Please fight for Spokane History

Spokane's historic preservation community is making progress in the fight to save the Jensen-Byrd building. Monday night the Spokane City Council will vote on a resolution asking WSU to reconsider their plan to demolish this Spokane landmark. We need your help!

1. Please attend the City Council meeting and speak in support of the Jensen-Byrd. The meeting is at 6 p.m. Monday, February 6 at the Council Chambers at 808 W. Spokane Falls Boulevard. Preservation opponents will be there in full force so we need to make our voices heard.
   
2. If you cannot attend, please take a moment to email WSU President Elson Floyd and (politely) express your displeasure about his decision to raze a Spokane landmark. Instructions here, and do not forget to CC the Spokane Preservation Advocates.
   
3. Use other modes of communication to spread the word and to let WSU know how unhappy you are with this decision. Post a polite note on the WSU Facebook pages--the WSU Spokane page, and the main WSU page.

What should you say? The SPA has a good set of talking points at their website. The additional point I would make is that saving the Jensen-Byrd is also in the best interest of Washington State University. A re-purposed Jensen-Byrd building would provide life and character for the currently very sterile and uninteresting Riverpoint campus. And it would avoid the huge hit that WSU will take to its reputation if the building is razed.

Last week I took around the Jensen-Byrd--it is much more impressive in person than photographs can convey, but I took some pictures anyway:

CFP: Montana Historical Society 2012 Conference

This just in:

The Montana Historical Society - 2012 History Conference: 

"Opportunity for All? Homesteading Next Year Country

2012 marks the 150th anniversary of America’s first Homestead Act. Born of the same political discord that led to the Civil War and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln during the early years of that conflict, the act provided for the transfer of 160 acres of public land to each homesteader upon payment of a nominal filing fee and five years of “proving up.” The original proponents of the Homestead Act envisioned the settlement of the West by individual farmers with an almost utopian fervor, and today, our cultural mythology most often portrays homesteading as a symbol of the most American of ideals.

Homesteaders at Cabin Creek. July 13th, 1913
Credit: Montana Historical Society Research Center Photograph Archives 

The conference will be held in Helena at the Best Western Premier Helena Great Northern Hotel, September 20-22, 2012. The deadline for submission is February 1, 2012. Session proposals relating to any aspect of homesteading are encouraged (see page 2 for information on how to submit a proposal). Possible topics include:

• The impact of the Homestead Act on Montana’s first peoples
• The impact of homesteaders on the environment
• The impact of the environment on homesteaders
• Daily life on a homestead
• The material culture of the homestead era
• Homesteading as it relates to women’s history
• Homesteading as it relates to ethnic and minority history
• The role of archaeology in telling the homestead story
• The effect of homesteading on Montana politics
• The impact of homesteading on rural settlement and community development
• Homesteading and family folklore
• The role of railroads in homesteading and land development
• And more!

If you are working on any aspect of homesteading, this looks like a fascinating conference.

Barry Moses on Drumheller Spring and Grand Coulee Dam

Here is a fine short video of Spokan tribal member and Spokane Community College instructor Barry Moses, speaking about how the Spokans used (and still use!) some of the natural resources of the area. I love his story about his grandmother and Drumheller Springs, and how he brings the tale around to his own discovery of bitter root in the park. There are some good observations about the impact of Grand Coulee Dam as well.

Moses also blogs (sometimes in Salish) at Sulustu. He may be the only person in the world blogging in Salish?

The video, but the way, was originally filmed during a 2010 educational tour of the Spokane River sponsored by the Center for Justice. I had the privilege of being on the tour and it was great--the experts on the tour were Barry Moses, Jack Nesbit, and Bill Youngs, and we had stops at Spokane House, along the Little Spokane River, and at the Spokane Falls. A film of highlight of the entire event airs sometimes on Spokane's open-access cable channel, Community Minded Television.

Progress in the Battle to Save the Jensen-Byrd

Jensen-Byrd building by Flickr user Terry Bain.
(Thank you Terry for choosing Creative Commons licensing.)

This morning we have some good news about the fight to preserve Spokane's most-endangered historic building, the Jensen-Byrd. According to a Spokesman-Review article, the Historic Preservation Commission has ruled that the Jensen-Byrd is eligible for historic preservation: "The commission’s decision Wednesday designates the Jensen-Byrd building, which has been vacant since 2004, as eligible to be nominated for the Spokane Register of Historic Places.That decision now places a burden on Campus Advantage to establish reasons why it should proceed with demolition, said Kristen Griffin, the city-county historic preservation officer."

The article went on to state that the developer planning to raze the building, Campus Advantage, "has a contract with WSU to buy the building, but that deal has contingencies that could cancel the sale...Macejewski [a Campus Advantage executive] said he couldn’t comment on whether the restrictions on obtaining a demolition permit would jeopardize the sale."

What does this mean for Spokane history? I think if the public outcry is great enough, we can either get WSU to reverse the decision, or perhaps scare off the developer by adding uncertainty and delays to the process. Keep up the pressure! Spokane Preservation Advocates has been spearheading the public effort to save this historic building, their advocacy page has information on how to contact WSU to protest this unnecessary destruction.

Spokane has lost a lot of great buildings that could have been saved. But I have a sense that we as a community have reached a tipping point, where we come together and say enough is enough. If we save this building, it could mark a new era of historic preservation in Spokane.

The History of Hawaii as a Series of Plate Lunches

I am all for quirky ways of using technology to teach history, and this is absolutely charming. The video is "Unfamiliar Fishes" by "social observer" Sarah Vowell. Vowell is also the author of Assassination Vacation, a book about visiting the sites of presidential assassinations, and is an all around internet-enhanced author/personality. Enjoy. And keep an eye out for my upcoming YouTube viral video, "The History of Spokane as a Series of Chili Cheese Dogs."

Northwest History at Common-Place

It has been a while since I mentioned the marvelous online history journal Common-place, which describes itself as "a bit friendlier than a scholarly journal, a bit more scholarly than a popular magazine, Common-place speaks--and listens--to scholars, museum curators, teachers, hobbyists, and just about anyone interested in American history before 1900."

It is difficult to find that historical sweet spot in-between popular storytelling and academic rigor, and Common-Place hits that mark more often than any publication I know (except maybe for Montana the Magazine of Western History).

Common-place deals mostly in colonial and early national history, but if you poke around in their archives there are some real gems of northwest history. Below are some fine pieces on Francis Parkman, the fisheries at Celilo Falls, a photographer on the Oregon Trail, and first contacts in Alaska.

Common-place: The Pathfinder's Lost Instruments It became the Emigrant Road, the main trunk of the trails to Oregon, Utah, and ...Benton had his eye on Oregon, which at the time meant all the country west of ... www.common-place.org/vol-04/no-04/rea/

Common-place: Talk of the Past The Horseshoe Falls, the most photographed part of Celilo Falls, was close to theOregon shore. Until its inundation, Celilo Falls was by far the biggest tourist ... www.common-place.org/vol-06/no-02/talk/

Common-place: Hayden's Gaze Science and art come to the Oregon Trail. When the photographer William Henry Jackson posed fourteen men around a table in a field, propped a deer head on ... www.common-place.org/vol-06/no-02/rea/

Common-place: First Meetings in the North Pacific For the best recent history of Alaska, see Stephen Haycox, Alaska: An American Colony (Seattle, 2002). For a recent and more pro-Russian position see ... www.common-place.org/vol-05/no-02/namias/index.shtml

Act Now to Save a Spokane Landmark

What is a community to do when a university is destroying its historic fabric?

The Jensen-Byrd building, 1909-2012 (?)

Washington State University announced last week that one of Spokane's landmark historic buildings, the Jensen-Byrd building, would be torn down to be replaced with student apartments. This despite the fact that a local developer has offered to buy the building for the same price and save it. A WSU spokesperson explained that they went with the wrecking ball because that buyer offered to pay WSU more quickly.

It might not be too late to stop the destruction of this important piece of Spokane history. The Spokane Preservation Advocates has issued an action alert calling on citizens to mount an email campaign to save the building. They ask that you contact WSU President Elson Floyd at presidentsoffice@wsu.edu and Chair of the Board of Regents Theodor Baseler at hoytc@wsu.edu (also that you CC spa@spokanepreservation.org). Ask them to preserve this Spokane Landmark. Here is the letter I just sent, which you may adapt if you like:


Dear President Floyd and Chairman Baseler:

I think you would be surprised to know the amount of disappointment and anger that has been generated here in Spokane over your decision to tear down one of our most historic buildings, the Jensen-Byrd building.

Dating from 1909, the building is a grand testament to Spokane at the peak of its early growth. The Spokane Preservation Advocates recently recognized the Jensen-Byrd building as one of the top historic structures in the Spokane region.

All over the country buildings such as the Jensen-Byrd are being renovated and breathing new life into their communities. Indeed a local developer, Ron Wells, has offered to buy and preserve the building. But you have chosen instead to tear down a piece of Spokane history, simply (according to press reports) to get your money more quickly.

It is not too late to reverse this decision, which is a disaster not only for Spokane but also for the reputation of WSU. If you tear down this building it will take a generation to repair the damage to the reputation of your institution. For your sake as well as ours, please spare the Jensen-Byrd building.

Sincerely,

Larry Cebula

Possibly the Greatest Flickr Group Ever

Allow me to present customized bomber jackets of World War Two:

Bomber Jackets, a set by D. Sheley on Flickr.

Spokane Prohibition Documentary tonight

Raid on an underground still, via the Spokesman-Review.

KSPS is airing a documentary that should be of interest to readers of this blog: Rumrunners' Paradise: Spokane During Prohibition, which airs at 7 p.m. tonight. Unlike the east coast and midwest, where the bootlegging business was dominated by already-established organized crime networks, the inland Northwest liquor trade was more of an amateur hour. Bootlegging in the Inland Empire was shaped by our peculiar history and geography and involved unemployed timber men, Indians whose reservations were handily located between Spokane and the Canadian border, and not a few enterprising women and children. This HistoryLink article, "Prohibition: Booze Routes to Spokane" outlines the business. Edmund Fahey's Rum Road to Spokane is a wonderfully entertaining first-hand narrative from a rum runner.

Rumrunners' Paradise features historians Dale Soden, Bill Stimson, William Rorabaugh, Jim Kershner, Jim Price, and Tony Bamonte. An all-star lineup! Here is a good Spokesman-Review story on the documentary.

The Internet Archive and the Beauties of Spokane

So I was playing around on the Internet Archive and discovered a few things. The Internet Archive is "a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. Its purposes include offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format." It is a fabulous and growing resource. I have used items from the Internet Archive to post about the Grand Coulee Dam and an 1950s educational film about Lewis and Clark.

So what's new? First, there seems to be a lot more content, at least concerning Spokane, than a year or two ago. This includes a substantial number of volumes that are not on Google Books, such as the 1895 booklet The Beauties of Spokane (see below).

Second, there is something odd going on with images at the Internet Archive and Google Books. Take for example Durham's 1911 History of the City of Spokane. The Google Books version has the images that were included in the text, such as this Birdseye View of Spokane on page 3. Yet the image is missing from the Internet Archive scan of the same page. Why is that? I smell a copyright dispute...

Third, Internet Archive now has the very best tools for online reading and sharing of scanned print books of anyone. Check this out--an 1895 book, The Beauties of Spokane. The volume itself is quite rare--Google Books not only lacks a scan, it doesn't even know about the book. And the volume is a treasure trove of high-quality images of Spokane buildings, many now lost.  Check it out below:

  .

Recovering Memory in Joplin

From the Flickr group Lost Photos of Joplin

I taught in Joplin, Missouri for 12 years, from 1996 to 2008, and the town has been much on my mind this year since the devastating tornado on May 21st.  The loss of life and property were terrible, with 160 dead and in excess of $2 billion in property damage. The tornado tore a gash across the center of town, destroying 7000 homes and many of the people inside of them.

Lost Photos of Joplin

The tornado was also destructive to the history of Joplin. The twister missed the historic downtown and the local history museum, but it tore up many historic buildings (particularly residences). More damagingly, it destroyed the personal history of many of who survived. The tornado ripped the roofs off of houses and scattered possessions over miles, newspapers stories were full of tales of personal photographs, birth certificates, and family heirlooms being found in yards and fields for weeks. And the area was hit by drenching rains for days after the tornado, destroying the personal libraries and documents left unprotected in those shattered roofless homes.

Now an interesting virtual effort to reunite tornado survivors to their lost photographs has been launched a Facebook named Lost Photos of Joplin, MO Tornado. The idea is to use the social networking power of Facebook to allow volunteers to post photographs they found after the storm with the owners. There is also a website, Joplin Rescued Photos, and a Flickr group. Here is a Joplin newspaper story and an American Public Media radio piece about the effort. Photographs that were damaged in the storm can even be restored by the volunteers at Operation Photo Rescue.

What is most interesting to me is the decentralized but highly effective nature of the effort, made possible by social networking tools, the proliferation of scanners, and existing networks such as area churches and genealogical societies. The process will probably play out over years, and many of the photographs will never find their owners, but it is hard to imagine such an effort even taking place just a few years ago.

Don't Mind the Mess

I am playing around with the template, so this site may go through quite a few different looks before I settle on something. Wish I had saved the old one before I started!

Meanwhile, courtesy of my employer the Washington State Archives, Digital Archives, here is a mysterious 1888 death certificate from the frontier town of Spokane Falls, Washington Territory. Because I know you like that sort of thing:

I cannot find out anything more about this case online--there are no digitized newspapers for this period online. If you know anything, post it below!

Update: You guys are fast. A tip from the excellent Charles Hansen showed me that there are digitized newspapers from this period and I found an article about this case. Hansen writes the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society Blog, which often has valuable research tips for local and regional history.

Teaching American History Program Emergency

Today I received the following alarming message from the NCHE. The TAH program is on the verge of extinction.  Please call your representatives RIGHT NOW.

Dear Advocacy Team,

We need your help right away. The first report on the federal omnibus spending bill was released today and TAH funding for 2012 has been completely eliminated!

As you know, the House had already voted to defund the entire TAH program as part of Rep. Duncan Hunter’s (R. California) Setting New Priorities in Education Spending Act. Now, the Senate has decided that insofar as $46 million (the amount funded for 2011) would not fund all the 2012 continuation grants, that they would agree to eliminate the program!

The timing is extremely limited to get to our Senators and House members to fight for this. Congress will need to pass the compromise bill, or a short-term extension measure, by tomorrow to avoid a government shutdown. But, even though Democrats and Republicans have agreed to these numbers, the measure could face a rocky road because of political factors that have little to do with education spending.

So…. please act today.

1) Call your House and Senate members and ask them to restore funding for TAH in the omnibus compromise-spending bill. If you do not know their phone number, email me for that information or check http://www.contactingthecongress.org/

2) Email your House and Senate members and ask them to restore funding. Make sure to emphasize the impact of TAH not only upon teachers and students BUT also the economic impact to your state’s economy.

Finally…

Spread the word! Let folks know that the future of TAH is at stake. To lose the funding will make it that much more difficult, if not impossible, to secure funding in the future of any history education professional development.

A Beguiling History of the World via Paper Cutouts

Kalle Mattson - Thick As Thieves (Official Video) from Kevin Parry on Vimeo.
An arts and crafts history of the world.

Forgotten Highways and Historic Preservation

The Spokesman-Review recently had an interesting story and accompanying photo essay about attempts to revive interest in the the historic Three Flags Highway. Later known as US 395, this "Mother Road of the West" was first laid out in the 1920s and connected Canada to Mexico via eastern Washington, Oregon and California. The route was heavily promoted in the early days of auto tourism, particularly in California, with the saying "three countries one road." Today, according to the Spokesman, "historians in southern California are trying to revive the name as part of an effort to reclaim the motoring past."

The story got me thinking about how many economic revitalization schemes depend on history, and the role that historic highways can play in the process. As little towns across America look for some way to brand themselves and establish a public identity, they often reach into their past and heritage tourism. And there are so many historic highways that can be promoted. We all know about Route 66 but that route was a relative latecomer compared to the Lincoln Highway (see above, the first automobile route across America, established in 1913), the Jefferson Highway (Winnipeg to New Orleans, 1919), the Dixie Highway (Chicago to Miami, 1915) and a host of others.

Coordinating the interpretation of a historic highway is necessarily a difficult feat, involving hundreds of communities and their small museums and historic societies, multiple state historic societies, and city and state tourism offices. For the same reasons it makes a good grass roots public history project--markers, displays and commemorations can come into being one community at a time, with or without any broad formal plan.

Writing this post reminded me of a visit a few years ago to the surprisingly excellent Great Platte River Road Archway Museum in Nebraska. The innovative museum covers the history of transportation and travel along the river corridor from pre-contact times to the present.  The exhibit I liked best was a section depicting an auto campground along the Lincoln Highway in the 1920s. I wish I had taken more pictures:

This aspect of American history--life and travel along the early pre-war highways--seems relatively under-interpreted to me. I don't know of a major museum or museum exhibit on this fascinating era.