Washington Our Home Erich R. Ebel, Fearless Field Guide and Washington State Storyteller

I am proud to announce the publication of my new book, Exploring Maritime Washington—a History and Guide. Each of the places covered in its pages has a connection to Washington’s maritime history, whether a popular tourist destination or a hidden gem known only to longtime locals. Exploring Maritime Washington provides visitors with a fun and easy way to enjoy each community while learning about Washington’s nautical history. By visiting and experiencing Washington’s special maritime features—museums, ships, lighthouses, waterfronts and all—the heritage traveler can obtain an authentic understanding of maritime Washington’s diverse history and culture.









This historical travel guidebook seeks to provide Washington residents as well as visitors from near and far a more comprehensive, inclusive picture and understanding of the maritime heritage of Washington. It's been nearly two years in the making, but thanks to the efforts of my co-author, maritime historian and author Chuck Fowler, and all the good people at The History Press, the book is now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, The History Press's website, and as many gift shops and bookstores as you can find along the Washington state coastline.









In 2019, Congress designated nearly 3,000 miles of Washington's immense coastline as a National Heritage Area…one of only 55 in the country, but the only one to focus exclusively on maritime history and heritage. National Heritage Areas are places where natural, cultural, and historic resources combine to form a cohesive, nationally important landscape. They are locally run and completely non-regulatory. NHAs can support historic preservation, economic development, natural resource conservation, recreation, heritage tourism, and educational projects.









And why shouldn't it be a special heritage area? Within Washington's protected waterways, you can find a treasure trove of seafaring stories beginning with this area's original inhabitants, through the period of European-American exploration, settlement, growth, and on up to today's high-tech working waterfronts. The book, Exploring Maritime Washington, is as much authoritative historical narrative as it is indispensable travel guide. It's divided into five sections: Central Puget Sound, North Puget Sound, South Puget Sound, the Olympic Peninsula and the Columbia River.









While the Maritime Washington National Heritage Area covers nearly 3,000 miles of Washington’s coastline from the Canadian border down to Grays Harbor County, it doesn’t fully extend into the Columbia River—and there's a good reason for that. While stakeholders were planning the Maritime Washington National Heritage Area, Columbia River counties in Washington and Oregon were strategizing on creating a heritage area of their own; the Columbia-Pacific National Heritage Area. These efforts unfolded simultaneously, until plans for the Columbia-Pacific Area met resistance and were unable to move forward, ultimately leaving Washington's Pacific County out of the Maritime Washington National Heritage Area. My book, however, does include Pacific, Wahkiakum, Cowlitz and Clark Counties...basically as far upriver as tidal activity is still measurable.







The five sections in the book each contain Hub Cities from which maritime explorers may choose to venture out to other destinations, like spokes extending from the hub of a wheel. I'm going to tell you some of my favorite stories from each section, beginning with the Central Puget Sound, which includes destinations such as the Museum of History and Industry, the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center, Mukilteo Lighthouse Park, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, the Poulsbo Maritime Museum, and many more.







Central Puget Sound

Installed in 1974, just in time for the World's Fair Exposition in Spokane, Washington, this iconic structure has delighted children and adults visiting the Inland Northwest for generations—but it isn't the canted pavilion that once marked the US presence at the fair, or the gondola across Spokane Falls that takes visitors so close they can feel the spray on their faces, or even the German beer garden facility that now houses the 1909 Looff Carrousel (which is on the National Register of Historic Places). No, those destinations in Riverfront Park are amazing remnants of a global event that drew 5,187,826 visitors, including US presidents, foreign dignitaries, and Hollywood stars. Those icons, still in use today, are enthralling…the one we're talking about, some might say, kind of sucks.







Spokane's famous Garbage Goat has kept its corner of the park free of debris for nearly 50 years. I happen to have a long relationship with the burnished Bovidae. Growing up in Spokane, we often visited our voracious friend…taking pictures, goofing around, and searching for anything we could possibly find to satiate its never-ending hunger. And when we ran out of trash, nearby leaves and sticks would fall victim to the goat. And sometimes…once in a great while…Spokane's garbage goat would even suck the mitten right off some poor unsuspecting child's hand.







To really tell the story right, we have to go back to the early 1960s, when Seattle held its Century 21 World's Fair exposition in 1962. I'll cover that story in a future podcast episode for sure, but for now let's just remember that the fair was a huge success, bringing nearly 10 million people, revitalizing Seattle's economic and cultural life, and leaving behind the Space Needle, the monorail, several sports venues and performing arts buildings, and—unlike some other world's fairs of its era—making a profit for the city. By comparison, little old Spokane wasn't sure it could duplicate the success of its westside counterpart. But hey…if you're going to dream, dream big!















The theme of the 1974 World's Fair was Ecology, and every pavilion—from the USSR to the Japanese, the South Koreans to Canada, Australia, Iran, West Germany, and the Philippines—all of them were focused on some sort of environmental theme. And a more fitting location for an environmental fair would be hard to find, what with the natural beauty of the Spokane River cutting right through the middle of the festivities, and the falls creating a constant cacophony of environmental ambiance.







On May 4, 1974, President Richard M. Nixon presided over the opening of Expo '74, the Spokane World's Fair. Spokane's population at that time was about 170,000, making it the smallest city ever to host a world's fair. When Nixon formally declared the Fair open, officials released 50,000 balloons into the sky (which is funny, given the Fair's environmental theme. Lord only knows where those ended up; they don't just vanish, after all).







Portions of the speech made by President Richard Nixon at the Opening Ceremony. Footage courtesy of Dr. Larry Cebula, edited by Anna Harbine. Information from Cory Carpenter, “When Nixon Came to the Fair,” Spokane Historical, accessed March 5, 2023, https://spokanehistorical.org/items/show/384.







To make room for the US Pavilion, the iconic structure that still looms large over Riverfront Park today, city officials had to tear down the historic 1902 Great Northern railroad depot on Havermale Island. The only remnant that remained from Spokane's earliest railroad days is the 155-foot-tall clock tower, which quickly became another beloved piece of Spokane's downtown skyline.







In the years leading up to the '74 world's fair, most of the Spokane community was either dead set against it or totally committe...

Before there were roads around the Puget Sound region, there were rivers. Before the stagecoaches, there were Salish canoes. And before the planes, the trains, and the automobiles...there was the water, and the ships that traveled upon it. In the earliest days of human habitation in what is now Washington State, the fastest way to get from place to place around the Salish Sea was by paddling a canoe, whether to find a quiet spot to fish, hunt down a whale, race for bragging rights, visit and trade with neighboring tribes, or mount a seaborne offense to help secure your way of life.







When Spanish, British and later American explorers first entered what is now known as Puget Sound, they brought with them massive, tall ships capable of carrying armies across oceans. Aboard these tall ships were small ships, like gigs and other types of rowboats, which soon became more prevalent upon the water after settlement by the first non-natives in the region. As more and more settlers took root in the area, the need for better boats led to the development of steam vessels – some with propellers, some with paddlewheels, and all designed primarily to move people and goods back and forth across the inland sea. At first, enterprising entrepreneurs obtained a boat and began ferrying folks for a small fee. As their profits grew, they built bigger and faster steamships to carry more people, food and supplies, cattle and machinery. By the 1860s, there were hundreds of steamers crisscrossing the Puget Sound, every day, all day. There were, in fact, so many ships upon the water at any given time, that an article in the Tacoma Daily Ledger on February 21, 1889, implied that when viewed from a lofty point, the fleet looked like a swarm of mosquitos skimming over the green waters of the Sound.







And the nickname stuck. No one knows for certain how many ships were considered part of the Mosquito Fleet during its boom period between the 1880s and the 1920s, but estimates range from around 700 to as high as 2,500. In the time before roads and extensive rail lines, these vessels were the threads that helped knit together our communities. Each one of those ships has a unique and fascinating story to tell, but most are lost to history. In fact, there are only two that still remain in existence today.







Numbering in the hundreds (to possibly thousands), an A-to-Z list of just some of the Mosquito Fleet ships from the HistoryLink website includes names like the Alida, Black Prince, C.C. Calkins, Dix, Elwood, Flyer, George E. Starr, Hyak, Inland Flyer, Josephine, Katahdin, L.T. Haas, Maude, Nisqually, Otter, Potlatch, Quick Step, Rosalie, State of Washington, Telegraph, Urania, Verona, West Seattle, Xanthus, Yellow Jacket, and Zephyr.







But let's begin at the beginning.









In 1836, the reliance on wind and human energy to power boats lessened when steam-powered transportation reached Puget Sound in the form of a legendary 101-foot-long vessel, the Beaver.









It was built in London for the Hudson's Bay Company as a paddle wheeler, then converted to a sailing ship to travel to the United States, then converted back to a paddle wheeler once it reached the North American west coast. Over the next several decades, the Beaver plied the Sound, carrying goods, people, and machinery. The Beaver served trading posts maintained by the Hudson's Bay Company between the Columbia River and Alaska, then belonging to Russia, and played an important role in helping maintain British control over the region.







In 1874, the HBC sold the Beaver to the British Columbia Towing and Transportation Company which used it as a towboat until 1888 – when an inebriated crew ran her aground on rocks near Vancouver, Canada. The wreck remained on the rocks until 1892 when the wake of a passing steamer final...

Boasting a population of just under 500, the small community of Wilkeson, Washington, lies in the heart of Pierce County's Carbon River Valley. Once a lively and vibrant mining community, it has withstood the test of time…despite seeing an end to its primary economic driver. But rather than resign itself to a fate of joining the ranks of dozens of other ghost towns throughout the state, Wilkeson has endured. And its residents have turned what was once an industrial eyesore into a unique and fascinating historical attraction that helps bolster Wilkeson's blue-collar heritage. Join me as we blast, drill, and dig deep into the earth to discover the gritty, sweat-soaked story of Wilkeson. We'll remember the town's last living coal miner, and we'll see how residents today are turning their past into a promising future.

There are hundreds of different museums scattered far and wide across Washington state. Many of them are focused on the history of their particular city, county, or region. Others feature arguably some of the most interesting, thought-provoking, and unique art and sculpture in the world. And a few have captured more of a niche area, showcasing things like robots, quilts, and puppets.







But the thing that binds these varied institutions together is that most of them are members of the Washington Museum Association, a nonprofit organization first conceptualized in 1979. Holding its inaugural meeting the following year in Ellensburg, Washington, the Washington Museum Association was established to represent and serve museums of all types and sizes throughout the state.







The Washington Museum Association (affectionately known as "WaMA") is operated through the efforts of an all-volunteer board of museum professionals and supporters from across Washington. It has held an annual conference nearly every year since 1981 to celebrate collective successes, share the sector’s struggles, and to move toward the future together…and just recently wrapped up its first in-person conference in two years, thanks to the global COVID pandemic.







And yours truly was there to experience it.







Links from the podcast







Washington Museum Association“The Resident Historian” podcast“Cascade of History” podcast“Grit City Stories” podcastWSU Vancouver LibraryKittitas County Historical MuseumClark County Historical Museum

Located in Pierce County, western Washington, in the City of Lakewood are the remnants of a once critical military instillation known as Fort Steilacoom. It occupies the same piece of land where today's Western State Hospital exists - another historic topic for a future podcast episode, to be sure. But Fort Steilacoom, by its own right, has firmly entrenched itself in the history of Washington State.



Built in 1849 to project American power and secure American interest in the Puget Sound Region, Fort Steilacoom played a key role in helping to settle what was then Oregon Territory. It served as the focal point for the Treaty Wars of the 1850s and played witness to the judicial murder of an innocent man - Chief Leschi of the Nisqually Tribe. Fort Steilacoom also rose to the forefront of history during the San Juan Island Pig War of 1859.



On this episode of the Washington Our Home podcast, we're learning about the part Fort Steilacoom played in the ongoing story of Washington…including an interview with the first Native member of the Fort Steilacoom Board.