Cascade of History

On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, we get the latest news on a plan by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation (SPR) to make significant changes to historic Gas Works Park on Lake Union in Seattle's Wallingford/Fremont neighborhoods. Conservation architect Patricia Fels is our guest. She took part in the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board (LPB) meeting on October 1, 2025, and li...

UPDATE AS OF 6PM WEDS, OCT 1, 2025 - THE SEATTLE LANDMARKS PRESERVATION BOARD VOTED TO TABLE SEATTLE PARKS' REQUEST FOR A CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL TO MAKE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES TO GAS WORKS PARK. BOARD MEMBERS WANTED MORE SPECIFICS ABOUT PARKS' PROPOSED WORK, A LONG-RANGE PLAN FOR THE PARK, AND DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT DESIGNER RICH HAAG INTENDED FOR THE STRUCTURES IN THE PARK IN THE LONG-TERM...

On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel speaks with Michael Houser, longtime State Architectural Historian for Washington's Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (DAHP). In this interview recorded on Friday, August 29, 2025, Mr. Houser talks about the unique aspects of the job, which includes managing multiple critical programs in support of historic preservation in...

Feliks Banel's guests on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY are the organizers of the upcoming PLACES Conference in Gig Harbor, Washington, which begins on October 8, 2025. Carrianne Ekberg is Executive Director of the Gig Harbor Waterfront Alliance and Lydia Felty is Main Street Specialist for the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation. According to the conference website, "PLACES is Wa...

In commemoration of Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we present a BONUS EPISODE with excerpts from a conversation recorded by Feliks Banel in summer 2021 with Shelly Boyd and the late Michael Finley of the Colville Tribe in North Central Washington. This was not long after the discovery near Kamloops, British Columbia of what appears to be hundreds of unmarked graves at the site...

On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel speaks with First Nations visual artist and public policy expert Lou-ann Neel by telephone from, as she says, "the lands of the Lekwungen, also known as Victoria, BC" for history and context of Canada's National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The 2025 observance is taking place on Tuesday, September 30, 2025. Ms. Neel talks about treatie...

On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel digs into the "field tape archives" for part one of his 2015 conversation with the late John Spellman, the Evergreen State's most recent Republican governor. John Spellman passed away in 2018 at age 91. John Spellman was a King County Commissioner in the 1960s, and then served three terms as King County’s first County Executive. He was elec...

Feliks Banel's guests on this LIVE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY include Clay Eals of Seattle Now & Then on this week's Seattle Times column about a "history mystery" involving vintage public art and how you can help; David Reynolds, board president of Bing Crosby Advocates on their upcoming commemoration of the centennial of Bing's departure from Spokane at the start of his career in 1925; and...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Bruce Ramsey, veteran business journalist and author of "Seattle In The Great Depression." The book was published in 2025 by WSU Press in Pullman, Washington. In our conversation, Mr. Ramsey explains how he came to write the book and describes his research methodology, and introduces some of the real-life characters who come to li...

On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel speaks with Mariana Imaz, program manager of the Speakers Bureau for Humanities Washington. The Speakers Bureau provides a range of topics and speakers covering arts, culture, history - and so much more - and non-profit groups and public agencies around the Evergreen State can submit applications to request speakers to appear in their commu...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Josephine Tsai, a journalism graduate student in Brooklyn, New York. CASCADE OF HISTORY has been covering the threatened closure of the Lewis Army Museum at Joint Base Lewis McChord near Tacoma for the past few months. As we have reported, Lewis Army Museum is one of many U.S. Army museums targeted for closure around the United St...

CASCADE OF HISTORY learned late Monday, September 22, 2025 that Dr. Quintard Taylor, History Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington, has passed away. Dr. Taylor contributed incalculably to Pacific Northwest history and to Black history. He was author of “The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from the 1870s through the Civil Rights Era,” and founder of the website...

Feliks Banel's guests on this LIVE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY include Scott Schaefer, founder/publisher/editor of the B-Town Blog with news they broke today of the upcoming closure of the beloved Pancake Chef restaurant in SeaTac, WA; Nick Biermann with the latest from Sumner, WA in the aftermath of the destruction of the Ryan House by the City of Sumner; Al Mackenzie, member of the ASUW Shel...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Bud Withers, longtime Northwest sportswriter and author of a new history about the Apple Cup - the annual cross-state college football rivalry game between the University of Washington Huskies and Washington State University Cougars. The first meeting of the two teams was in 1900, and this year will mark the 117th edition of the A...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Jason Miller, publisher and editor of The CONCRETE HERALD newspaper in Concrete, Washington. Miller brought the beloved newspaper back to life in 2009, and made it essential reading all through the Skagit Valley in places such as Lyman, Hamilton and Rockport. Now, he’s put the CONCRETE HERALD up for sale. In this interview recorde...

Feliks Banel's guests on this LIVE REMOTE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY from the Masonic Home in Des Moines, Washington include Moira Nadal of the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation; Lloyd Lytle of the grassroots group working to stop the demolition of the historic building; neighbor George Pettibone; several other neighbors who took part in the DES MOINES HISTORY TRIVIA CHALLENGE; and t...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Washington State Archivist Heather Hirotaka. Ms. Hirotaka joined the show from Spokane, where she had just escorted the original 1889 Washington State Constitution - on its first trip over the Cascades - for a special public event on Monday, September 15, 2025 from 3-5 p.m. at the Spokane Public Library in downtown Spokane. For mo...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Elisa Law, executive director of the non-profit Friends of Magnuson Park - a group supporting a variety of activities at Magnuson Park in Seattle, which happens to be home of CASCADE OF HISTORY's flagship radio station SPACE 101.1 FM. Ms. Law recently completed researching and writing a history of a nearly forgotten Japanese agric...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Howard Lovering, Founding Director of The Museum of Flight in Seattle, who also authored a history of the museum in 2016 called “For Future Generations.” Mr. Lovering will present a special program on Saturday, September 13, 2025 at 11:00 a.m. at the museum. The Museum of Flight is marking its 60th anniversary this weekend with sp...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Rick Williams, co-author of “Managed Extinction: The Decline and Loss of Wild Salmon and Steelhead in the Pacific Northwest.” The book was published in 2024 by Caxton Press in Caldwell, Idaho. In our conversation - as in the book - Mr. Williams goes deep on the past and present of wild salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River an...

Feliks Banel’s guests on this SUMMER ENCORE EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY are Jake Rehm and Bill Youngs of Eastern Washington University on this past May's Mullan Road Conference and Mullan Road history; and Richard Blumenthal, author of the 2024 book "Maritime Names of Washington"; plus, a live bootleg from the Saturday, September 7, 2024 performance by The Sonics at MoPoP; and the first installm...

Feliks Banel’s guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Ariel Doumbouya, Cartographic Products Lead for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Geospatial Program. The USGS has just introduced a new and completely free custom map service aimed at hikers and others who depend on accurate maps for recreational purposes. The custom maps are available to anyone via an online ap...

Feliks Banel’s guest on this BONUS “HERITAGE BARN” EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Kristin Darrow, who shares the exciting story of how she recently restored a heritage barn near the Walla Walla County community of Waitsburg, Washington. Washington’s Heritage Barn Grant program application deadline is coming up on October 19, 2025, and hundreds of heritage barns in the Evergreen State are eligibl...

On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel speaks with three-term Republican former Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed about the history of voting by mail in Washington state. Secretary Reed was in office from 2001 to 2013, and previously served as the elected auditor of Thurston County. In this earlier role, he was one of the first public officials to support efforts to adopt v...

On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel speaks with John Cox, bell ringer at Saint Spiridon Orthodox Cathedral in the Cascade neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Sometime early on Sunday, August 31, 2025, thieves got away with three bronze bells, and Mr. Cox and others are trying to track down the bells before they're melted down for scrap. The parish at Saint Spiridon Orthodox...