Why Can’t They All be Like That?

A couple weeks ago we were tooling around town, trying to dig up some more history and photos. We decided to pop into the old Baptist Church and see what they might have. We ended up talking to the pastor who was amazingly kind and welcoming! We followed him down a dark hallway and made a right turn as he said, “How about you start here, in our history room.” WHAT? History ROOM?!? Yes folks, it is a shine to their over one hundred year history!

We were amazed and thrilled. Talk about hitting the jackpot!

We returned the next week with computer and scanner to scan a few images. While there we learned that the first Boy Scout troop in all of Washington state had been formed at that church back in 1913. They are troop number one.

Seriously, could this get any cooler?

Of course it can! The Reverend Davis, who formed the church back in the late 1800s (incidentally the first church in the town) also happens to be the first person to bring Holstein cattle to the region. We love how history all comes together.

Please Admire from Afar

Well that sure was fast! We dropped possible cover photos to our publisher last Friday. We then sent in our back cover text on Wednesday. This morning we were shocked to see this in our inbox:

WOO HOO!!! Who loves it? We love it! Don’t look too closely though, we already see some editing we need to do on the text. Think of this as a first draft. But seriously, how PERFECT is that photo? Talk about meant to be.

We are so thrilled that this is something we will accomplish ahead of schedule! And seeing things take shape sure adds some motivation. Now we have to do that whole “book thing” and make the interior worthy of this amazing cover.

Choosing a Cover

Oh the pressure, the deliberation, the agonizing decisions!!! But at some point it must be done. We must choose from all our fabulous photos some possible cover contenders. There are some rules, restrictions and guidelines for acceptable cover images. And of course there is our opinion and our publisher’s opinion. We hope they turn out to be the same.

At first there was a great logging photo that caught our eye. Unfortunately, we discovered the picture was NOT from Mount Vernon. Turns out that was a blessing in disguise. We had to look harder and think more. After all, this is the Northwest. Logging certainly wasn’t unique to Mount Vernon. So what is unique to Mount Vernon? Today people would probably say “tulips”. Right? True, but that wasn’t the case in the early days. However the success of tulip growing can give us hints to the past—fertile farm lands, crops, seeds, cows… Did you know that Mount Vernon used to be called “Milk City”? It was a combination of all the fine dairy farms and the multiple milk condenseries. As a matter of fact, Mount Vernon was home to the third ever condensery built by Carnation in 1907! At that time evaporated milk wasn’t simply used for baking here and there, it was considered the wave of the future!

To us, Milk City seems very unique and interesting. That is why this is our top choice for cover photo (printed with permission from the John Kamb collection):

We’ll see if it makes the cut.

Why Doesn’t Anyone Write Like This Anymore?

Today we paid a visit to the Skagit County Historical Museum. We had asked about the English Logging Company (owned by one town founder, E. G. English). So the librarian brought out an old publication from September 1, 1921 that contained an extensive article on the logging company. It was a large volume entitled “Skagit County, Washington” and “Published by the Mount Vernon Herald”. It was historical GOLD! There were articles about the Milk Condenseries, the churches, the telephone company, and more. Needless to say we racked up a fair amount of photocopying fees.

But the best, and we mean the BEST part of the whole thing had to be the beginning of the Publisher’s Forward by one M. J. Beaumont. He writes:

"It is approximately forty years since there was started in Skagit county the work of changing arid tidelands and dense forest into beauteous and bountiful farmsteads where today reside the most prosperous and happy people that may be found within the confines of the nation."

Oh man have we got to work that quote into the book!

From Negative to Image!

Remember our post about looking at negatives? Since we lack the proper equipment for scanning negatives, we had to oh so carefully send them to our publisher for scanning. We used FedEx to send in a batch, then sat back and waited…

A couple of weeks ago we got scans back from our publisher. It was like magic to see all those small, reverse images turned into photographic scans. Most of them scanned beautifully, but some were duds. To be honest, we were thrilled to get so many fabulous images. These negatives have been sitting around for years in boxes—some of them were completely destroyed—we had no idea how the negatives we selected would look.

Here’s a super cute shot of a school patrol from the late forties.

Obviously we are happy to have these images for the book, but beyond that there is the thrill of preservation. Who knows what will become of these negatives. How much longer might they survive? But now there are digital copies of some of them. We have copies, and look forward to presenting Mark with copies. Those will live on and that is a good thing for history.

And THAT is Why Laptops Were Invented!

This week was busy…still is busy. On Wednesday we visited with Jo An Fox to scan some AMAZING images from the Roger Fox photo collection. Just check out this shot of the Sheriff’s Department from the early 1900s. Love it!

Unfortunately, I might be tech savvy, but I’m certainly not portable. Packing up my printer/scanner/copier/fax machine? No problem. Kari volunteered her Mac laptop. It seemed like an ideal setup. But once we got there and got to work, the limitations of an ancient laptop became apparent. It was taking minutes between each photo to get the software ready to scan again. Add to that my clumsiness with both laptops and Macs. It turned ugly. After almost three hours I decided enough was enough and I returned home to disassemble my desktop computer, loaded it into the car and returned to Jo An’s house. In about three hours we had not gotten through one notebook of photos. Once I was set up with my own computer we got through three notebooks in like an hour and a half! But that still left two notebooks. Luckily everyone was able to gather again this morning and complete the project. And on the bright side, pulling my computer apart gave me a great excuse to do some major cleaning in my office!

It was a really great time. As if it wasn’t enough that Jo An was letting us paw through the entire collection, she got in on the research and was making calls left and right to help us dig up information. She even lent us a lightbox! Wow, now that is a truckload of help! And she was a simply delightful hostess while we invaded her home for two straight days. It’s going to be a happy day when we can deliver copies of our book to Jo An because I don’t know if it is possible to thank her enough.

History Hiding in Clear Sight

A couple months ago I was talking to someone about how Mount Vernon doesn’t do a great job of presenting their interesting history. He asked me, “Have you seen the plaque about the log jam?” No, I hadn’t! I *know* about the log jam, but I had never seen a plaque about it. “Well, it’s up there on the revetment somewhere”. I made a mental note to search out this item of interest.

In my mind’s eye I was envisioning a small plaque on the railing, or one of those state sponsored historical plaques you see all over the place—a pole with a metal sign. A couple weeks later I was making a quick run to a store downtown. I parked in the place I always park when going downtown, got out of my car and looked up to see this: That’s no rinky-dink plaque, that is a full on memorial! And it is beautifully crafted--a true work of art.

And I had parked next to it dozens of times! In my defense, you have to walk up a ramp from the parking area to get to the walkway that this borders. But really? How had I missed that so many times? And how does everyone miss this? Most people I talk to don’t know the first thing about the infamous log jam. It seems simply crazy, how is history managing to hide in plain view like this? Perhaps we all need to look up from our cell phones more often...