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Old newspapers, pinned to the places they wrote about — the streets you can still walk today.
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A voluntary weather observer describes an unprecedented summer of destruction in Okanogan County, where tornados flattened 'shacks' and the Columbia River rose to record heights.
“The Columbia river has risen sixty feet, and is reported higher than ever known.”
Forest fires fueled by arsonists are devastating the landscape and choking the residents of the Okanogan country.
“The smoke from the fires hangs like a huge black pall over the country, obscures the sun during the day, the moon at night, and the inhabitants are made ill and dispirited.”
A Lake Chelan property feud ends in a fatal shooting after a father and son attempt to intimidate a relative.
“Instead of lowering his gun young Evans became more threatening in his attitude, when Pumpelly fired at him and sent a bullet into his right breast.”
After long legal disputes, the federal government issues a ruling on Indigenous land rights near Lake Chelan, granting acreage to three Native leaders.
“Whether Long Jim will lay out and plat an addition to the town of Chelan does not yet appear, but he is undoubtedly just now a 'big Injun.'”
When a federal agent prepared to forcibly remove a homesteader from land newly allotted to Colville Indians, Judge Hanford drew a line: the eviction would have to go through the courts.
“It is no part of the function pertaining to the office of an Indian agent to forcibly eject persons from premises not within the boundaries of an Indian reservation.”
A critical look at the federal policy keeping prime Washington farmland locked away from development while the Indigenous people it was intended for remain elsewhere.
“Why is it held from cultivation and settlement by the whites is an enigma that can only be solved on the ground that those in authority are ignorant of the true state of facts.”
Two Indigenous farmers and two white squatters face off in a dispute over land rights and cultivation.
“Bob has lived on it three years, and Jim all his life, and they think it belongs to them though they have not severed their tribal relations.”
McBride and Atkinson loyalists swarm Lake Chelan to secure votes in a heated gubernatorial scrap.
“The McBride followers are working night and day hustling voters to the registration office.”
A local hunter brings in a massive cougar as regional reports note the predator is terrorizing the deer population.
“These animals are very numerous this winter, and it is stated that they are killing a large number of deer.”
Residents of the Chelan region are campaigning to split the county, citing the immense hardship of traveling 45 miles to reach the county seat.
“Whenever any kind of a crime is committed in Chelan it is necessary to go 45 miles in order to get a warrant.”
In the mild winter of 1907, a steamboat captain on Lake Chelan reported sailing through sheets of ice that shouldn't have existed. His account, initially met with skepticism, offers a rare glimpse into the unpredictable microclimates of the Washington interior.
A rash of bootlegging and theft at the Lakeside saloon forces a local reckoning with the lack of law enforcement near Chelan.
“There does not seem to be any man here charged with the enforcement of the laws.”
A century before global tourism and high-end resorts, the citizens of Chelan banded together to dam the river for basic infrastructure.
“The citizens of Chelan have already subscribed some as a bonus, realizing that it will be of more benefit to them than anything heretofore undertaken.”
A state-funded hatchery at the head of Lake Chelan begins an ambitious program to stock isolated waters with game fish.
“There are many little lakes in the state without outlets that are practically isolated... and in such waters as these, it is proposed to introduce black bass.”
An advertising agent and his companions narrowly avoid a fatal plunge into a canyon while traveling through the mountains.
“All the curses died upon the lips of the men, and the wrathful expressions of their faces gave place to one of wonder.”
A local explorer returns from a trek near the summit of the Cascade range, scouting mineral wealth and future rail routes.
“The wealth is visible, and only needs development.”
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