Working on the Locks

For those of you who have known me for a while, or the two or three who have been reading this blog from the start, you know that I did a project for my MA in History at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Seattle back in 2009.  The site is more commonly known as "the Ballard Locks" for the Seattle neighborhood in which it is located.  The Army Corps of Engineers site along with the co-located Carl English Botanical Gardens is typically listed as one of the top three visitor attractions in Seattle.  The volunteer group we started to accomplish that archive project is still going strong.  Since I've moved back to western Washington, I've been able to visit at the locks and help out the organization the best way I can (being that I live a two-hour journey by car and ferry away) by helping out with their blog.

The Abner Coburn along with the tug Wanderer move east 
through the Ballard Locks, circa 1916.

In case you had not checked in for a while, I thought I would put the "Friends of the Ballard Locks" back on your radar.  One of their members, Kyle Stetler, let us know in his article for the FOBL blog that June 25th is the 102nd anniversary of the passage of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1910, which appropriated the funds to begin construction of the locks.  A good investment, I'd say.

A History Mystery: Who's in first?

I still keep in touch with my friends at the Friends of the Ballard Locks (of FOBL for short). For those of you new to this blog, we started our own historical society of volunteers who are putting together an archive at the Hiram Chittenden Locks in Seattle, Washington. If you like, you can catch up on the project from the first post about the project. Well, I couldn't be more proud of the way the group has flourished since I left Seattle in August of last year. In fact, they've been presented with a little history mystery by a local resident.

The Locks were formally opened on July 4, 1917 with a grand celebration. The "official" first ship through what was then known simply as the Government Locks, was the steamship Roosevelt. However, the FOBL was recently contacted by the daughter of Elmer Reed who always maintained that HE piloted the first vessel through the Locks on that opening day. Elmer was a local outdoor enthusiast with a passion for canoeing. When the gates of the locks were opened to allow boats into the canal leading to Lake Union, Elmer allegedly jumped in front of the Roosevelt...in his canoe!

But here's the rub. There are pictures of boats large and small on opening day. There are pictures of rowboats and canoes. We have a picture of Elmer in his canoe and we have a picture of the Roosevelt taken from Elmer's canoe. Unfortunately, we don't have any documentation, written or photographic, that Elmer's canoe was the first vessel to enter Salmon Bay when the Locks opened. And now we have a mystery to solve. Who was in first? Was it Captain E. Blerd piloting the steamship Roosevelt or Seattle's own Elmer Reed?

So we're putting out the call for help. Can you help to prove that Elmer Reed was the first person out of the Government Locks in Seattle on Opening Day, 1917? If you have any information to contribute, OR if you're in the Seattle area and would like to stop by for a visit, the Friends of the Ballard Locks are a great bunch of people who are doin' history. Contact them through Susan Connole at susanatthelocks@gmail.com.

All images courtesy of the Friends of the Ballard Locks and/or US Army Corps of Engineers. Please do not duplicate without permission.

Moving Through The Locks

Through the closets and shelves at the Locks that is. Our project of creating an archive out of the collections at the Ballard Locks is gaining momentum. The wonderful folks over at the MyBallard.com community forum posted a call for volunteers for us back on April 9th. The response was fantastic! Within minutes the offers to help started dropping into my inbox.

Unfortunately, right now we only have access to the facilities during the work week. So we have a few folks waiting in the wings to help us out in the evenings and on weekends once we get that worked out. However, we now have a crew of eight (8) volunteers signing up during the week to scan slides and photos. We also have a couple more who might join us shortly. My thanks to all of the volunteers who give of their time to help out with the project!

We've set up a Google Group in order to post messages and updates to all of the volunteers. We're also utilizing a Google Calendar to sign up for our scanning session. (Thank you, Amanda, for setting those up for us!) Basically we've divided up the work week into morning and afternoon work periods. Volunteers sign up for a work period on the calendar. Then they come in anytime during that period and put in as much time as they can spare, usually two to three hours. We might tighten up the schedule as more volunteers join us, but for now it is working out great. We have a talented and motivated group of volunteers with some great ideas. I could never do this project without them.

When it comes to setting up an archive, I will admit to being a rank amateur. I've researched in them, but I've never worked in one. I guess that is what makes this a good internship. I will be taking an online class this summer on Archive Management from Dr. Burg at Shippensburg University this summer. Nevertheless, like anything else I want to do and don't know how, I head for the library or Amazon. Currently, I'm reading "Managing Historical Records Programs" by Bruce Dearstyne. It's not nearly as dry as it might sound. In the first chapter, the author reviews the eight functions that archivists carry out. I thought they would make excellent mission goals for our project, so I'd like to share them with you:

1. Acting as agents of the present and the past for the future. All I can say is that I owe a debt of gratitude to those who saved documents, artifacts, and photos and those who determined that they were worth saving. I hope we can do the same.

2. Partnering in the information field. There is no point in saving the information if it is not in a usable form. That means our work is not complete until we've created finding aids and databases.

3. Organizing and managing coherent, comprehensive programs. Dearstyne says that archivists are not only custodians of important materials, but also program managers. There is no "Lone Arranger" here. This requires a team effort.

4. Deciding which records have enduring value and therefore warrant continuing retention. This is important to keep in mind as we work with Corps of Engineer staff to determine what is "archival." We will not need, or should not, keep everything. A lesson we are already learning with duplicate slides.

5. Asserting control and order. This is straightforward. There currently is no systematic approach to storage and organization.

6. Preserving and protecting. Again, very straightforward. Some artifacts and documents are not being properly stored.

7. Fostering access and use. This is very important in that once the collections are inventoried and organized, we must determine how to make it available to the public.

8. Broadening awareness and support. As this group of volunteers move on with their lives, we need to pass on the responsibility of caring for, and adding to, these collections to an ever changing group of new, motivated volunteers.

And finally I'd leave you with another piece of wisdom from this book. The author quotes an AASLH technical leaflet discussing leadership in an historical records program: "Programs must avoid 'obsolete traditions of elitism and aloofness' and be open to new ideas. While stored at the Hiram Chittenden Locks, and currently worked on by eight volunteers and one or two staff members, the history these collections represent belongs to everyone.

All History Is Local

Paul, my friend from the Masters in Applied History program at Shippensburg University, posted on his blog an essay about the challenges in finding archival records for a project involving a local church. His post served as a reminder that all history is found locally. You might live where something big happened, for example Paul lives just a few miles from the Gettysburg Battlefield. Or, you might be where the history is not so evident. Every town and county in America has its own story to tell. Whether you live near the “big stuff” or not, history can be found all around you. Maybe you’ll find an interesting story in the local cemetery, or in the history behind a plaque on a building or bridge, or in Paul’s case study, the story behind a not-so-old church in a very old town.

My wife and I recently moved to the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. A short walk from my home is the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, known by the more common name of “The Ballard Locks.” I thought I’d share this with you because and my local NPR station did a segment on the Locks today. Take a listen to the show and soak up some local Seattle history. Also, Arcadia Publishing recently released one of their local history books about it, The Ballard Locks by Adam Woog. I own the book and it is quite good. However, the work is like all of the Arcadia Publishing books in their “Images of America” series in that it is picture rich, but textually it is only a summary history.

There is no museum or archive at the Ballard Locks and that’s a shame. There is nice little gift shop that shows a short film and a lot of great volunteers. The history is in the site itself. The Ballard Locks was dedicated in 1917 and has been in operation ever since. The site, managed by the Army Corps of Engineers, connects the Puget Sound to lakes Washington and Union. I stop by there with my cattle dog Sydney nearly every day to watch boats move through. It’s relaxing. However, looking at the 100-year old concrete structures makes me wonder what else they have to tell me in addition to what can be found in Mr. Woog’s book. So I started yet another quest. In a search of the National Archives online, I found some record groups pertaining to incidents at the Locks. And what do you know, they are housed right here at the National Archives Pacific Region Facility in Seattle. I’m planning my visit. I’ll let you know what I find out.