(click to enlarge photos)

(Published in the Seattle Times online on April 29, 2021
and in PacificNW Magazine of the print Times on May 2, 2021 )

Visualizing our victories over virus to ring out a new celebration

By Jean Sherrard

Born last summer at the height of the pandemic, my younger brother’s 9-month-old twins, Talia and Gavin, have not yet acquired what psychologist Jean Piaget termed “object permanence.” Bright toys supplied by distanced aunts and uncles are quickly forgotten — out of sight, out of mind.

Similarly, when the terrors of infectious disease recede in the rearview mirror, the collective memory may not serve. Even as countless lives have been saved, a sizeable plurality of humans worldwide remains vaccine-hesitant.

Lest we forget, it was on April 12, 1955, that church bells rang out across the nation, celebrating clinical trials proving that Jonas Salk’s poliomyelitis vaccine had defeated a scourge that had been deadly for decades.

In a front-page banner headline, The Seattle Times shouted, “Vaccine is effective, potent, safe.” Below, an article said vaccination would “smash polio’s terror and tragedies … [ending] the fear that has long gripped the hearts of parents.”

Only three years earlier, in 1952, U.S. polio had peaked. Nearly 58,000, mostly children, fell ill. Of those, polio had paralyzed 21,000 and killed 3,000. Most outbreaks took place in summer. Infections seemed random and unpredictable. A child playing with friends one afternoon might end up hospitalized by evening.

But vaccines ended polio in the Americas by 1992, largely eliminating it across the globe. It was not the only viral killer brought to heel. Smallpox, which killed more than 300 million in the 20th century, was eradicated. Inoculation vastly reduced measles, yellow fever and hepatitis.

Today, however, vaccines may fall victim to their historical success. Some who have not personally witnessed a viral catastrophe apparently deem it unreal.

Hilary Godwin, dean of the University of Washington School of Public Health, faults social media for amplifying misinformation. “We in the sciences and in public health,” she says, “need to regain the trust of the general population, in a bipartisan way.”

Godwin also addresses an understandable mistrust of the medical establishment in Black and Native American communities: “We must not only recognize historical injustices and inequities but also elevate the conversation to talk about them openly.”

Joining the conversation is Ken Workman, fourth-generation great-grandson of Chief Seattle and a Duwamish tribal elder, who received his first COVID-19 inoculation in March.

“I’m alive today because my family survived the genocide of welcoming Europeans,” he says. “We survived gifts of smallpox blankets. We survived gentrification and displacement. The world may be all up in arms over COVID, yet for me this is just another day.”

Between tides of uncertainty and hope, will we someday be able to ring out a new celebration?

WEB EXTRAS

Just another photo of Ken Workman, snaring the traditional post-jab lollipop.

A few weeks ago, on March 14, 2021, I met Ken down at Golden Gardens and shot a few photos of his traditional farewell extended to a Tlingit crew and canoe. The rainy weather did not dampen spirits.

 

 

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(Published in the Seattle Times online on April 22, 2021
and in PacificNW Magazine of the print Times on April 25, 2021 )

Beach magic bathes Link2Lake quest in diverse Rainier Beach
By Jean Sherrard

Tucked between a boat launch, an adjacent parking lot and a beige restroom with all the charm of a quartered Quonset hut, the scruffy Lake Washington shoreline of Be’er Sheva Park might seem an unlikely place to find magic. Neither woo-woo nor hocus pocus, it offers an unexpected alchemy of earth, water and sky, arranged like lips pursed for a kiss.

On a recent visit, I happened upon what looked like an impromptu block party. In this cherished gathering spot, Rainier Beach neighbors were listening to music, picnicking and admiring the returning geese and waterfowl.

This story, however, begins much earlier, with melting ice. More than 16,000 years ago, receding glaciers shaped the Pacific Northwest — and Rainier Beach — into its current greenscape.

The first humans to settle the area were Duwamish. Members of one tribal branch calling themselves the Lake People had wintered along the lake’s shores for millennia. European settlers arrived in the 1860s, evicting the Lake People from their ancestral homes while appropriating the land for themselves.

Annexed by Seattle in 1907, Rainier Beach today is among the city’s most racially and culturally diverse neighborhoods. Eighty percent of its residents are people of color, while, in their homes, 57% speak a language other than English. These historically underserved communities reside in one of only two Seattle neighborhoods (the other is the Duwamish River valley) without an extended public shoreline or a signature waterfront park.

“Nevertheless, our neglected little beach has always been a focal point for community-building,” says Shannon Waits, who co-chairs the steering committee of a group called Rainier Beach Link2Lake. The nonprofit’s plans for lakefront improvements are shovel-ready, pending final funding. “The neighborhood,” Waits says, “is determined to make beauty in this place despite systemic oppression.”

Buoyed by the slogan “Where’s the Beach,” Rainier Beach residents have eagerly contributed design ideas, suggesting basic improvements to the parcel’s infrastructure that most other Seattle waterfront parks take for granted.

“The community envisions a green waterfront that celebrates the pedestrian experience,” says George Lee, project manager, who enthusiastically tallies the envisioned upgrades. “We’ll add basic amenities like picnic tables, barbecue grills and a covered stage that doubles as a shelter. Add to that a boardwalk and lighted walkways, not to mention a big natural beach for families to play on.”

The abracadabra begins this summer with a mural painting project, enlisting young community artists to enliven the exterior walls of the plain-Jane restroom. For more information on the capital campaign, visit rainierbeachlinktolake.org.

WEB EXTRAS

A few more shots from the park.

For our accompanying 360 degree video, click here.

(Click and click again to enlarge photos)

(Published in the Seattle Times online on April 15, 2021
and in PacificNW Magazine of the print Times on April 18, 2021)

One Space Needle, coming right up! A 60th anniversary tale

By Clay Eals

It was an era of courageous quests: Nationally, landing on the moon within the decade. Locally, building a bold, enduring beacon.

Sixty years ago, ground was broken for our city’s 605-foot Space Needle — on April 17, 1961, to be exact. A year later, on April 21, 1962, the Seattle World’s Fair opened, and so did the Needle.

Today’s warp-speed endeavors have little on this one. It’s hard to fathom how fast the fair’s signature symbol went up, but Gary Curtis has a grasp.

The 24-year-old was two years out of Walla Walla University’s engineering program in March 1961 while working in the five-person Pasadena office of structural engineer John Minasian, an expert in the wind and seismic loads of towers. There, Curtis began pumping out detailed drawings that guided the Needle’s assembly.

From the get-go, adrenaline fueled the overtime pace. “Thirteen months later, the structure’s going to be done,” Curtis says. “They hadn’t even rolled the steel yet in Chicago.”

Daily, Curtis and others produced and overnighted tubes of oversized documents to Seattle at 11 p.m. for use by 8 a.m. “We would look at where they were, the actual construction, the guys putting steel together, and we’d be detailing stuff 150 feet above where they were working,” he says. “You didn’t mess around.”

Instead of cutting corners, however, the engineers strengthened them.

“We just threw the steel at it,” he says. “What we did was brutal. It was a beautiful design, but we didn’t have time to do a refined analysis. If you found out that a quarter-inch plate was going to probably be about right, use three-eighths, use five-sixteenths. You didn’t skimp on anything. If 50 bolts made a connection, 75 went in. There was no time to try to figure out how to save money. Saving money wasn’t the point. Getting it done on time was the point.”

Through the Needle’s decades of wear and renovation, the work has held up — and so has Curtis. Now 84 and living 80 miles and a ferry ride north of Seattle, Curtis lovingly preserves copies of his drawings and the tools he used to create them: a slide rule, triangle, drafting pencils, a pencil sharpener, erasers and an erasing shield. Eyeing his 1961 lettering and “GNC” initials on the plans, he breaks into a grin.

“It was really exciting,” he says. “You’re 24? Come on! Good grief, that’s just what you do.”

Though he’s worked on high bridges and geodesic domes and consulted at the South Pole, for him the Needle stands supreme: “It’s the most dramatic project that people know most about.”

WEB EXTRAS

To see Jean Sherrard‘s 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photo, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay Eals, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column!

Special thanks to Gary Curtis, Denise and Brad Chrisman and Bruce and Emily Howard for their assistance with this installment.

Below are a link to an in-depth video interview of Gary, two additional “Now” photos by Jean, five additional photos by Gary, two additional photos by Fora Meredith and a book cover.

Also, to vividly illustrate the intense interest and excitement over the speedy construction of the Space Needle, we present, in chronological order, 102 historical photo clippings from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archives (available via Seattle Public Library) and other online newspaper sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

 

A full year of newspaper clippings, documenting the Space Needle under construction, April 22, 1961, to April 22, 1962:

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(Published in the Seattle Times online on April 8, 2021
and in PacificNW Magazine of the print Times on April 11, 2021)

Can we talk? Fall City celebrates communication in any form

By Clay Eals

Because of its expense and spam, I’m ready to shed our household’s telephone landline. “It’s about time — LOL,” my nephew Chris chides me. He’s probably right, but as a history writer, maybe I get some leeway.

No question: Landlines were once a big deal. More than a century before so-called smartphones and other technology, and in an era of telegraphs and handwritten letters, a telephone tethered to other phones through switchboards in country homes and wires strung along roadways from pole to pole was … well, revolutionary. People hearing real voices in real time over really long distances? Imagine that.

Our “Then” photo hints at how vital this was for tiny towns like Fall City, 25 miles and two lakes east of Seattle. With laundry rippling on a backyard clothesline and a manual lawnmower leaning against the side porch, this lived-in home also displayed three signs (can you spot them?) that it was communications central.

Fledgling telephones in Fall City date to 1900. By 1905, residents banded together, with $300 from lawyer-lumberman Newton Harshman and wife Julia, to connect phone lines from their stores to the local Northern Pacific Depot. In 1912, the Harshmans moved the switchboard to the 1904 home in our “Then” photo, first occupied by Martin and Parthena Prescott, at River and Mill streets along the Snoqualmie River.

Newton died in 1929, and Julia in 1933, when her Fall City Telephone Company sported 250 customers. Keeping the business afloat were their daughter, Gertrude Harshman, and her husband, George Satterlee, until 1947 when a new dial system soon would eliminate the need for a switchboard and operators.

The house was restored as office space, became a county landmark in 1984 and later hosted a Montessori school. Last fall, after 13 years of planning and hands-on fix-up, the building (known as Prescott-Harshman House and owned by Judy and Emily Nelson of nearby Preston) took on a retail persona that hearkens to its chatty roots.

Run by three local women, Aroma Coffee Co. aims to build connections — even with takeout only during the pandemic — at the busy intersection, now 335th Place Southeast and Redmond-Fall City Road (state Highway 202).

“More communication,” observes Metropolitan King County Council member Kathy Lambert, “is always going to be buzzing through here, and it’s very exciting.” So, too, is the county’s 2020 John Spellman historic-preservation award for adaptive reuse, bestowed to Prescott-Harshman House in December.

Like the rest of us, Aroma yearns for a post-virus day when friends and neighbors can gather in homey quarters for eye-to-eye conversation over a hot drink. Now that’ll be revolutionary.

WEB EXTRAS

To see Jean Sherrard‘s 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photo, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay Eals, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column!

Special thanks to the Fall City Historical Society, the Snoqualmie Valley Museum and the King County Historic Preservation Program for their assistance with this installment!

Below are two video links, nine photos, five documents and seven historical clippings from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archives (available via Seattle Public Library) and other online newspaper sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

 

NOTE: To see a July 28, 2021, story in the Mukilteo Beacon updating the saga of the missing plaque, click here.

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(Published in the Seattle Times online on April 1, 2021
and in PacificNW Magazine of the print Times on April 4, 2021)

Treaty monument in Mukilteo is plaqueless — perhaps forever?

By Clay Eals

Sometimes history isn’t where you think you’ll find it.

Case in point: the Jan. 22, 1855, accord known as the Point Elliott Treaty, signed with an “X” by Chief Seattle and 81 other Puget Sound tribal leaders.

While it conferred tribal sovereignty and later was judicially interpreted to protect tribal fishing rights, it also ceded countless acres of land to European newcomers and has long been considered a lordly license for settler supremacy.

Nearly 90 years ago, a ceremony commemorated the treaty with a granite monument. The marker was installed at Third and Lincoln in downtown Mukilteo, a site thought to be near the place the treaty was signed. A Daughters of the American Revolution event on May 2, 1931, drew more than 3,000 people, including 300 Native Americans, some who were descendants of the treaty signers.

To absorb the dedication’s hillside milieu, I recently drove north to see the marker at its Mukilteo city block. Imagine my surprise when I reached the stone and found its plaque missing. All that remained in its rectangular frame were three screw holes and a washered pin.

The plaque has been gone since October, when the city discovered its absence, along with graffiti that covered the monument. The scrawls included an anarchist symbol, an expletive and the phrase “BROKEN TREATIES.” Staff scrubbed off the defacement but have puzzled over the plaque’s whereabouts.

Jennifer Gregerson, two-term mayor of Mukilteo, issued a statement hinting that the plaque would not be replaced: “The signing location itself has an important significance in our shared history with the Northwest tribes. I believe this act of vandalism can provide an opportunity to spur our community forward into a new conversation. I hope that we can find a different way to explain and acknowledge that history at this site in Mukilteo.”

The Mukilteo Historical Society doesn’t plan to weigh in on the monument’s future, but Joanne Mulloy, president, is curious about what, if anything, the city will do.

Leaving the marker plaqueless appeals to Ken Workman, fourth-generation great grandson of Chief Seattle, whose Duwamish Tribe still lacks federal recognition. Lyrically, Workman notes that granite and computer memory chips both contain silicon.

“Granite holds the memories of people,” he says. “It’s a symbolic link to the genetic pain of 170 years.”

WEB EXTRAS

To see Jean Sherrard‘s 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photo, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay Eals, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column!

Below are a photo, brochure, a HistoryLink backgrounder, a map, a DAR timeline and, in chronological order, four historical clippings from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archives (available via Seattle Public Library) and other online newspaper sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

Special thanks to local historian Phil Hoffman and his Alki History Project for the initial idea for this installment and for invaluable assistance. He reminds us that the formal name of the Point Elliott Treaty is “Treaty between the United States and the Duwamish, Suquamish, and other allied and subordinate tribes of Indians in Washington Territory.” Hoffman adds, “I am operating on the premise that what we call things reveals what we really think and our biases.”

Joanne Mulloy, president of the Mukilteo Historical Society, offers this additional information and insight: “John Collier, our past president, wrote a quote that I quite like: ‘The Point Elliott Treaty remains a significant historical event for both the Tulalip people and the City of Mukilteo. As such, it should be remembered and, more important, continue to be studied as a means of strengthening cooperation and progress today.’ There are several plaques down at Lighthouse Park still. One was leftover from a bench that was on the beach in the 1950s, but the bench washed out in the Sound.”