Story of a Place

As a fairly new resident to Spokane, my knowledge of Northwestern history is minimal. The two books we started reading this week seem to provide a perfect overview of the “place-story,” as Coll Thrush describes in his book Native Seattle, of the Northwest from both sides of the Cascades.

Thrush explains how “throughout Seattle’s past, the strands of urban and Indian History have been entwined,” (13) and the history of Seattle is incomplete with out the inclusion of Native history and acknowledgment of their influence. I found it interesting how he points out how the history of a place is often told in two different tales. The first is through Native history, often disappearing with the older generations no longer around to keep it alive and the second is through urban history, beginning with white settlement of the area at which point, the native peoples disappears from the land and its history. Thrush brings the native peoples back into the history of Seattle giving us a better understanding of the region’s origins and development.

(courtesy of University Libraries, University of Washington Digital Collections)

David Stratton’s anthology, Spokane and the Inland Empire, examines slices of the Inland Northwest’s history starting with Donald Meining’s essay Spokane and the Inland Empire: Historical Geographic Systems and a Sense of Place. Meining explores what is means to be “from somewhere” stating “the geographical identity we have given ourselves becomes a means by which others may tentatively categorize us” (16). I have experienced how others use the place we are from to define us. They look at our home, and see its history as our history, take characteristics of that place, and use them to find familiarity and make connections. Meining explores the growth and development of Spokane and the Inland Empire displaying its roots in imperialism and Manifest Destiny, growth through mining and railroads, a bridge between the Midwest and the pacific and finally Nationalization. With his exploration of the history of Spokane, he relates one of the “least known cities and regions in all of America” to the rest of the country. The next two essays, Henry Rice’s essay Native American Dwellings of the Southern Plateau and Clifford Trafzer’s essay The Palouse Indians: Interpreting the Past of a Plateau Tribe, examine the native background of the region providing interpretations of the area’s history through their perspective instead of the white settlers point of view. I am still not sure how Rice’s essay will fit into the larger picture of the anthology, but we still have seven more chapters to read.

            Chapters 3 and 4 of Nearby History are a perfect guide for researching and using sources for our project. Stratton’s anthology and Thrush’s book are great secondary sources providing the background necessary to begin researching the “ghost signs” of Spokane. Kyvig and Marty’s explanation of finding historical traces around us will come in handy with our analyses and their discussion of sources is a great guide for deciding what primary sources to use and where to look. Though the history of the Northwest has not been a particular interest of mine, I look forward to learning more about my temporary home and using Nearby History as a guide to start researching Spokane’s “ghost signs.”