PACIFIC NORTHWEST HISTORIANS GUILD
NORTHWEST HISTORIAN Newsletter
Friday night banquet “Under the Dome”
opens Pasco Conference
October, 2003
A fall weekend in the Tri-Cities is the site of the PNW Historians Guild first
conference in central Washington. A Friday night banquet October 24th in the Franklin
County Courthouse opens the weekend, with presentations Saturday October 25th at
Columbia Basin College, also in Pasco.
Friday evening opens with a social hour at 5:30 pm, with dinner remarks by David Nicandri,
Director of the Washington State Historical Museum with “Reflections on Isaac A. Stevens”, and
a welcome from Sam Reed, Washington’s Secretary of State.
A local award-winning Mexican restaurant will serve dinner to guests, followed by remarks by
Antone Minthorn on “A Native American Perspective on Washington Territory.” The evening
with be emceed by Tom Moak, Kennewick City Councilman and Guild member.
Saturday events begin on the Pasco campus of Columbia Basin College. At 8:30 the opening
keynote address will be given by Robert E. Ficken with “Reflec-tions on Telling the Territorial
Story.”
The first concurrent sessions given those present a choice of Territorial Politics and
Governance or a panel on Territorial Transportation. Three presenters in the former will speak
on ‘Pioneer Rebellion North of the Columbia’, ‘Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Colvile’, and
‘Ainsworth: Railroad town and County Seat’. The latter offers ‘River Highways: Nature’s Watery
Routes’, ‘The Cascade Passes: Crossing to Statehood’, and ‘Early Routes on the Hanford Site’.
A mid-morning break gives the audience a chance to visit exhibitors’ tables before returning to
concurrent sessions on Native Americans and the Territorial Militia or on Religious Life in
Territorial Days.
The first panel will discuss ‘Native American Influences from the Priest Rapids Valley’, The
Era of chief Old Bones at Palouse Falls’ and ‘The Territorial Militia and the Treaty Wars of the
1850s’. At the same time others may choose sessions on ‘Why Bother With a Bishop? Religion,
Identity and Conflict in Territorial Days’, Churches in Territorial Dayton’ and ‘Mother Joseph
and the Sisters of Providence’.
At noon box lunches will be served in the Byron Gerde Center at the College while Lew
McMorris will appear from the 1850s dressed in uniform--telling how he happened to arrive in
Walla Walla and about his time as a soldier there. This visitation is provided courtesy of Brian
Severn, from the Living History program at Fort Walla Walla Museum.
The early afternoon concludes with the choice of two sessions, either Tall and Truthful
Territorial Tales: Reading About Washington Territory or Untold Stories: Early Settlers of
Washington Territory.
In the first, ‘Flavors of Washington Territory’ will discuss the collection of the Washington
State Library and Luella Dow reads from ‘Juba’s Cup’. The second session includes ‘A Glance
through the Window: Women’s Lives in Territorial Days’, ’William Polk Gray: Noted Steamboat
Captain’ and ‘Baileysburg: the First Furniture Factory East of the Cascades’.
The closing plenary session will be Territorial Digging: Research Resources. Sec. Sam Reed
will moderate a panel composed of Carla Rickerson, of the UW Libraries, Laila Miletic-Vejzovic,
of WSU Collections, Jerry Handfield, Washington State Archivist, and Susan Beamer, of the
Eastern Washington Regional Branch of the State Archives.
Co-sponsors of the first Guild Conference in eastern Washington not mentioned earlier
include: Dayton Historical Depot Society; East Benton County Historical Society, Kennewick; Fort
Walla Walla Museum; Franklin County Commissioners; Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture,
Spokane; Tamastslikt Cultural Institute, Pendleton; Washington State Railroad Historical Society,
Pasco; Washington State University—Tri-Cities;
Wenatchee Valley Museum, and the Yakima
Valley Museum.
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article may be reprinted by giving credit to PNW Historians Guild, PO Box 85457 Seattle WA 98145