history

junk2
Profiles

Anacortes Junk Co.

Marine Supply? Hardware? Antiques? Museum and gift shop? It’s a bit of all of these. Wander over wood floors that creak like the deck of a ship to find less glamorous but just as useful galvanized cleats, cubbies of hard-to-find pipe fittings, and various sizes of chain and rope. That part for your vessel you were certain only existed in your imagination—it’s somewhere here—might be a bit dusty. Think some of the stuff lying around might be junk? Perhaps, but as Steve Demopoulos heard his grandfather “Mike,” say many times, “It’s only junk until someone needs it.”

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5 Min
old black and white photo of men standing in front of tent in snowy forest
Field Notes

Walter Harper: The First to Summit Denali

By the time they established their final high-altitude camp at 17,500 feet both Stuck, and Tatum were struggling. The archdeacon, in particular, was in trouble. A forty-nine-year-old lifelong smoker, each breath was a struggle, and he would periodically blackout. But the team decided to try for the summit. The decision to put Harper in the lead was a simple one. “Karstens recognized that any chance they had to succeed hinged on having their strongest climber lead, and that was Walter,”

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10 Min
The History of Black Regiments on the Alcan Highway_1200x628
Profiles

Black Regiments of the Alcan Highway

Seventy-eight years ago, the Army Corps of Engineers completed one of its most ambitious assignments of World War II—the Alaska-Canadian (Alcan) Highway. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the Alcan Highway became a high priority. Eight engineer regiments were assigned: 18th, 35th, 340th, and 341st, and Black 93rd, 95th, 97th, and 388th reluctantly added. Race relations in American were very different in 1942, which was still in the era of Jim Crow and a segregated Army. Opportunities for Blacks were rare, and expectations low. They were unwanted for duty in the front lines and often treated with condescension or contempt by their White leaders and other White soldiers.

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5 Min
McKinley Thompson Jr. & the Ford Bronco_1200x628
Profiles

The Jackie Robinson of Car Design: McKinley Thompson Jr.

McKinley Thompson Jr., a Ford designer who helped pen the first-generation Bronco, was the first African American designer hired at Ford Motor Company after graduating from ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California with a degree in transportation design in 1956. “McKinley was a man who followed his dreams and wound up making history. He not only broke through the color barrier in the world of automotive design, but he helped create some of the most iconic consumer products ever…designs that are not only timeless but have been studied by generations of designers.”

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5 Min
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Field Notes

A Brief Look at the Origin of Denim in North America

The history of denim in America dates back to the 1840s, when the durability of the warp-faced, twill textile was a proven choice for workwear clothing, with pants and overalls much in demand. The blue threads of woven cotton were dyed with indigo through a process known as “rope dying” or “chain dying,” while the weft threads were left white and visible only on the reverse side. Over time, other weights of denim were made available, along with different colors: tan, black, and gray. For laborers in the fields, coal mines, forests, and mills, denim was an inexpensive clothing option that was widely available and came in all sizes. During the California Gold Rush of 1848 to 1855, the prospector dressed in his denim work clothing, field jacket, and hip waders was a common sight.

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3 Min
The History of Boxing in Logging Camps_1200x628
Field Notes

Eight, Nine, Ten…He’s Out: The History of Boxing in Logging Camps

Logging camps were rough and tumble enterprises, where loggers often worked from sunup to sundown six days a week in their pursuit of timber harvesting across the forests and mountains of the United States. Sunday was their one day off, and one of the pastimes they engaged in for entertainment every week was boxing. Read more about some of the professional fighters than got their start in logging camps.

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3 Min
Skagit Expedition 1
Field Notes

A Soldier to the Last – Lieutenant Pierce and the Skagit Expedition of 1882

On July 18, 1882, a lieutenant in the US Army named Henry Hubbard Pierce received a letter from Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles, who was commanding the Department of the Columbia, which included the Washington Territory. This communication outlined Special Order no. 97, which charged Lt. Pierce with carrying out an expedition of the North Cascades. The primary goal of the expedition was to map his route of exploration, starting from Fort Colville on the east side of the mountain range to his terminus in Puget Sound by way of Lake Chelan and the Skagit River. As the instructions outlined, his “reconnaissance is to obtain such knowledge of the country and its occupants as may be valuable at present or in the future to the military service.”

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3 Min
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Profiles

North Cascades: Bastion of the Wild

Sitting like stone guardians just below the Canadian border, the North Cascade mountains are keepers of the wildness that once roamed unchecked across North America. Soaring high into the skies, their stony and snowy peaks seem to scrape at the clouds that pass overhead demanding tribute as they float by. Sparkling like scattered gems, glacially fed lakes brilliantly reflect the sunlight while, through deep green valleys, bright, blue-gray rivers run down to the surrounding flatlands. It is a spot where a person could quickly leave behind all of the trappings that attach themselves to our modern daily existence and transport to another existence entirely.

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4 Min
exterior view of large shipyard building with sign reading
Profiles

Pacific Fishermen Shipyard: The Origins of Ballard’s Oldest Working Shipyard

Pacific Fishermen Inc., or “PacFish,” as it is known to the many boat builders, ship crews, employees, family members and stakeholders in the Ballard community, can be traced directly back to the year 1871. It was in this year that a 47-year-old Norwegian immigrant, ship carpenter, and operator named Thomas William Lake settled on the north side of the Salmon Bay waterfront in unincorporated Seattle and opened his own shipyard.

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4 Min
black and white image of people in antiquated clothes and hats standing behind a large stack of bound wooden boxes reading
Field Notes

You Take What You Can Get: Or Suffer the Consequences

The stampede for gold into the Klondike of the Yukon territory reached a peak in 1898. In that same year, 1,200 other miners set out for other regions of the far north, including to the Koyukuk and Chandalar river drainages in the remote Alaska Territory interior, in a desperate search for similar riches. This region is situated in the northwestern part of Alaska, with the Koyukuk River flowing through it from the borders of the Arctic Ocean to where it enters the Yukon at Nulato.

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3 Min
vintage black and white image of large crowd of people all in suits at the oregon improvement co. facility
Field Notes

Journey to the Yukon: Passage Aboard the Steamships from Puget Sound to the Far North

The month of July 1897 was an exciting time to be living on the West Coast. Steamships with names like Excelsior and Portland were docking in the ports of San Francisco and Seattle, respectively, loaded down with tons of gold mined from the Klondike region of the Yukon territory of Canada.  Alaska was the gateway by which anyone with a desire to strike it rich could make the journey northward and, if well prepared and lucky, eventually return to civilization a millionaire.

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7 Min
black and white image of boats anchored in a harbor. Small double deck fishing vessel named
Profiles

Western Flyer: The Vessel of John Steinbeck

On the morning of Monday, March 11, 1940, writer John Steinbeck and marine biologist Ed Ricketts boarded the sardine seiner Western Flyer at a wharf in Monterey, California. Both men were moving slowly because a fiesta to celebrate the end of fishing season had gone on late into the night after a boat parade, a barbecue, and seine skiff races. Steinbeck and Ricketts were well-known on the waterfront—and elsewhere—so their departure on a six-week expedition drew a raucous crowd. They didn’t get away until that afternoon, and as the Flyer eased from her berth, Steinbeck noticed that the whiskey they’d loaded for medicinal purposes was gone. “Good,” he thought. “A lot of people I know won’t be getting sick for awhile if the booze does its job.”

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7 Min
black and white image of two chained working dogs with snowy coats standing on rocky ground
Field Notes

Coldfoot: More than just another gold camp – a place that defined those who lived in it

The history of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 promised fortune to many who made the journey north to the gold fields of the Yukon Territory, with many of those headed to Dawson City and Circle City in Alaska as jumping off points. By 1898, the search for riches had expanded to other regions of Alaska, including the remote Northwest interior and its network of rivers and tributaries. History has recorded the efforts of those brave souls, and how their search for gold helped to create new settlements and trade routes.

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5 Min