Making history Making history Making history

Did you hear about the Seattle Police officer who became one of the biggest bootleggers on the West Coast? Maybe you’re wondering about the strange spectacle of bear wrestling and how it played out in places like Longview and Walla Walla. Flying saucers in Washington?

You can learn about all that and more at HistoryLink, the independent online encyclopedia of Washington state’s history. With well over 8,000 original articles, it averages more than 4,500 visitors a day. Feature pieces, interactive tours and photographs highlight history from every corner of our state.

The nonprofit resource turned 25 in February and, in a world where universities are concerned about the very future of a history major, the success and popularity of HistoryLink proves there is an enduring public fascination with the past.

Left to right: Marie McCaffrey, Petyr Beck, David Koch, Jennifer Ott and Antonia Kelleher pose at Pike Place Market in 2018.

In 1997, Walt Crowley and wife Marie McCaffrey, historians and activists who studied at the UW in the 1960s, dreamed up the project. Crowley wanted to create an encyclopedia of Seattle and King County history; McCaffrey thought it should go online. With fellow non-academic historian Paul Dorpat, they started researching and assembling their content.

“From the beginning, there was always this civic idea at the core of HistoryLink,” says McCaffrey. “Knowing the history of the place where you live makes your life richer. But it also helps you to make better decisions as a participant in democracy.” In the spirit of enriching lives and engaging people in their community, McCaffrey and Crowley launched their digital encyclopedia, providing well-researched historical context and hoping to open minds and shift opinions. When Crowley died in 2007, HistoryLink had amassed more than 4,400 articles and become an inspiration for communities around the country. With McCaffrey as executive director, HistoryLink grew in financial stability, expanded its coverage of the state, published books and hosted events. McCaffrey transitioned out of leading HistoryLink in late 2023 and the organization is now stewarded by Jennifer Ott, ’93, an author, historian and occasional Seattle waterfront tour guide.

Ott was handpicked and closely mentored by McCaffrey over six years in preparation for taking the reins of the organization. Her first contribution to HistoryLink, in 2000, was an article on salmon stories from Indigenous communities in Western Washington. She became a regular freelance contributor to the site and eventually took on managing projects. Later, she stepped in as assistant director. One of Ott’s efforts is developing tribal histories through deepening long-term relationships with local tribal historians. She worked with staff of the Snoqualmie and Muckleshoot tribes to write histories related to local watersheds as a way to understand both place and space. “Many of our Indigenous communities haven’t been well incorporated into historical narratives. Or they’ve been harmed by historians,” says Ott. “If there’s been harm, you have to build the relationships.

As an undergrad in the UW’s Comparative History of Ideas program, Ott studied with renowned environmental historian Richard White, ’72, and studied European history with John Toews. Her adviser encouraged her to pursue a double major. “Instead of just hoovering up information, I got to think about where the information was coming from. Who wrote it,” she says.

Ott completed her master’s in environmental and Western American history at the University of Montana. In 2009, she joined a HistoryLink book project focusing on the famed New York-based Olmsted Brothers firm and its early 1900s designs for Seattle landscapes, including the UW’s main campus. “Landscape design is an essential component of a healthy community,” Ott says. “Landscape architects have the vision to know what people will see, what impact that can have. I could never afford a house with a view of Mount Rainier. But I went to a university where I could see that gorgeous mountain framed by evergreens.”

As HistoryLink steps into a new era, Ott is eager to create resources for students and teachers, directing them toward Washington state history curriculum and archival resources. In response to conversations with the Washington State Talking Book and Braille Library, she plans to develop audio formats so users can listen to articles. The organization also hopes to amplify the work of smaller community-based historical societies and museums around the state by preserving and archiving their exhibits at the HistoryLink website. The digital format would allow those community history exhibits to endure. This fall, HistoryLink will partner with the Digital Public Library of America and the Washington State Library to include HistoryLink stories in their databases.

Thanks to careful research, quality writing and a thoughtful approach to a diversity of subjects, HistoryLink is a reliable resource for scholars, teachers and anyone else seeking to know more of the region’s story. “HistoryLink has been an important part of my career for a very long time,” says Associate Professor Joshua Reid, director of the UW Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest. “The articles, historical photos and other resources it makes available are highly useful in the classroom. They’re a great place for students to get some relevant background on potential research topics. I especially appreciate the detailed citations and notes for the articles.”

Edythe Turnham and Her Knights of Syncopation (Black Heritage Society of Washington State)

Writer and founding editor Priscilla Long, ’90, developed a compilation of HistoryLink’s stories that gathered many voices and histories to provide a broader understanding of Washington history. “We see ourselves as translators between the academic and the cultural-resources folks who document historic sites for the government,” says Ott. Few people will pick up an EPA report, she says, but HistoryLink can be an intermediary for the general public. “We want history to be used by those who are making decisions or developing their understanding of place.”

History Professor Emeritus John Findlay says HistoryLink’s founders and staff have been “very skillful at innovating and occupying their own niche. … But in contrast to writings by academic scholars, HistoryLink has proven much more accessible.”

The organization has reached out to journalists and many scholars, including historians at the UW, to grow a stable of writers who produce high-quality work. They include David Wilma, ’71, who worked as a UW police officer while he pursued his history degree. He served as staff historian for HistoryLink and has written more than 125 features on subjects including early white settlement, hydroelectric development and many of the luminaries who shaped the region. Peter Blecha, a UW student in the 1970s, spotlighted the region’s entertainment history—from bear wrestling to grunge bands. Zola Mumford, who completed her Master of Library Science degree in 2009, crafted a history of the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center. Last year, Emilie Miller, who earned a UW museology/museum studies certificate in 2020 and now is senior curator at Hibulb Cultural Center, featured the Tulalip Boarding School, an effort to distance Indigenous children from their culture. In one of her feature stories on the site, Tamiko Nimura, ’00, ’04, conjured up Tacoma’s once-vibrant Japantown.

HistoryLink’s recent Future of History fundraising campaign will ensure that even more geographically diverse stories about Washington state are featured in the next evolution of the online encyclopedia. Looking ahead, Ott says, “We’ll have the bandwidth to go farther afield from the Seattle and King County regions to explore more deeply Eastern Washington and beyond.”