top of page
.png)
Articles
Filter by tag:
Filter by category:
This Old Kitchen: Red Velvet Cake
When our Food Stories cookbook was being written we compiled not just recipes but recorded oral histories from people and these oral...
Dismantling Racism: Black Lives Matter
Change is now. The video documenting George Floyd’s murder has shaken the world. America’s silence has been broken and voices have been...
Dismantling Racism : May 27, 2020 | Presentation
Please join us for an online talk with David J. Jepsen, author of “Contested Boundaries: A New Pacific Northwest History” on the primary...
De Facto Dry in Columbia City, 1893 - 1914
During Columbia City’s early years, Washington struggled with the prohibition issue. Temperance advocates had begun their work back in...
Dinnertime in Garlic Gulch
Thursday and Sunday was spaghetti day Rainier Valley’s Italian heritage goes back a hundred years or more. Back then, the Valley was...
Garlic Gulch Wedding
Rainier Valley’s Italian heritage goes more than a hundred years. Back then, the Valley was largely forests and farms, with the streetcar...
Hitt’s Fireworks: 1905-1976
Fireworks in Columbia City Thomas Gabriel Hitt, known as T.G. Hitt, was born in London in 1874. He studied chemistry at Westminster...
A Ticket to the Pennant: A Tale of Baseball in Seattle
Before the Seattle Mariners, there were the Seattle Rainiers who are playing for the pennant in this story that shows how baseball unites...
Thanksgiving Turkeys at Bob's Quality Meats
by Mikala Woodward, Excerpted from Rainier Valley Food Stories Cookbook Butchering seems to run in families. Jim Ackley, owner of Bob’s...
Coffee Culture
Excerpts from Rainier Valley Food Stories Cookbook Coffee History Coffee is believed to originate in Ethiopia. One story goes that Kaldi...
An Homage to Columbia School
"It's hard for anyone, even the most pessimistic of pessimists, to spend more than a few minutes in Central Park without feeling that he...
Roy Olmstead: Seattle's "Rum King"
On March 22, 1920, federal agents nabbed a tugboat crew unloading Canadian whiskey on a beach near Edmonds. Prohibition had been in...
History of the Mount Baker Neighborhood
Prepared by Katie Pratt and Spencer Howard of Northwest Vernacular, Inc. on behalf of the Friends of Mount Baker Town Center with funding...
Juneteenth Celebrations
Juneteenth celebrates the ending of slavery in the United States. President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1,...
Ilda Jackson's Sweet Potato Pie
“He kept saying, ‘I want a sweet potato pie like my mother made.’” by Mikala Woodward, Excerpted from Rainier Valley Food Stories...
Now You See It, Now You Don't: Franklin High School and the Mount Baker Neighborhood
This photo of the just-completed Franklin High School was taken from somewhere half-way up Beacon Hill in about 1913. The Rainier Valley...
Rainier Valley's Timbered Past
Horses hauling logs at Columbia Mill, Columbia, July 15, 1891. Photo property of Rainier Valley Historical Society, Accession Number...
Calithumpians in Columbia City
Crowd outside Phalen's Grocery during Rainier Valley Fiesta, Seattle, 1915. Property of Rainier Valley Historical Society, Accession...
The Lost World of Neighborhood Groceries
Whenever young Bernice Boley had a little money, she’d head over to Vincent’s grocery for some penny candy: this was the 1930s, and a...
Hillman City through the ages
Hillman City began as a stop on the Rainier Valley Streetcar line in the 1890s. The area was platted by, and named after, the notorious...
bottom of page