Topic: Curiosities
The Lusty Lady, a "panoram," or peepshow, was a remnant of Seattle's bawdy past, an overly lipsticked cousin in a gentrifying family. The pawn shops, tattoo parlors, and strip clubs that were once its...
Mapleine is an imitation maple flavoring originally produced by Seattle's Crescent Manufacturing Company in 1905. Mapleine quickly became Crescent's signature product. The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposit...
David Brannon has provided this overview of oil exploration and production in Washington, beginning with Native Americans and ending as recently as the 1960s.
This piece on the Prunarians, a group of civic-minded Vancouver businessmen active in the 1920s, was written by Bill Alley. During the 1920s, Clark County, Washington, was the prune capital of the wor...
This account of the strange journey of Willie Keil (1836-1855) over the Oregon Trail was written by Dorothea Nordstrand (1916-2011) and first appeared in Adventure West in November 1994.
Ralph Munro served as Secretary of State from 1980 to 2001. This story of the chandelier in the Capitol Building in Olympia also involves another person, Jack Metcalf (1927-2007), a Washington state s...
In this People's History, Leigh Sheridan, HistoryLink's education intern, recounts her first encounter with Vashon Island's famous "Bike in the Tree." Her narrative focuses on how she learned more abo...
A year and a half after killing two teenage boys on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, and then disappearing into the deeply forested Wynoochee Valley (in southern Grays Harbor County), John Tornow -- a ...
This story, prepared by museum historian Lorraine McConaghy, Ph.D., begins with a Ouija board held in the collection of Seattle's Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI). The simple wooden board meas...
A magnet for collectors and curiosity seekers, history buffs and bargain hunters, Ye Olde Curiosity Shop has thrilled visitors from Seattle and around the world for more than 120 years. Its founder, J...