*** Kudos to WSGS Past President Steve Baylor
*** Should Washington Split Into TWO States?
*** Astoria’s Beginnings: Trees
*** Chehalis Town Name
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Dear Archives Volunteers,
The holidays are here and I want to take the opportunity to thank all of you volunteers for your massive contributions to the Archives’ mission. Our ultimate goal is to make all of our information freely accessible to the public, and that would not be possible without you. While the records are already free, they are not as accessible as they can be, but we’re getting there. As you may already know, we have digitally indexed nearly 200 million records. That’s a huge success! There are still hundreds of millions more records to go, and there isn’t another group of volunteers we would rather have.
I would like everyone to congratulate Stephen Baylor, the December Volunteer of the Month. Stephen has indexed over 65,000 records in SCRIBE this year, leading the pack. Thank you, Stephen!
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According to an article in my paper, The Spokesman-Review, a few days ago, some folks are still lobbying for the Evergreen State to divide along the crest of the Cascades into two states. The western side would be Washington and the eastern side would be Liberty. Really? This idea has been batted around for decades and I really don’t think it’s close to happening. But it is an intriguing idea. What might be the benefits to both?
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Yes, I know Astoria is in Oregon but in 1811 there was no Washington nor Oregon. Here’s the trivia I want to share with you from the book Astoria by Peter Stark, 2015. Back in 1811 Astoria was 12,000 miles from China across the Pacific and 21,000 miles around Cape Horn to home in New England. They were as alone and as isolated as this much-TV-bantered Mission to Mars if you pause to think about it.
The book talks about 200-foot tall coastal fir and cedar trees that the men had to chop down to make all their necessary buildings. Some of these trees were 50-feet around! Four men were assigned to one tree and they’d build a scaffold 8-10 feet off the ground (always wondered why?) and chop away, sometimes for two full days, with their 2-pound axes. David Thompson later wrote that humans were “pigmies” by comparison to the trees towering more than 200 feet above them.
Are there any of these giants left in the area around Astoria today????
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Also according to the book Astoria by Peter Stark, the town of Chehalis comes from the Tschikeylis tribe living in that area in 1811. Did you know?
The tree is smaller there and easier to cut with an axe
The lower 10 ft. part of the tree was left standing often to be hollowed out and used as an animal barn, sometimes with a second story level for people to live in.