NCW Libraries

"In the Spirit of the Ancestors celebrates the vitality of contemporary Pacific Northwest Coast art by showcasing a selection of objects from the Burke Museum's collection of more than 2,400 late-twentieth- and early-twenty-first-century Native American works. Essays focus on contemporary art while exploring the important historical precedents on which so many artists rely for training and inspiration. Margaret Blackman reflects on building one of...

The spirits of the early pioneers still roam the streets of Leavenworth and lurk in the lengthening shadows of the surrounding hills. Chas Gordon's murder sits unsolved after a century of mystery, as does the location of the lost Ingalls gold. Muffled sobs mark out the Thorp Cemetery, while a ghostly hand coaxes a soft tune from the piano in the lobby of the Tumwater Inn. Saloon shootings and railroad tragedies left their own legacy of restless souls....

"Takes a local and regional perspective in looking back on the mountain's history, the frenzied days surrounding the eruption, and its aftermath." -The Oregonian In the spring of 1980, Mount St. Helens awoke from a century-long slumber with a series of dramatic changes. Most threatening was a bulge on the side of the snowy peak, pushing steadily outward. Near Spirit Lake, local resident Harry Truman refused to leave his lodge, even as scientists like...

"A triple homicide. A blind witness. What is the sound of evil? Late one night, four friends walked to a park in an affluent Bainbridge Island neighborhood to celebrate the sale of their tech startup. The next morning, three dead bodies were found. One witness was left alive. Blind from birth, she didn't see anything. But she heard everything. The killer took his time, butchering her friends as she listened to every sadistic moment. What she heard...

The biography of an intriguing man who came to Seattle as an inventor and went on to become a bootlegger, a spy, and a proponent of LSD. Seattle has a long tradition of being at the forefront of technological innovation. In 1919, a mysterious young inventor named Alfred M. Hubbard made his first newspaper appearance with the announcement of a perpetual motion machine that harnessed energy from Earth's atmosphere. From there, Hubbard transformed himself...

Take a paranormal tour of this Pacific Northwest town... photos included! Historic Snohomish has enough ghostly tales for a town twice its size. A policeman named Henry, who died on the floor of the Oxford Tavern, haunts the popular watering hole alongside nearly twenty other impish spirits. Incarcerated for everything from public drunkenness to coldblooded murder, former inmates still crowd the cells of the old county jail on First Street, banging...

Strawberry Days tells the vivid and moving tale of the creation and destruction of a Japanese immigrant community. Before World War II, Bellevue, the now-booming "edge city" on the outskirts of Seattle, was a prosperous farm town renowned for its strawberries. Many of its farmers were recent Japanese immigrants who, despite being rejected by white society, were able to make a living cultivating the rich soil. Yet the lives they created for themselves...

With its glaciated peaks, temperate rain forests, and ocean wilderness, Olympic National Park has been called three parks in one. Efforts to protect and preserve these treasures began with the creation of a federal reserve in 1897, followed by a national monument in 1909, and then Olympic National Park in 1938. The 1920s and 1930s saw the building of many trails, shelters, and roads. In 1934, the US Forest Service completed a primitive road to the...

Portland, Oregon, didn't always have a wildly successful craft brew scene. Someone had to be daring enough to innovate, and the Widmer brothers were just the men for the job. Written by Portland beer guru Jeff Alworth (The Beer Bible, Beer Tasting Tool Kit), The Widmer Way chronicles Kurt and Rob Widmer's journey from humble homebrewers to craft beer pioneers and purveyors of the iconic Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen. Alworth also dives deep into Portland's...