Fishing has been one of those things that I always thought I’d like to do, but never did. I grew up on the South Prairie Creek which, being a salmon spawning creek, was always closed during my childhood. There have been times when I’ve been invited to go, in fact I even did a bunch of printing for a guy who was going to be my guide on a fishing expedition, but it never happened and I guess I wasn’t too disappointed.

A year or two back I came by some pictures that were taken in and around Orting about 1889 to 1892. Who the photographer was I’ll probably never know, but Charles Blinn appears in several of them, and they came from his estate, via the estate of someone else in Michigan. There were pictures of them building the Stampede Tunnel, the pre-tunnel switchbacks, and bear hunters. Several pictures were taken in Orting. The houses in the background are still there! But perhaps the picture I likes the best was called “Salmon fishing in Orting 1892. In this picture we have a stream, perhaps Voights Creek, with a bridge over it, a box wagon such a vendor might use on the bridge along with a bunch of fishermen. The fishermen weren’t using conventional 21st century fishing tackle. No sir, they were using spears with barbs on them. Kind of like straightened gaff hooks. Anyway there are salmon hanging all over this picture. I’ve heard the stories of fish so thick you could walk across the stream without getting wet, well, this looks like it might have been the place. The print was so old and brittle that a lot of the emulsion had been chipped off. I had to do a lot of restoration in photoshop, including replacing one mans head. I used another guy in the picture for my model, so no if one looks close it looks like there are twins in the print. Anyway, it’s a delightful print and I really enjoy it.

Aug 7, 2008

It's Just Nostalgia - Enumclaw

The Enumclaw Street Fair was a lot of fun this year. Usually Friday's are kind of slow, but this year both Friday and Saturday were busy. The weather was in the 80s and comfortable, albiet several times in the afternoons I needed to stand in the shade of a tree opposite my booth. But again it was fun with lots of excitement! Several times times people complemented me on the booth, saying it was real cool. One couple, the Barbara Mihelich and her husband got into the excitement and brought me a couple original pictures of the paving of Cole Street. We confirmed the street was paved in 1915 with the use of Louise Poppleton's book, "There is Only One Enumclaw." So for the nostalgic we now have two more prints of Enumclaw. They also brought me another original photo of Dauns Poolroom, Lunches, Cigars, and Confectionery. On the brick building next to it we can read the letters "NK" with 00.00 beneath them leading us to believe it is a bank, but the brick work doesn't match the old Enumclaw National Bank / Steve's Shoe Store building on Cole & Griffin. The sidewalk is wood plank. Does anyone have any ideas. Although Barbara believes it is Enumclaw I'd hate to publish it only to find out I'm wrong. I'll post it on this blog however and maybe somebody can help me out.

It's Just Nostalgia - On the road again

August 5, 2009

Talk about fun! I've been having so much fun this summer I'm just about exhausted. But every weekend Judy and I have been someplace showing our historic prints and books. We got home Sunday night around midnight from the Union County Fair in La Grande, Oregon. Truly, it wasn't the most enjoyable experience. With temperatures running into the triple digets most every day, people stayed away in droves. It wasn't until 6 o'clock or so before people started venturing out to the good ole fair. So we sat around there all day and visited with other vendors until we knew each others business quite well. I went to that fair primarly to promote "The Hot Lake Story", the book by Richard Roth. It created a lot of interest, and although we didn't sell all 4 cases of the books that I took down, it was well worth being there.

My logging collection of historic prints certinally received a lot of attention. La Grande is an old logging and milling town. In fact the County Fair site is on an old saw mill site. In fact I took the print down of the mill that used to be there, the Palmer Lumber Company's sawmill. The other La Grande pictures created interest and I sold nearly every one of the 1930 picture of La Grande after a snowfall.

This week is a gravy week. We're spending it at home getting things caught up for Auburn's Good Old Days this weekend. I'm really looking forward to it. It's not supposed to get too hot, and that sounds real good to me. I already have several pictures sold of Auburn. A customer from the Enumclaw Street Fair a couple weeks ago called today because he'd given away his prints and wanted more. When I told him I'd be there Saturday and Sunday he really got excited. If you anywhere close drop in and see me.

It's Just Nostalgia

Airplanes

When I first fell in love with airplanes, I have no idea, but the idea of flying has always appealed to me. In attended grade school with Bob Norman and Bruce and Jim Merizan. These three boys had fathers who were Boeing engineers and it seemed that all we talked about was airplanes. I think it was in 1954 or was it 55 or 6? My memory is failing me again, like it does so often, but Russell Merizan was taking his boys to the hydro races on lake Washington. Mrs. Merizan called my mother on Saturday night and asked if I'd like to go with them. You better believe I would! That meant getting up early Sunday morning because Mr. Merizan wanted to be on the bridge by 7 o'clock. That meant getting up 5 so I'd have time to get to their place and then it was still an hours drive from there to Lake Washington.

We parked on the East end of the floating bridge and took our lunches and coolers and what-not with us and walked down toward the West end. We were still early enough and we found a spot on the wall where we could all sit. It seems like the first heat didn't begin until about 11 or so that morning, but being right on the North turn meant being there early! Those big thunder-boats were something else to watch. With their Allison engines thundering they'd come straight up the course and turn right in front of us. The years have erased some of the memory of that day, like I don't remember whether there was 2 or 3 heats, but the thing I do remember well, was sitting there looking south when the spanking new -80 came in low above Seward Park. The flaps and gear were down and it was flying slow, but as it came across the race course, ole Tex Johnson, Boeing's chief pilot pull up the flaps and gear and applied the power. With that he set the plane into a climb like we'd never seen with commercial craft before and then did a slow roll. They tell me he rolled it twice. I honestly don't remember. But I'll never forget that roll.

The years went by, Bob Norman and I got hooked up again later, after we'd both married and we went into the drywall business together. We were finishing the walls on a house near the airport in Enumclaw and one day there was a lot of activity, aircraft shooting take-offs and landings. We got to talking, then we'd had a guy working for us who was taking lessons and he talked nothing but airplanes. Finally we couldn't resist any longer, and we started looking for an airplane to buy. We settled on a '47 Cessna 120. N77437. We bought it at the Port Orchard airport and it was delivered to us at the old Kent strip. Gas was high priced back then,about 40 cents a gallon. Auto gas ran about 27 to 30 cents. But that little 120 burned about 4 and a half or 5 gallons per hour. Bob soloed out in about 10 hours but even after 15 hours I still hadn't gotten the concept of stall landing on that little spighetti strip. Finally my instructor took me up to Thun Field on South Hill and when we came back that day I could land. One more practice session at Thun and he soloed me! Was that ever nice to get the instructor out of there. Now I didn't have to do stalls and tight turns and so forth and was able to keep my lunch down. Flying was really fun!

But all good things must come to and end, it seems and Bob and I just didn't have enough work to keep up the payments, tie-downs, and annuals. Finally we had to sell it, or trade it, or whatever it was we did. Anyway, I've always wondered what finally happened to N77437. It's not registered any more. I've lost 13 friends in airplane accidents. Most of those 13 were close friends too. So, like the motorcycles in my life, I chose self-preservation instead on continuing on with a sport that seemed life threatening.

But airplanes still fascinate me and I do enjoy the ease of airline travel. I've collected a few pictures that are available in 12"x18" prints. I'll be around the Western Wasington this summer at festivals and flea markets with them. Stop by and see me. My plan is to be in Packwood for both Memorial and Labor Day. Hopefully I be in Enumclaw and Kent and Puyallup too. If there's anything we could share contact me at HQPress@att.net. See ya! Steve

March 13, 2009

It's Just Nostalgia

Back to the 40s

It was some time in the year 2002 when Whiskey Bill came into the shop with a big pile of paper in his hand. “Here” he says, “is a book we need.” This “book” was a bunch of photocopies, some several generations away from the original and most of them in very bad shape. His instructions were something like, “You print and we’ll buy it.” Those were the same instructions I’d gotten 10 or 12 years earlier when I’d started printing “The Tablemate” for Whiskey Bill and his friends.
Whiskey Bill was really excited about his find and was anxious to use it at a Saturday marathon in his garage where he held meetings every week. So I tried to clean up the pages that he’d given me. Some were in such bad shape that I had to reset them, and all were crooked on their page, but on the light table I was able to line them up fairly well and get them printed straight on the page.
Later he brought in some more photocopied pages that he wanted to use with the Back to the 40’s book. These were “The Pamphlet” and “Selection From Grapevine and. . .” Whiskey Bill said that he wanted everyone who attended his meetings to know the history of AA and how well it had worked back in the early years when The Big Book was diligently studied.
With Whiskey Bill’s promotion we sold out the first printing of 500 in less than a year. He’d stop in once or twice a week, just to chat or maybe have me print some “Why I swear” cards or to pick up a stack of Tablemates which he insisted worked best if the guys stole them.
Occasionally he’d remark “What did I tell ya? As long as you print them we’d buy them.” So I’ve kept Back to the 40’s in print, and even though Whiskey Bill left us in December of 2005, his promise of, “You print them and we’ll buy them” has held firm.

Contact HQPress@att.net for ordering information.

It's Just Nostalgia

‘The Hot Lake Story’
Written by Dick Mason, The Observer August 02, 2008

Smoke billows from the fire at Hot Lake Sanatorium on May 7, 1934. - Photo from “The Hot Lake Story”He was as skilled as he was compassionate, a physician as flamboyant as he was determined to bring cutting edge medical care to his patients at Hot Lake Sanatorium.
He was Dr. William T. Phy, a physician who died in 1931 yet remains, in the eyes of many, the face of Hot Lake. A man whose tale is among those featured in a new book by Richard R. Roth — “The Hot Lake Story: An Illustrated History from Pre-discovery to 1974.”
The 462-page book, which is almost coffee table in size, has more than 300 photos and covers aspects of Hot Lake’s history not addressed in earlier books. This includes a detailed, objective look at Phy’s story.
“He was an extraordinary individual but not infallible,’’ said Roth, who grew up at Hot Lake and now resides in Orting, Wash.
Phy served as a physician at Hot Lake Sanatorium from 1901 to 1910 and from 1917 until his death. He made an indelible mark during his 23 years there.
“Almost everyone you speak with who knows Hot Lake history identifies Hot Lake with Dr. W.T. Phy first,’’ Roth wrote.
The author quotes Walter Pierce, Oregon’s governor from 1923 to 1927 and a man who played a major role in financing Hot Lake Sanatorium, to make his point.
“Ninety percent of the people came to the Lake because of his (Phy’s) skills and magnetic personality. He was Hot Lake,’’ Pierce said.
Physicians who worked with Phy at Hot Lake included Dr. Nathan Edward McAlister. He practiced under Phy for several years between 1919 to 1925. McAlister once described Phy as a surgeon so skilled that he “seems to have eyes in the ends of his fingers.’’
Phy was confident of his skills and enjoyed displaying them. He had a separate seating area with an observation window overlooking the operating room.
“The surgery room was his theater. His adoring audience could look through the observation window and marvel at his surgical abilities,’’ Roth writes.
Phy’s flamboyant nature was also evident by his mode of transportation. Phy, in 1908, purchased a $4,600 6-cylinder Franklin. At the time there were only 17 cars in La Grande and 34 in Union County.
“He delighted in driving the most expensive auto in Union County,’’ Roth said.
Phy also prided himself on having the most complete and up to date medical reference library possible.
“For a physician in rural Oregon, the number of texts in his library, covering treatment of disease, surgical care, etc., would rival that of any professor teaching in a hospital of the day,’’ Roth wrote.
Phy believed in treating people regardless of their ability to pay. Roth found no documented evidence of a patient needing medical treatment at Hot Lake being turned away due to an inability to pay.
“This says a great deal about the time and age in American history. It also says a great deal about the man, Dr. W.T. Phy,’’ Roth wrote.

A group of employees pose with a patient at Hot Lake around 1910. The photo was taken when the site was known as the Hot Lake Springs Co. - Photo from “The Hot Lake Story,” obtained courtesy of Helen Mae Phifer One myth Roth dispels in his book is that Phy had connections to the Mayo Clinic of Rochester, Minn., and knew its founders, Dr. William W. Mayo and his sons, Dr. William T. Mayo and Dr. Charles Mayo. Roth said he found no affiliation, professional or social, between Phy and the Mayo family. Records also indicate that Phy never studied at the Mayo Clinic or worked there.
“Apparently the rumor and legend of an association between Phy and the Mayo brothers is unfounded,’’ wrote Roth.
Roth attributes the Mayo Clinic connection rumor to a series of articles in the Oregon Journal in 1919 about Hot Lake. The writer of the series said, “The time is approaching when the fame of Hot Lake will be as well known to those in the West who need surgical attention as Rochester, Minn., is today through the work done by Mayo brothers.’’
Roth believes Phy may have let the Mayo rumors linger because he so enjoyed positive publicity and promoting himself.
The author learned of Phy’s background and many other aspects of Hot Lake’s history through extensive research, which is reflected in his book’s bibliography, which has more than 600 footnoted references.
The book, though, is also filled with the author’s first-person accounts of aspects of Hot Lake’s history. Roth is able to provide these because he grew up at Hot Lake. His parents, A.J. and Fern (Jennings) Roth, purchased Hot Lake in 1942. A.J. had a doctorate in public health from the University of Michigan, and Fern was a graduate of what is today Eastern Michigan University. A.J. Roth was a professor of bacteriology at what is now Washington State University before he and his wife moved to Hot Lake.
The author, then just 3 months old, would live at Hot Lake the next 32 years and help manage it for a portion of this time.
The Roths ran Hot Lake as a resort-hotel-spa from 1942 to about 1952. The family moved out of the resort business after this time because of the development of the national freeway system. This meant that the main highway passing through Union County, which had gone past Hot Lake for decades, now passed through Ladd Canyon instead. The reduced traffic flow meant that the Roth family no longer could rely on overnight guests as their central revenue source. Offerings at Hot Lake were thus expanded to include assisted care for the elderly and a resident hotel for the retired and semi-retired.
Roth wrote that one of the attractions at Hot Lake in the 1950s was a black bear his family purchased in 1954 in Joseph. The bear was kept in a cage on the small lawn in front of the main building. The bear escaped in 1956 or 1957, and for a while nobody knew where it was. A minister staying at Hot Lake found the bear in the back of the main building. He got an ear of corn and led the bear back to its cage.
“Everybody thought it was a foolish gesture since he (the minister) could have been seriously injured,’’ Roth wrote.
The bear was later shot and replaced by a raccoon, one which never escaped, the author said.
Roth began helping his parents with work at Hot Lake around 1950. He later attended EOU and then the University of Oregon where he earned an undergraduate degree in history and a master’s degree in labor and industrial relations. Roth also earned master of public health degree in health administration and public policy from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City and an MBA from Oklahoma City University.Hot Lake was in poor condition when the Roths purchased it in 1942, worse than they realized. This is one of many reasons why operating Hot Lake proved to be very hard on the family.
“The long hours spent checking in late-night guests, getting up early to prepare meals, repairing broken water pipes took a toll.’’

A woman wears a “classic period’’ hat in this photo that depicts the Hot Lake Sanatorium in 1906 during the construction of its brick addition. - Photo from “The Hot Lake Story,” obtained courtesy of Fred HillHe said that as a result the family never took an extended vacation together during the 32 years it owned Hot Lake.
“The best the family could hope for was an occasional overnight trip to Anthony Lake.’’
Roth noted that his family moved to Hot Lake on Labor Day of 1942.
“My mom often said this was fitting because ‘We have been laboring ever since.’ ’’
Roth said he wrote the book because of his longtime intrigue with Hot Lake.
“Growing up at Hot Lake, I was fascinated by the early day hospital equipment and farm machinery, looking through former patient records and wondering what the area must have been like prior to the arrival of the white man,’’ Roth said.
His intrigue was piqued further when Indian arrowheads were found in the Hot Lake mud and in other places on the property. This inspired him to begin collecting Hot Lake memorabilia, including postcards, brochures and photos when he was in junior high school. Many photos of this memorabilia are in the book.
These items and memories of his family at Hot Lake and the many fascinating people who visited there give Roth reason to enjoy reminiscing about his youth.
“It was a fantastic place to grow up.’’
“The Hot Lake Story,” published by Heritage Quest Press, Orting, WA, is available in La Grande at Earth ‘n’ Book, the Mitre’s Touch Gallery and Sunflower Books.

March 9, 2009

Its Just Nostalgia

Big Timber

I grew up in a rural area about 5 miles east of Orting on the historic mainline of the NP railroad. 50 years previously the timber man who operated here called this place Arline. They had a railroad siding here, a post office and a 1 room public school. The timber man built his first mill about a half mile north in 1897, but when it got to difficult to drag the logs to it, he moved south a half mile and started cutting again. These trees were huge, and even 50 years later, when I was growing up their stumps were still there and some I remember as being enormous. Most of them were quite rotten and had red huckleberry bushes growing out of them. I’d drag a ladder to them to be able to climb up and retrieve the juicy ripe berries. But the story goes that before the railroad the trees were a liability to farmers trying to raise crops on the land. The trees shaded their crops when they planted among them, and when they cut them down they became a disposal problem, with fires burning for months, just trying to get rid of them. But the hop industry needed land and clearing it became imperative. They’d work all winter trying to clear an acre or two so they could plant in the spring. It was a big job before D-8’s. By the time my family came along in the early 1940s, the big trees were all gone, but stumps were still there. Starting in 1946 my dad started building greenhouses, and every year or two he’d go buy a case of dynamite and we’d blow stumps.

One of the fun things about printing history is the pictures you get. Not only do you collect pictures for the books, but once some of the older people found that I collected old pictures, for the history’s sake, they’d give me their collections. Because I was interested in the area’s history I was loaded down with old pictures. Now I have albums filled with old pictures and with the advent of digital imaging, I’ve put most of them into digital files. The picture that illustrates this blog is one that was taken in 1899 about 2 miles from where I grew up. It’s hard to believe now that trees this size were the norm, but this is what covered the land before the timber men arrived.

Drop by one of the flea markets, or festivals where I’ll be at this spring or summer and take a look at my prints. I think you’ll be impressed. Currently I have over a thousand historic prints, with my logging collection being the larges single category. See ya, Steve