A Walk Through the Trees
This week HistoryLink is proud to announce that we have completed Phase 1 of our Forest History Project, thanks to funding from the Washington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. We'll begin by noting our new Forest History curriculum, which offers three lesson plans – Forest Fires, Women in Forestry, and Indigenous Relationships to the Land on the Olympic Peninsula – and an annotated timeline of Washington forestry.
We also have 12 new feature essays on such topics as images of tribal forestry in Eastern and Western Washington; logging and lumbering in Northeast and Southwest Washington, and the North Cascades; fire lookouts; timber-industry company towns; tree farming; experimental forestry; the Douglas Fir; the Wheeler Osgood Company; and photographer Darius Kinsey. We also have three timeline essays: The 1930 fall of the Mineral Tree in Lewis County; the 1989 launch of the Ancient Forest Rescue Expedition; and the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan.
Along with those, we have 15 new oral-history interviews with: Brian Boyle, former Commissioner of Public Lands; Sally Jewell, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior; Cindy Mitchell, of the Washington Forest Protection Association; Cody Desautel, the executive director of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation; Guy Capoeman, President of the Quinault Tribe; Gary Morishima, of the Quinault Management Center; Finn Wilcox, of Olympic Reforestation Incorporated; Gene Duvernoy, President Emeritus of Forterra; Lynn Miner, of Casa Becca del Norte; Margaret "Kit" Ellis, of the Ellis Family Forest; Mitch Friedman, founder of Conservation Northwest; writer and conservation activist Tim McNulty; John Hughes and Doug Barker of the Daily World of Aberdeen; Toby Murray, former president and CEO Murray Pacific; and Vicki Christiansen, former Chief of the U.S. Forest Service.
We'd also like you to know that we're working on a book about forest history in Washington. Keep coming back to HistoryLink for more news about that.
The Fourth, If You Please
We also note this week some of the significant events that have occurred on July 4 in Washington history, beginning with Puget Sound's first 4th of July celebration, held by the Wilkes Expedition in 1841. On July 4, 1853, the first U.S. flag made in Washington Territory was flown. On July 4, 1889, Joseph Pearsall staked the first mining claim in Monte Cristo, which led to a brief boom for the mountain community. On July 4, 1915, Bill Boeing reportedly took his first airplane ride. That same day, Samuel Hill dedicated the Pacific Highway at Blaine. Exactly three years later, Hill was on hand to help dedicate the Stonehenge replica at Maryhill.
Seattle alone has its share of noteworthy Independence Day events. It was on that day in 1854 that Lake Union and Lake Washington were given their adopted names; on July 4, 1914, the Smith Tower was dedicated; and on July 4, 1917, the Lake Washington Ship Canal was formally dedicated.
Unfortunately, the holiday also has more than its fair share of grim anniversaries. On July 4, 1889, a massive fire swept through Ellensburg, destroying 200 homes and 10 business blocks. On July 4, 1900, a streetcar full of passengers traveling to the Independence Day Parade in downtown Tacoma jumped the tracks and plunged 100 feet into a ravine, killing 43 people and injuring 65. On July 4, 1915, a German saboteur being sought for his role in a recent barge explosion in Elliott Bay killed himself in a Seattle hotel room. And on July 4, 1972, a fireworks mishap injured 18 people at the Seattle Center when an errant skyrocket landed in a crowd and exploded. And on July 4, 1985, a fireworks malfunction set part of Jetty Island ablaze in Everett Harbor, but fortunately no one was injured.
