the Washington State agencies.

Outside of work Judy has many other things to keep her busy. She has two children, now grown, two dogs and four cats. In addition to her full time job at the WSL Judy and her husband, along with good friends, run their own t-shirt printing business, a true labor of love as Judy loves t-shirts and personally owns over 100 of them. Most days she leaves her job at the library to head over to their warehouse for an evening of work. A mild mannered librarian on the outside, take a look at her crazy socks and you’ll catch a glimpse of what lurks beneath the surface.

The State library as well as the researchers of Washington are fortunate to have this “bulldog” librarian on our staff. Thank you Judy for all that you do.

From the desk of Evan Robb

Since 1969, residents of the Central Washington towns of Roslyn and Cle Elum have named an annual Pioneer Queen–a woman whose life and contributions to the community embody the history of Upper Kittitas County.

Erin Krake, librarian at the Roslyn Public Library, wanted to shine a light of the story of these women, “who built [our] town from the grown up, just as their men did so from the coal mines beneath it.” Beginning in 2012, Krake, and a team of local volunteers began digitizing the documentary evidence of these lives, by directly interviewing surviving Pioneer Queens and scanning their family photograph collections.

The Pioneer Queens of Upper Kittitas County Collection is the result of that effort, which the Roslyn Public Library envisions as an ongoing, multi-year project to tell the story of the settling of Roslyn and the surrounding area from the women’s point of view. According to Krake: “In each case, the stories are vibrant and unique, containing the common themes of family, food, work and play, good times and hard ones.”

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library.

The following article was found at random in the Sept. 1, 1903 issue of the Seattle Daily Times and contains a description of one of the more unusual libraries in Washington State history:

The Times Special Service.

EVERETT, Tuesdays, Sept. 1.–A hermit, such as fiction deals in, has been discovered in the heart of the Olympic mountains, by Attorney Robert A. Hulbert, of this city, who has returned from a fishing trip through that rugged region.

 The hermit, who, years ago, was known in New York City by the name of Le Barr, lives in a commodious cabin, high up in the foothills and fourteen miles from others of his race. The account of his brief visit with the recluse is told as follows by Attorney Hulbert.

“Hermit Le Barr is 60 years of age. Fourteen years ago, after domestic troubles, he left his family in New York City and turned to the West, a wanderer on the face of the earth, with no place he could call his home.

 “Thinking to find gold he went into the Olympic mountains prospecting. Almost before he knew it his supply of provisions became exhausted. Starvation stared him in the face and he turned his tottering steps toward civilization.

 “His hunger became intense, and at the time he had about resigned himself to his fate he managed to shoot a large trout. This he baked upon the rocks and consumed ravenously.

 “As he completed his meal an elk strayed across the trail and a shot from his rifle brought the magnificent animal to earth. The following morning he killed a large bear.

 Had Found Paradise.

 “Le Barr told me he immediately made up his mind that he had reached paradise, and straightaway built a roomy cabin, hewing the logs and riving the planks with his own hands.

 “The hermits next step was to take up a claim of 160 acres. This valuable timber land is now in the very heart of a government reservation. The United States recognizes Le Barr’s ownership, and the old man looks forward to a time when Uncle Sam shall pay him a handsome sum of money to relinquish his claim.

 “The cabin in the wilderness is composed of a single room 20 by 40 feet. Trophies of his skill with the rifle adorn the rought-hewn walls. He has learned taxidermy and has many fine heads of deer, bear, elk and smaller denizens of the forest scattered about in decorative disorder. Deep and soft are the skins of wild animals covering the floor– a collection of years.

 The Hermit’s Library.

“An incongruity striking my attention was the presence of many late books and magazines carefully placed in rough bookcases.

 “Frequently Hermit Le Barr walks sixteen miles to replenish his library. He is well read and remarkably well posted on current events.

 “When bleak winter makes his approach, the hermit lays in a great supply of wood and goes on long hunting excursions to stock his larder. And then the snow comes, sometimes ten feet, frequently thirty-five feet covers his cabin, and he and his books and dogs are prisoners for three long months.

 “The hermit is a picture. His frame is tall, his hair falls long on his shoulders and his great beard drops nearly to his waist. He is clad in buckskin from head to foot.

 “Le Barr says he frequently sees great herds of elk roaming the hills and valleys. Before government rangers were placed in the timber Le Barr told me that whites and Indians killed entire herds as the animals wallowed in deep snow.” 

Rufus Lebar (sometimes called Labaie, or Le Barr) was born ca. 1836 in Pennsylvania to French immigrant parents and was raised in Connecticut. He served in the Union Army for most of the Civil War as a soldier in an artillery unit. Rufus appears to have built his cabin about 1890. It sat deep in the woods, 15 miles west of Hoodsport, at an elevation of 850 ft.

In History of Hoodsport / by Jean L. Bearden, the story continues: “Rufus LeBarr had taken a homestead claim on the South Fork of the Skokomish which he had filed in 1890. In 1905, he was still waiting for the government to give him title to the land. The surveys were still disputed and finally, after he was ready to give up, he was given the title in 1906, sixteen years after he had applied.”

Rufus promptly sold the land in 1907. Today his homestead is now part of a trail along the lower south fork of the Skokomish River in Olympic National Forest. Rufus died Oct. 25, 1909 at the home of his daughter in Seattle.

Robert Ansel Hulbert, the attorney who told the tale, was born in Seattle on Mar. 10, 1864. After obtaining a law degree from the University of Washington in the 1880s he served as Snohomish County Clerk in the 1890s and then worked in private practice in Everett until 1907, when he moved to Seattle. Hulbert died in Seattle Dec. 30, 1943.

And the fate of Lebar’s library has escaped the pages of history.

Ever since the advent of Web 2.0 people are finding creative ways to harness the power of the web to learn about and share their passions.  Resources are shared and discovered; connections are made between people.  Here at the Washington State Library we have a mission to collect, preserve and make accessible materials about the history and culture of Washington State.  This task is accomplished in a variety of ways, from scanning newspapers, or entire books, to helping communities scan, organize and digitize their local historic collections.  While the library has accomplished this mission by providing access to its digital collections this really is only the first step.  When it gets interesting is when people start interacting with the collections.

Much to our delight, people are finding our collections and using them to enrich their lives.  I wanted to share a few of the stories and comments which have resulted from the resources we’ve shared.  A picture from the Garfield County Heritage collection titled “Denison children and goat cart, 1929” elicited this comment “My Great Aunt Mary, Great Uncle Roger, and my Lovely Grandmother Dorothy Denison Ruchert. I cherish this photo and hope to bring back the goat carts for use today!”

Or we received this comment on a photo of Nooksack Valley.  “So grateful to have found these photos! We now live on this very property and are in the midst of returning the homestead to historic glory.”  

Then there was the time that the Public Services desk received a call from someone who had heard that the Washington State Library had digitized her Great-Great-Great Grandfather’s journal.  When asked who that person might be, they said, Daniel Bigelow.  We were excited to let her know that the State Library Digital and Historical Collections team had indeed made the journal, along with other mementos kept in the Manuscripts Collection, digitally available.  Thrilled, she explained that her family was unaware that the material was available and was eager to pass the word along to her kin.  Needless to say, our Public Services team was delighted to help make these connections.

Finally, the other day on our Facebook page there was a wonderful piece of serendipity.  Just for fun we posted pictures of a small library in Eastern Washington with a challenge to “Name that Library”.  Someone who saw the post commented that her great grandparents had lived in that community and she was interested in genealogy.  A librarian from that library, OK I’ll tell you, The Denny Ashby Library in Pomeroy, saw the post, and knew of a book that had been scanned and made available in Open Library.  She went to the book and found an entry about the person’s great-grandparents and shared the link in the comments.  Connection made, information shared.  How cool is that? Keep reading, keep watching, you never know when something that links you to the past will turn up on your 21^st Century device.

2014 Oso mudslide

The story of the Oso mudslide is being followed around the nation.  What many people don’t realize however is that this area was hit by a similar mud slide in 1951, thankfully non-fatal.  The pictures accompanying this post show an aerial view of the recent mudslide which is slightly to the west of the 1951 slide, the area of the slide in 1949 and a plan of where the 1949 Hazel slide occurred . (The two early pictures are found in the first document on the list below)

As interest in the historiography of the Oso Mudslide grows, the Washington State Library Digital and Historic Collections Unit has identified and made available online the following titles:

Hazel Mudslide area 1949

Report on slide on North Fork Stillaguamish River near Hazel, Washington  [1952]

Stillaguamish slide study : summary of data obtained by Research Division during 1952 , [1953?]

Stillaguamish slide study  : report on siltation experiment and report on flow correlation (North Fork Stillaguamish River) [1953]

Hazel/Gold Basin landslides  : geomorphic review draft report  [1999]

Plan- Hazel Mudslide

We will continue to digitize background material on this area as we can and make it available for online viewing.

From the desk of Judy Pitchford

Another treasure for Women’s History in the Manuscript Collection of the State Library is the newspaper clipping scrapbook of Josephine Corliss Preston, which has been digitized and added to our Classics in Washington History. Mrs. Preston was the first woman elected to statewide office in Washington state government after women were granted the right to vote in 1910, defeating another female candidate, Mary Monroe. Elected as the 6^th State Superintendent of Public Instruction, she served from 1913 to 1928. Her scrapbook documents her efforts as she became a Republican candidate for office in 1912 and continues through 1920.

Mrs. Preston began her career as a teacher at the age of 14 in Minnesota and taught in Walla Walla from 1896-1903. She served as assistant county superintendent and deputy superintendent of the Walla Walla County schools during the years of 1904-1912. As State superintendent, Mrs. Preston was nationally recognized for obtaining legislation that allowed tax money to be used to cover the cost of building homes for teachers – called teacher’s cottages. This meant teachers would no longer have to be passed around to board with local families or, worse, be essentially homeless.

From the desk of Shawn Shollmeyer

Today, March 19, 2014, marks the 101st Anniversary of the Washington State Park System.  You can read a little about the history of one of our state parks and follow links to historic newspaper articles.

Dr. J Hilton of Seattle owned 80 acres of land that included Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island. A prime piece of real estate that provides views across the Puget Sound to British Columbia. The February 5^th, 1909 San Juan Islander corrected the Bellingham American to get their facts straight, but at 2409 feet, not 5,000, Mt Constitution is still the highest point in the Puget Sound and “…one of the finest views to be had in the world, if the atmosphere is clear.”

The San Juan County citizens petitioned for the state to create 40 acres of this area to be preserved and on February 1^st, 1909, Senator John L. Blair introduced a resolution that this area be purchased by the state for a public park when the land came on the market. But many argued over the exorbitant price being asked for the land.

Mt. Constitution did became part of a state park years later. The land was finally donated to the state by Seattle Mayor Robert Moran, but not without some controversy. The Washington State Board of Park Commissioners was created in 1913, but was not able to act until House Bill 164 allowed the state to acquire land (http://www.parks.wa.gov/175/History ) in 1921.

How much was the land worth in 1909 and who was this Dr. J. Hilton? How big is the park now? You can find out more directly from Washington newspapers:

The announcement & support of a state public park

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 16 Jan. 1909. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1909-01-16/ed-1/seq-8/>

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 29 Jan. 1909. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1909-01-29/ed-1/seq-1/>

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 05 Feb. 1909. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.

<http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1909-02-05/ed-1/seq-1/>

Dr. J. Hilton

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 21 Feb. 1913. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1913-02-21/ed-1/seq-1/>

 How much were they asking?

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 26 Feb. 1909. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1909-02-26/ed-1/seq-1/>

Robert Moran Steps in

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 21 Feb. 1913. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1913-02-21/ed-1/seq-1/>

Robert Moran’s Letter refutes a “Public Playground”

The San Juan islander. (Friday Harbor, Wash.), 16 May 1913. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085190/1913-05-16/ed-1/seq-1/>

This collection is made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Library of Congressand Washington State Library Digital Collections.

Images are from the Washington Rural Heritage Collection.

These letters and manuscripts came into the possession of fellow suffrage worker, Bernice A. Sapp, who assembled and indexed them.  The Digital and Historical Collections staff decided to undertake the digitization of the collection to prolong the life of these manuscripts and to provide expanded access to citizens – especially students and teachers.  The project was funded by a grant from the Washington’s Women’s History Consortium and the collection can be viewed at their web site at: http://www.washingtonhistory.org/research/whc/WHCcollections/wsl/

DeVoe was one of the major personalities involved in moving Washington State being the fifth state in the country to adopt full suffrage for women in 1910 – ten years before the national constitutional amendment was passed.  While she occasionally clashed with some of the other strong personalities in the movement she was a tireless worker and keen strategist.  Unlike their counterparts in England, American woman suffragists adopted the tactic of the “still hunt”, using ladylike demeanors and calm reason to persuade the men of the state to grant them the vote as a matter of simple justice.

DeVoe went on to found the National Council of Women Voters in 1911 to bring together western voting women in order to move toward national suffrage.  The group eventually merged with the League of Women Voters in 1920.  She later became active in the Republican Party and wrote from that viewpoint for the Tacoma News Tribune.

From the Desk of Marlys Rudeen

Pulled by religious fervor, men and women left homes and families to come West, intending to bring their faith to the “heathen”. They were often well-meaning but unprepared for life on the frontier and for interacting with people of another culture. They strove faithfully, endured hardships and grief among people whose responses to their teachings ran the gamut from acceptance to violence. Two of our Classics in Washington History describe the lives of Protestant women in western missions.

In Memoirs of the West: the Spaldings,  Eliza Spalding, the daughter of Rev. and Mrs. Spalding, looks back at an idyllic childhood at Lapwai, the Spaldings mission. She helps her mother, travels with her father, and grows up among the Nez Perce Indians. She often stays with Marcus and Narcissa Whitman at their mission for months at a time in order to attend school with other mission and immigrant children. And she is there on Nov. 29, 1847 when the Whitman mission is attacked by the Cayuse Indians. Her account is harrowing, as the 10-year-old child witnesses death and terror, and then serves as interpreter between the Indians and their captives. The book also includes excerpts from her mother’s diary and some of her father’s letters that speak of the unrelenting labor that he and his wife undertake.

You can also look through three fascinating collections of letters by Narcissa Prentiss Whitman, gathered and published in the late nineteenth century by the Oregon Pioneer Association. The first covers their journey across the country to the Oregon Territory in 1836. The others include Narcissa’s letters to her family back east and correspondence with other missionaries in the West. They can be found in Classics in Washington History as Journey across the plains in 1836.

The letters reveal a woman who is determined to live up to her religious ideals. She accepts the loss of home and her extended family. She accepts her husband’s frequent absences and the physical hardships of frontier living. Yet, she continually begs her family to write more often, and is without any letters from home for up to two years due to long distances. She is never quite at home with the Indians and has difficulty learning the language. There are hints in her narratives about the tensions among the missionaries and the discouragement when few others arrive to join the mission effort.

Narcissa bears a child at Waiilatpu, Alice Clarissa, that is the light of her life until she drowns at the age of “two years, three months, and nine days.” At the same time she takes on the care of children in need, having as many as eleven children in her home at once and writes, “I am sometimes about ready to sink under the weight of responsibility resting on me…” The letters, though relentlessly optimistic, create a portrait of an intensely social and conventional woman laboring in isolation and surrounded by a culture that remains foreign to her.

For an overview of the Whitmans and Spaldings you might try Waiilatpu : its rise and fall, 1836-1847 : a story of pioneer days in the Pacific Northwest based entirely upon historical research by Miles Cannon. Cannon interviews many of the survivors of the mission as well as dealing with its early years.