Horace and Susie Revels Cayton, the publishers of Seattle’s leading Black newspaper, invited Black men and women to come to Seattle for the 1909 Alaska…
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Published January 7, 2022
ba-kground Posts
Published January 2, 2022
Auto Row Apartments
At 12th Avenue and Pike Street, Capitol Hill’s former Auto Row Apartments was Seattle’s first apartment built, owned, and occupied by Black people. It was…
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Published November 9, 2021
Lumber camp songs at Seattle’s first Cub Scout camps
This article explores the lumber camp songs and vaudeville tunes that were likely sung at Blue Ox Camp from 1930-1932, and secondarily Camp Do Your…
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Published October 31, 2021
Blue Ox Camp, Seattle’s Paul Bunyan camp
Cub Scouts in Seattle had America’s very first Cub Scout camp. It was a Paul Bunyan camp, called Blue Ox camp, open from 1930 to…
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Published October 7, 2021
Wolf Cubs lost at war
The Wolf Cubs pack in Port Angeles, Washington, may have inspired the formation of Cub Scouts in America — during an effort to prevent war.…
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Published October 5, 2021
Camp DYB, the Northwest’s first Cub camp
Before there were officially Cub Scouts, the Seattle area had its first Cub Camp: Camp DYB or Camp Do Your Best. (This article is the…
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Published October 2, 2021
Cub Scouts began in Port Angeles
A remote community in far western Washington State imported Cub Scouts from Canada in 1923. They apparently inspired national Scout leaders to formally adopt Cub…
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Published April 25, 2021
Frank Smith and Sadie Tipps
Frank Smith represented the opportunity for Black people in Seattle at the start of the 1900s. He and his wife Sadie built their own home,…
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Published March 23, 2021
Ed Hagen pulled one over on you
Ed Hagen got away with the greatest crime: stealing history. Casual reading of Prohibition-era newspapers has led Seattle historians to narrowly remember him as the…
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Published February 27, 2021
Seattle’s Black families’ homes in 1909
A window into Seattle’s Black families’ homes, via the writings of Horace and Susie Revels Cayton, Booker T. Washington, and Harry Edwards.
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