Literary High Points
Of Mush and Mountains
One of the high points of my bibliophilic year is Seattle’s annual Antiquarian Bookfair. Held each October, it brings together dozens of booksellers carrying everything from first editions of Origin of Species to obscure books with titles such as The Fickle Finger of Fate to posters from the Seattle’s World’s Fair. I always find something fun and interesting to gawk over and occasionally even pony up the money for a nifty item. I’d like to share a few highlights.
Seattle - Published by Chas. H. Kittinger - 1889 - Produced as a propaganda piece extolling the virtues of a young city, this small booklet includes beautiful lithographs of buildings and scenes. Here’s some typical laudatory prose. “One handsome structure after another has been erected until now the city can boast of as fine blocks as any to be found on the Pacific coast. The architectural beauty of these buildings is noticeable, and each new block seems to surpass its predecessors in this respect.” Unfortunately, soon after the booklet came out, Seattle burned to the ground in its Great Fire of 1889 and many of the lovely buildings were destroyed.
Cascade Consolidated Mining and Smelting Co. 1903-1906 - I am a sucker for old stock certificates, especially ones for grandiose and failed schemes, such as this one for a mine on the east side of Cascade Pass, high in the North Cascades. In the company prospectus, the owners note: “The abundance of ore in these mines (the quantity seems to be almost limitless), true fissure veins so far as is known to man extends to the center of the earth, and the high grade of ore surely warrant the expectation of millions of dollars from these mines.” Three years later, in a letter to an investor, they added that they would soon have a railroad to their mine, running 35 miles over Cascade Pass to the main line at Rockport, along the Skagit River.
Road and Information Map: National Forests of Washington - 1930 - Statistic after statistic highlight the abundance of timber and its importance to the economy, along with a few tidbits about hiking, hunting, and fishing. For instance the Mt. Baker NF contains 10,400,000,000 board feet and the Olympics, 30 billion more board feet. Key to much of this was fire protection, which justified harvesting five billion board feet of “thrown down” timber that was a “fire trap of stupendous proportions.”
A few other things you might want to know:
At Mt. Rainier was a “cooperative fire lookout…where in his high cabin the lookout man is ever on watch for forest fires, and where he may succor a sick or injured climber.”
At Mt. St. Helens “even now the exudations from volcanic fissures are so hot that the visitor may put on a pot of mush in the evening and enjoy a well-cooked breakfast.”
At Monte Cristo “travelers may make the trip in open coaches on the Hartford & Eastern Railway to the high mountain country, where there is a large hotel with modern conveniences.”
As a historian, I often dive into sources such as these to better understand the past and to appreciate the optimism and boosterism, as well as the shysterism (there was never going to be a railroad, much less a road over Cascade Pass). I don’t point out this information out as criticism or to make fun of the language (though I do wonder how the lookouts felt about succoring) but instead like to highlight how priorities have changed…and how there’s just not enough mush cooking going on as in the past. Now, they’d probably write about slow cooking polenta with choice herbs, delicate spices, and heirloom vegetables.
Mt. Rainier National Park - 1912 - General Information - Just thought I’d end with this bit of good advice about climbing the Mountain and eating and drinking.
Speaking of books, the University of Washington Press has made a generous offer regarding Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales: Fossils of Washington State, which I co-authored with Liz Nesbitt. If you order the book through the Press and use the code WELCOME23, you will get a 40% discount and free domestic shipping through October 31. I will have more information about the book in my next newsletter.