Jini Dellaccio Exhibit museum member preview is huge success!

Last night we celebrated the opening of the new exhibit at the Harbor History Museum "With a Loving Eye: The Photographs of Jini Dellaccio."  Museum members were the first to see this incredible display of Ms. Dellaccio's stunning large format framed prints. Members were able to meet and talk to Ms. Dellaccio during the preview. She gave a tour of the gallery, commenting on every photograph on display. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our members.The exhibit officially opens to the public tomorrow, Saturday, May 31, and runs through July 29, 2012.

Special thanks to the Jini Dellaccio Collection for making this exhibit possible, and to exhibit curator Chuck Pennington for a beautiful display of Jini's work. Thank you to Karen Whitehead for allowing us to show the trailer for her upcoming film "her aim is true" which captures the artistry of Jini Dellaccio and her rock 'n' roll photography.

And...a very special thank you to Jini Dellaccio for giving us this exceptional glimpse into her body of work - fashion, portraiture, and rock & roll.

The book "Rock & Roll Jini Dellaccio" is available for sale in the museum gift shop. Proceeds benefit the museum and the Jini Dellaccio Collection. To learn more about Ms. Dellaccio, visit: jinidellaccio.com.

Thank you to our caterer, Shawn Ferguson. Shawn provided a delicious feast of bite-sized appetizers that were enjoyed by the attendees. 

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Gig Harbor, A Century Ago

Three figures walk along Front Street (now North Harborview) at the head of the bay. 

The town of Gig Harbor was formed, thanks to Alfred and Rachel Burnham.   Alfred was a physician with a varied background.  He served in the Civil War as a second assistant surgeon,[1] briefly owned a newspaper in Minnesota[2], cut ties for the Northern Pacific Railroad in Wyoming[3], where he also worked cattle, moved back to Minnesota for a few years before arriving Tacoma in 1884, via Colorado.[4] He and his wife homesteaded 160 acres in the upper right background,[5] and later bought land from the harbor’s three original fishermen, Sam Jerisich, John Farrague and Peter Goldsmith,[6] upon which the couple filed the plat for Gig Harbor on April 28, 1888.[7]  Burnham opened a store, with the long dock, and published his own newspaper promoting elixirs and good health.  Later the building was known as Bay View Hall.  

The white-trimmed building beyond Burnham’s store was W. P. Kendall’s store, later housing I. A. Rust’s Tinker Shop.  These buildings disappeared by the 1930s. The road where the three boys walk was known then as Front Street and now as North Harborview.  It leads around the corner to today’s Harbor History Museum. 

The logs in the foreground are in an active log dump (one of many along Gig Harbor’s shore) where nearby loggers brought their harvest to be towed to mills in Tacoma and elsewhere. The photo was taken from just west of the site of the Prentice shingle mill, which burned down in 1896.[8]  Equipment salvaged from the gutted mill was sold to CO Austin when he opened his own mill in 1909, now the site of the Harbor History Museum.

Across the water to the left is Gig Harbor’s only brickyard,[9] on property owned by John and Josephine Novak.[10]  The brickyard was a failure and the building was remodeled into the Silver Glide Dance Hall by the Novaks’ sons in 1921.[11] This facility had excellent floors for dancing as well as roller skating. Roller skating was a popular pastime early in the new century and skating rinks were common around Puget Sound.  Dances at the Silver Glide usually featured Reuben Berkheimer’s six-piece orchestra.  (He owned the local hardware store.)

Built during the early years of Prohibition, the dance hall became the subject of most of the scandalous talk of the town due to the rowdiness caused by the mixing of young people and bootleg whisky.  Drinking and carousing could last until 5 AM.[12]  Young ladies were warned that they shouldn’t leave a dance at the Silver Glide and reappear during the evening, as it would signal a bad reputation.

By 1925, the county banned dances there, and the fun moved out to Horseshoe Lake on the Key Peninsula.  The building continued to be used for less troublesome events, including the Novaks’ Golden Wedding Anniversary party in 1932.  After one last community dance hosted by the Crescent Valley PTA in January, 1933,[13] the Novaks’ sons-in-law Tony and Andrew Gilich dismantled the hall, salvaging some of the lumber which they used to build the family netshed.[14]  Located just out of this photo (to the left, at the base of Clay Hill), it is still a working netshed owned by Andy Blair and Dick Moller.


Linda McCowen, Historic Photo Editor

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

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[1] U.S. Department of the Interior National Park Service’s The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, Soldiers and Sailors Database.

[2] History of Freeborn County Minnesota, compiled by Franklyn Curtiss-wedge, publisher H. C. Cooper Jr., & Co., Chicago, Ill., 1911, page 189, “Dr. A. M. Burnham, the proprietor, of Itasca, at which place the post office had been named Freeborn Springs, saw the necessity for a newspaper to present the claims of that village to the votes of the citizens, and accordingly started a newspaper, with Isaac Botsford as editor. The paper was issued August 21, 1860, and continued for thirteen numbers.”

[3]Dr. A. M. Burnham’s obituary, Freeborn County Standard, July 22, 1896, “He spent some time in Wyoming, where he had a sawmill, having extensive contracts with the Union Pacific railroad.”

[4] Freeborn County Standard, April 9, 1884, “Dr. Burnham has left Colorado and gone to new Tacoma, Washington Territory.”

[5] Bureau of Land Management Serial Patent, Document number 3809, BLM Serial Number WASAA 080385, Issue Date 9-28-1891

[6] Warranty Deed dated April 24, 1886, Pierce County Auditor’s office, Book 20 Deeds, Page 183, and Quit Claim Deed dated August 6, 1887, Pierce County Auditor’s office, Book 22 Deeds, Page 375

[7] Original Gig Harbor plat record in the Pierce County Auditor’s office.

[8] The Mississippi Valley Lumberman, July 10, 1896, “The Prentice shingle mill at Gig Harbor, Wash., was recently destroyed by fire.”

[9] The Gig Harbor Clay Company 1907-1910, by Greg Spadoni.

[10] Land lease agreement dated May 9, 1907, recorded at the Pierce County Auditor’s office on July 22, 1907, in volume 309 of Deeds, page 400.

[11] Peninsula Gateway, early 1921 (issue date unknown)

[12] Peninsula Gateway, September 19, 1924

[13] Advertising poster at the Washington State Historical Society, http://www.washingtonhistory.org/collections/item.aspx?irn=55782&record=1

[14] City of Gig Harbor web page on the Gilich netshed, “The netshed was built in 1933 and owned by Tony Gilich … according to Don Gilich, the lumber used to build the shed was salvaged from the local “Silver Glide” dance hall.”

https://www.cityofgigharbor.net/490/Gilich-Netshed

Linda McCowen, Historic Photo Editor

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Fennimore Fremont Young & The Second Awakening – 1901

I’m in the process of reading France, Fin de Siecle by Eugen Weber and this sentence popped out at me “…By the end of the century, the end of the world seemed nigh…”.  In The World’s End Soon by Arthur Lautrec he promised it would happen in 1901.

So what does this have to do with the history of the Gig Harbor area?  Well, it jogged my memory about an article received and published in The Review, Mankota, Minnesota on August 18, 1896 that I ran across in the Resource Room at the Harbor History Museum.

Spring training!

1916. May Bollen and Geraldine Stinson by the corner of the Lee Stinson house (on Stinson Avenue!). This was May's first year of teaching at Lincoln School - note the Lincoln School baseball uniforms.

 

 

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

A Bit of Cooking History

While reading some old issue of The Peninsula Gateway I happened to run across the Horsehead Bay news for February 3, 1950.  Much of the article concerned the comings and goings of various visitors and residents of the area.

But what caught my eye was the recipe at the end of the piece. Why?  Probably because cooking has such a wide following these days, and I personally happen to consider cooking as one of my avocations.  This recipe was so unique that I just had to share with you because as the article stated these dishes are (in 1950) among the most expensive on hotel menus in England.  England was still experiencing rationing of many food items.

So here you are:

Crepe de Coque a la Creme (English)

1/2 lb. cockerels' comb - scalded in boiling water and skinned
1/2 pt. chicken stock
1 tsp. chopped shallots
1 tsp. chopped onion
1/4 pt. cream
2 tsp. flour
2 tsp. butter

Melt butter in a saucepan, add onions and shallots and fry lightly.  Add flour, mix well.  Stir in chicken stock and bring to boil.  Add combs cut in small pieces and boil 20 minutes.  Stir in cream and serve.

Crepe de Coupe a la King

Same as above recipe with the addition of diced pimentos and whiskey.

I haven't tried this recipe, and I can't say how many of the locals raising chickens made it.  But you have to admit it is definitely an interesting bit of historical fact! 


© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.