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

A few decades ago, back when my family still had a farm out in northwestern Thurston County, my father noticed a small glass object that had surfaced after he plowed the field. The farm had once been home to an inn called “The Hicklin Halfway House” on the stage road between Olympia and Montesano in Territory days. We were used to plowing up small pieces of china and glass. But this was different.

Except for some chips on the opening, this small glass bottle is intact, about 3 inches high, and has the raised label: C.B. Mann, Apothecary, Olympia, W.T.

As it turns out, Champion Bramwell Mann ran a drugstore on the southeast corner of 4th and Washington in Olympia, site of the present Security Building. He was a prominent figure in the local history of the city, even serving as Mayor from 1894-1895. And, believe it or not, he had a short stint as the Territorial Librarian in 1870.

And so did his father, Sylvester Hill Mann. You can read about them and the other colorful characters who kept the flame alive in Washington’s oldest public institution on WSL’s biographical page: The Territorial Librarians.

I recently did a post on the loss of the “Spokesman Review”, however, I am happy to report that we still have many newspapers in the library to provide a touch of home for our patrons. As newspapers can be very expensive we cannot purchase all of them that are published in Washington, but we do our best. To that end we carry the larger metropolitan areas (excluding Spokane). This includes Olympia, Seattle, Yakima, Tri-Cities, Everett, Tacoma, Wenatchee, Vancouver, and usually the local paper for the area the prison is located.

All of these cities are still mailing out their newspapers and I hope they continue. If they don’t, the inmates will lose one of the few touches of home that is still available to them. Newspapers not only provide news of their local areas, but also a connection to a community. This connection can provide listings for jobs and housing which is important for the inmates releasing back into society, but it also provides the stories that make it a community.

Since local news is not the only interest of our patrons, we also carry newspapers that appeal to different cultures and lifestyles. To meet these needs we carry El Mundo, La Opinión, Smoke Signals, Indian Country Today, and Seattle Gay News.

The wave of the future may be the Internet, but here’s to hoping that some things remain in print.