Ghost Signs of Spokane, Part Two

EWU grad students Anna Harbine and Frank Oesterheld leading
a tour of the ghost signs of Spokane

Some time back I posted about a unique class project that I was forcing my unwilling students to do using to enrich my class on Local History Research Methods--the Ghost Sign Project. I thought I should bring the subject up-to-date.

Ghost signs are those faded, painted advertisements that you see on the sides of buildings in the historic areas of many American cities. Painted in thick layers of lead paint, many have long outlived the products and businesses they were created to advertise. In the spring of 2013, my students fanned out across Spokane and did an inventory of the surviving ghost signs.  I thought it would be fun to have my students map and record as many of the signs as they could find, then research the background of these vanished businesses.

The assignment worked better than I dared imagine. The students loved prowling the alleyways (always in pairs!) and finding the old signs. They became quite competitive, trying to see who could find the most. They took with them clipboard, cameras, and a form that we developed together to record their data. You can see the form here.

An online version of the form, created by my student Frank Oesterheld, automagically dropped their information into a Google Fusion Table. This generated a map of the ghost signs of Spokane:

Pretty cool, yes? We found signs for blacksmiths and buggy manufacturers, for early car dealerships and Single Room Occupancy hotels, for cigars and chewing tobacco, for paints and coffee and flour. All in all the signs, most created between 1890 and 1920, painted a picture of a workingman's town where people wanted an inexpensive place to stay and a cheap cigar.

Then we took to the archives to research the histories of the signs. City directories and Sanborn maps were the most valuable sources, but we also dug through Google News Archives, historic register nominations, census records, marriage and other vital records, and oral histories. I told my students to look for interesting stories behind the signs--stories of the business, stories of the owners, stories about the kind of town that Spokane was during the era in which their sign was painted. They found some great stuff, including Japanese hotel owners, the era of cheap downtown lodging, life in the rail yards, and Spokane's "cracker war." The stories were written from our local history smartphone app and website, Spokane Historical. The best of them appear there as a walking tour, Ghost Signs of Spokane.

It was a tremendously successful class exercise. And yet when class was over some of us felt like the topic was not exhausted. How else could this research be presented?

This spring two of my graduate students, Anna Harbine and Frank Oesterheld, developed a face-to-face walking tour of the signs that they would lead. Adapting the digital to the analog proved an interesting challenge. Which signs do we include? How far do we want to walk? Should the tour be one-way or a loop? Oesterheld and Harbine chose a route, developed scripts, and practiced the walk a half-dozen times. Last Friday they went live, leading a group from the Northwest Archivists Conference through the back alleys of Spokane in search of ghosts. It was a hit! Here are some pictures of the event, taken by Benjamin Helle of the Washington State Archives ~ Olympia Regional Branch. Here we are getting started:

Don't despair if you missed the tour, we are looking at ways to make it happen again, perhaps as part of a First Friday event.

As a teaching exercise in public history, I am delighted how this project has evolved. The class itself was part research seminar and part treasure hunt, both educational and engaging. They course laid the building blocks of a digital tour, and then a physical tour, also spearheaded by public history students. Four of the students in the course also presented their work as a poster session at the National Council for Public History conference this spring. The project built a lot of bridges with the local historic preservation community and most importantly brought attention to some of my students and their work.

I teach Research Methods in Local History again in the coming school year--what should we do as a group research project next time around?

Discounted Student Rate at Revitalize WA Conference

This announcement just in--looks like a great conference, and I am so pleased to see a heavily-discounted student rate. 

The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation will hold its annual RevitalizeWA conference in Vancouver, Washington, May 15-17, 2013.  This year, the Washington Trust is offering a discounted rate of $75.00 for student registration down from the $155.00 basic conference registration. 

The RevitalizeWA 2013 conference will feature a variety of engaging educational sessions, workshops and tours related to preserving and rehabilitating Washington’s historic places and revitalizing Washington’s historic downtowns all geared toward inspiring and informing attendees.  Topics to be covered include: preservation of historic theaters, heritage tourism trails, retail market analysis for Main Streets, tools for effective preservation advocacy, using federal rehabilitation and low income tax credits to redevelop historic buildings, improving your financial reporting system to rethink your non-profit, creating engaging tours of Midcentury Modern commercial buildings in your downtown, modeling best practices and collaboration in preserving Seattle’s Trinity Parish Church, using CDBG grants for storefront improvements, how to engage youth and diverse audiences in preservation and revitalization, successful adaptive reuse of industrial and large commercial sites, and what’s next for Main Street?  Keynote speaker, Charles Marohn, Executive Director of Strong Towns, will introduce a new model for community growth and sustainable development.

The Washington Trust will welcome preservation, heritage, and Main Street professionals, board members, volunteers, small business owners, city and regional planners, elected officials, design and building trade professionals, community and economic development specialists, educators, students, and local community members.  Not only is this a great educational opportunity but a chance to network with others from across the state.  More information about the conference, including a preliminary schedule, can be found on our website at http://preservewa.org/RevitalizeWA.aspx.

In order to take advantage of this offer, simply visit the Eventbrite online registration at http://revitalizewa2013.eventbrite.com/ and select the “Student Conference Registration” ticket type.  Be sure to list your college or university as the “Company / Organization” under the “Work Information” section.  For further information, contact Cathy Wickwire at cwickwire@preservewa.org.

Mossback on Why Spokane is Central

You cannot do much blogging about Washington State history without coming across the wonderful work of Knute Berger--or "Mossback" as he would prefer. Berger has been blogging and writing about Pacific Northwest history for years. His focus is usually on Seattle and the Puget Sound, but sometimes he takes a broader view as with his "Heritage Turkey Awards."

Knute Berger. Image courtesy Evergreen State College.

I had the pleasure of finally getting to meet Berger in person at the National Trust Conference in Spokane last fall. He was clearly and openly taken with our city--an unusual response from a west-sider. (I maintain that they are all secretly impressed with Spokane and would move here in a minute but for fear of the mocking from their hipster friends.)

Anyway, Berger went back home and wrote a great piece: Preserving state's heritage: Why Spokane is Central. Here is a portion:

Spokane recently played host to the prestigious National Preservation Conference, put on by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Heritage advocates from all across the country, including the storm battered East Coast, made their way to the capitol of the Inland Empire. It was a chance for Spokane to show off its preservation efforts and architectural legacy, which has been key to revitalizing its downtown.

Go and enjoy the whole piece, a powerful argument for the importance of historic preservation in reviving American cites, with Spokane as exhibit #1.

Heritage Conference at the Western Washington State Historical Society

The Washington State Historical Society (or as we on the east side know it, the Western Washington State Historical Society) is hosting an interesting two-day conference February 4th and 5th. The Art of Heritage conference will take place in Olympia. The WWSHS conference page does not include a descriptive overview for some reason, but the excellent Department of Archeology & Historic Preservation blog fills the gap:

The Washington State Historical Society is partnering with the Washington State Arts Commission, the Washington State Arts Alliance and Washington Museum Association for the 2013 Heritage Conference “The Art of Heritage” at the Red Lion Hotel in Olympia on Tuesday, February 5, 2013.  

The Conference also features workshops on Monday, February 4, 2013 on Collections Care and Effective Grant Writing at the State Capital Museum in Olympia. 

At the conference on February 5th, attendees will learn how to work effectively with elected officials, how to implement social media; get an update on lodging tax; learn about initiatives to build new audiences for arts and heritage; see how other arts and heritage groups have used state grants; get some tips on board development; and enjoy a special session on “Museums, Arts and Historic Sites Synergy.”

The spotlight event will be a noon keynote address on February 5^th  by noted author Carol Kammen, American Association of State and Local History columnist who writes “On Doing Local History.”  She will speak on “Clio and Her Sisters:  Integrating Arts and Heritage.”

Sounds like a worthwhile event. I find that such smaller, focused conferences are far more worthwhile professional events, both for information and for networking, than are impersonal national gatherings. I can't make this one, maybe a reader will catch me up with what happened?

National Trust Conference, Day 1: Historic Trails, Atomic Bombs, and Some Questionable History

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is in the house! This is one of the largest conferences that Spokane has hosted, certainly the largest history-themed conference, and it seems to be going really well. Today I gave a presentation, learned about plotting historic trails, explored three sites of a proposed new national park, heard some dubious historical interpretation, and met a lot of interesting people.

I only attended half the day today, and my first activity was presenting at my own session, Using Mobile Interpretation to Strengthen Preservation Communities. Here are the slides--though I am not sure how much sense they make without my presentation:



In the afternoon I attended two sessions. Happy Trails! Going to Great Lengths to Preserve National Historic Trails was fascinating but should have been subtitled Going to Great Lengths to FIND National Historic Trails. The three panelists described their work on three historic trails--Dave Crowley of the BLM on the Oregon Trail, Angie Krall of the Forest Service on the Old Spanish Trail, and Julie McGilvray of the NPS on the Butterfield Stage Route. What fascinated me was the incredibly painstaking work each person did with old maps, surveyors notes, and painstaking archaeology to pinpoint the routes and campsites of these long-vanished routes. Their identifications hinged on such items as a copper shell casing, a broken Spanish bridle bit, and a shard from a whiskey bottle. Locating these routes is fine-grained detective work.

My second afternoon session was  Interpreting the History of the Atomic Age. This session featured presenters for the three sites of the proposed Manhattan Project National Monument. Ethiel Garlington explained some of the preservation issues at Oak Ridge in Tennessee, Colleen French ("I'm just a girl who fell in love with a reactor") explained the special problems at Hanford where historic preservation takes a necessary back seat to cleaning up hazardous materials, and Heather McClenahan told us about Los Alamos.

I have to think that this session was planned, earlier in the year when proposals were submitted, as an announcement of a new national park. As late as this summer it seemed like the proposed park was on the fast track. But in September the bill failed, at least for now, partly on the objections of Congressman Dennis Kucinich. "At a time when we should be organizing the world toward abolishing nuclear weapons before they abolish us, we are instead indulging in hideous admiration at our cleverness as a species. The Bomb is about graveyards, not National Parks," said Kucinich. The Park Service will likely try again, but for now there is no Manhattan Project Park

One of the reasons for the failure was unintentionally made clear during the session, where two of the five presenters engaged in weird digressions from their subjects to deliver endorsements of the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japanese cities. Session chair Sean Smith of the National Parks Conservation Association stated that there was absolutely no evidence that the Japanese were considering surrender and gave very high estimates of casualties if the Americans had invaded. McClenahan added at the end of her presentation (which until that moment had been about preserving historic buildings in New Mexico) that some people disputed the high casualty figures if an invasion had been necessary  but how do those people explain then why the U.S. manufactured so many Purple Hearts for the invasion of Japan that the military did not use up the the supply until recently?

These asides were both completely irrelevant to the presentation and bad history. Smiths claims were naive. Japan sent out what many historians believe was a peace feeler to the United States before the dropping of the first bomb. There is plenty of evidence that some of the high casualty figures for an invasion of the Japanese mainland were manufactured after that war as post-facto justifications for the use of atomic bombs on civilian populations. And as for the purple hearts surplus--the United States also exited the war with a surplus of toilet paper, so much that some government agencies used WW2 army toilet paper into the 1960s. Gentle reader, I will allow you a moment to make your own joke here. You do not have to be opposed to the decision to drop the bomb (I personally feel it was the right call) to object to these presentations.

Besides being poor history, the pro-bomb arguments were wildly out of place and do real damage to the laudable cause of creating this national park. It was very like hearing a presentation on why we need a new Civil War park interrupted by an explanation of how the South was right about states rights, or "Manifest Destiny: Not So Bad" as the tagline for a new westward expansion monument.

In the question session an audience member mentioned that the mayor of Nagasaki had sent a letter to President Obama, opposing the creation of the park. I wonder why?

I should not make too much of this--both presenters spent only a few minutes defending the bomb in otherwise excellent presentations. I look forward to tomorrow!

National Preservation Conference Almost Here!

Beyond Boundaries: The National Preservation Conference is coming to Spokane in just a few weeks. The event takes place October 31st to November 3rd. This is a big conference--as the program will attest--and includes everything from education sessions and workshops to field trips and a powwow.

Of course, the must-see session of the conference is the following Power Session which will take place Thursday, November 1 from 12:30-1:00pm at the Spokane Convention Center Ballroom Exhibit Hall:

Using Mobile Interpretation to Strengthen Preservation Communities This session will highlight the way two communities, Cleveland and Spokane, are using smart phone mobile tours to promote historic preservation. Includes a demonstration of the Spokane Historical app. Presenter: Larry Cebula,Washington State Archives and Eastern Washington University.

I want to point out one conference innovation that could be copied elsewhere. Priya Chhaya, the Online Content Coordinator for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, has created pre-confernce reading lists for some of the sessions, to give newcomers to a particular topic a grounding in the literature and issues. Click through and check these out:

• Good vs. Good on Public Lands—A Reading List
• Telling Richer Stories of Place–A Reading List
• LEED and Historic Preservation—A Reading List

 I particularly like the reading list for historic preservation and public lands, which begins with a Wallace Stegner letter and includes case law and some articles on specific conflicts. And the Stories of Place reading list also includes a comments section where the public can leave questions for the panelists. More conferences should do this.

If you cannot come to Spokane--well, why can't you?! I guess you will have to follow the conference at home. The Twitter hashtag is #PRESCONF and the the National Trusts tweets as PresNation. There is also the excellent National Trust blog.

Hope Yet For Jensen-Byrd

There is a happy story in this morning's Spokesman-Review: Nonprofit delays demolition:

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

A Texas company cannot move forward with plans to demolish the 103-year-old Jensen-Byrd building in downtown Spokane until after a public hearing next month . . . Spokane Preservation Advocates, a nonprofit group, filed an appeal that prevents the company from moving forward.

The appeal argues that Spokane city officials wrongly concluded this spring that tearing down the building has no significant impact on historic resources the city and WSU have said they’re committed to protecting, attorney David Bricklin said.

The Spokane Preservation Advocates have done a wonderful job of raising awareness of the value and importance of this historic building. The SPA is no tea-and-crumpets social club, they are fighting preservationists willing to cause a fuss to help our town. What can you do to help?

1. Print off and sign this letter and submit it to the SPA, they will share with it with WSU and the city of Spokane.
2. Fire off an email to WSU President Elson Floyd (presidentsoffice@wsu.edu) and to Chair of the Board of Regents Theodor Baseler (hoytc@wsu.edu) and let them know what you think. Be sure to CC the SPA at spa@spokanepreservation.org. 
3. Become a member of the Spokane Preservation Advocates. Membership starts at just $25, and every member gives the SPA more credibility when they speak out in favor of historic preservation. If you are looking for a job in public history this is sort of thing that looks good on your resume, it shows a personal commitment to historic preservation. I am looking at you, EWU students!

We might win this one yet. Keep up the pressure!

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.

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

At Gettysburg, Moral Panic Disguised as Historic Preservation

[Note: This is cross posted over at Civil War Memory.]

The Civil War Preservation Trust has just released a video decrying the proposed building of a casino near Gettysburg National Battlefield. I think the video is wretched and illustrates nearly everything that is wrong with how we remember and memorialize our history in this country.

Some background: A developer wants to open the "Mason-Dixon Resorts Casino" within an existing hotel and convention center a half-mile from the boundary of Gettysburg Park. Pennsylvania has allowed casino gambling since 2004, starting with slot machines and now including table games such as poker. A 2005 attempt to build a casino in Gettysburg was defeated. Now the developers are trying again, and the Civil War Preservation Trust and others are fighting back, in part with this video:





My objections to the video, and the cause, are as follows:

1. Why do we care what Sam Waterston and Matthew Broderick think about this? They are actors, people! They only pretended to have fought at Gettysburg. McCullough was the only real historian they used for the production. Show me David Blight and we'll talk.

2. The battlefield as it currently exists is hardly pristine--whatever that might mean in such a context. You can hardly swing a dead cat without hitting one gigantic monument or another. Now these monuments, many erected by battle survivors in the years and decades after the fight, are interesting historical artifacts in their own right. But they represent a tremendous departure from the way the field of battle might have looked on July 1, 1863. Beyond the matter of the monuments, the landscape is different from what it would have been in 1863. The trees have grown in (though the National Park Service is currently working to restore the 1863 landscape), the open fields are full of grass instead of crops, jets fly overhead. The smell of powder and rotting flesh are gone... It is not as if the battlefield were immaculately preserved and about to be ruined.

3. My strongest objection to the video is the fetishistic treatment of warfare as a sacred activity more meaningful than other human activity. We can't have people gambling, for God's sake, it cheapens the memory of three solid days of people slaughtering one another. Susan Eisenhower (whose expertise is helpfully captioned as "Grandaughter of President Eisenhower") complains that the casino is an attempt to "exploit the brand that is Gettysburg." But surely gambling is more wholesome than people lining up to blow one anothers' limbs off?

I know, I know, Lincoln started it: "But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract..." The Biblical idea of consecration by blood was very popular in the 19th century. The 19th century is where it belongs.

4. This is selective outrage. The proposed casino will be a half-mile from the boundaries of the park and in an already existing hotel complex. (I had to look that up, the Civil War Preservation Trust would have you believe they are ready to bulldoze Little Round Top to make way for the slots.) A quick Google Map search for "shops" shows dozens of commercial businesses roughly the same distance from the battlefield, including the Cannonball Olde Tyme Malt Shop and Dirty Billy's Hats. Thr problem with this business, as the video makes clear around the half-way point, is that people will be gambling, and gambling is bad. I actually agree that gambling is a social ill, but it is also legal in Pennsylvania, like selling ice cream and hats.

5. My God, the over-the-top rhetoric in this video is terrible. It discredits not only the cause but the very idea of historic preservation. We are told that the casino will somehow "prostitute" the site. If this casino is built, we are assured, other casinos will pop up like toadstools at the Washington Monument, Arlington National Cemetery, Ground Zero, Lincoln Memorial, and presumably, your grandma's grave.

6. Where does it end? There were perhaps 10,000 conflicts within the Civil War. This National Park Service page lists hundreds of them. And notice that the anti-casino forces are objecting to something that is not on the federally defined battlefield at all, but nearby. One person calls for a "buffer zone" around the park--but how wide that buffer is supposed to be, and what commercial activities will be allowed within it, are mysteries.

The campaign to block the casino is not a legitimate effort of historic preservation. It is a moral panic being propagated by Puritan scolds. And it reminds me terribly of another current attempt to use history to block American citizens from exercising their rights to build a legal facility on their own land. Civil War Preservation Trust, meet Sarah Palin.

Would You Save This Building?

Photo: National Trust for Historic Preservation

This crumbling WW2 era hanger at Wendover Air Force base is where a select group of B-29 pilots trained for a top secret mission--to drop atomic bombs on Japan. The base retains much of the original historic fabric of that era, not just the Enola Gay hanger but bomb storage facilities, barracks, a period control tower, and today a small museum dedicated to the atomic mission and the larger history of the base. Today, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named this hanger one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. (You can read a story and see a nice video about the hanger here.)

Should we care? There is tension in historic preservation between preserving places where historic events happened and preserving buildings that are themselves historic (it helps if they are architecturally impressive or quaint as well). Over the years preservation efforts have very much tended to preserve the later--the homes of presidents, historic sites of government, exemplary architecture, etc. Undistinguished-looking but important places have fared less well--the great exception being the historic battle fields that are preserved by both federal and state agencies. But there has to have been a battle! Something like the Fishkill Encampment and Supply Depot, "a sprawling military city that became the most important northern supply center during the Revolutionary War," becomes the site of a shopping mall.

So where does this put the Enola Gay hanger? The Wendover site is the scene of historically important events, but is neither impressive nor pretty. Also working against its preservation is that it represents a chapter in American history about which we have at best ambivalent feelings. How would we interpret Wendover Atomic Historical Monument? The current interpretation at the small museum there tends to stay close to the facts and events that led up to and took place at the base, without asking too many uncomfortable questions about the bombing itself. In the post Enola Gay controversy public history world, that is probably the best we can do.

And if we are trying to memorialize the atomic effort, where do we put those memorials? The Manhattan Project and the bombing of Japan has many geographic focuses, and the story changes depending on where you choose to tell it. It is a different story at Wendover than it is at Hiroshima, and still a different story at the University of Chicago where Enrico Fermi worked or at Los Alamos. Add to these places Oak Ridge where the nuclear material was processed, Trinity where the first test bomb was detonated, Tinian Island where the pilots took off to drop the bombs on Japan, or any of the dozens of other sites relevant to the story. Which sites do we interpret? Most of these sites are interpreted right now, from a Henry Moore sculpture in Chicago to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.

I could go either way on the Enola Gay hangar. The hangar is huge, and the rest of the site even larger, and it would take millions of dollars just to stabilize, never mind properly interpret, the site. And would anyone visit after all that investment? Located on the Arizona-Utah line, Wendover is far from modern population centers. On the other hand it is along a busy interstate highway, so if you used the hanger to house some of the cool objects that people like to see--some restored a period planes, uniforms and other military objects--it might be fairly popular. If history hadn't missed out on the stimulus money, I would say to go for it.