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Thursday,  November 21 , 2024
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Photo of Martin Middlewood

Stories by Martin Middlewood

Columbian freelance contributor

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ClarkCoHist@gmail.com
A 1917 poster promotes the 4L, or Legion of Loyal Loggers and Lumbermen. Backed by the government, the union was started to prevent the International Workers of the World to gain enough strength to disrupt spruce production. The wood was essential in the manufacturing of early military aircraft.

Clark County history: Industrial Workers of the World

A 1917 poster promotes the 4L, or Legion of Loyal Loggers and Lumbermen. Backed by the government, the union was started to prevent the International Workers of the World to gain enough strength to disrupt spruce production. The wood was essential in the manufacturing of early military aircraft.

April 6, 2024, 6:07am Clark County Life

America entered World War I on April 19, 1917, unprepared to provide the spruce essential to every airplane of the era, which helped protect Allies in muddy European trenches. Airplanes required the spruce found only along 50 miles of Oregon and Washington coastline. Read story

Three founders of the Catholic Church in the Pacific Northwest posed for a formal portrait on an unknown date. Left to right: Fathers Augustin Magloire Blanchet (1797-1887), Norbert Blanchet (1775-1883) and Modeste Demers (1809-1871).

Clark County history: Catholic Church in the Northwest

Three founders of the Catholic Church in the Pacific Northwest posed for a formal portrait on an unknown date. Left to right: Fathers Augustin Magloire Blanchet (1797-1887), Norbert Blanchet (1775-1883) and Modeste Demers (1809-1871).

March 30, 2024, 6:05am Churches & Religion

In 1837, Hudson’s Bay Company Gov. George Simpson wrote to the Archdiocese of Quebec to request a Catholic mission be established in his company’s territory north of the Columbia River. Read story

In this undated photo of an Oregon Trail reenactment, a long line of oxen-drawn wagons stops to rest along a trail. In 1878, a 21-year-old Missouri woman, Sarah Elizabeth Butler, kept a diary of her journey along the trail to Fort Vancouver.

Clark County History: Sarah Butler’s Oregon Trail journey

In this undated photo of an Oregon Trail reenactment, a long line of oxen-drawn wagons stops to rest along a trail. In 1878, a 21-year-old Missouri woman, Sarah Elizabeth Butler, kept a diary of her journey along the trail to Fort Vancouver.

March 23, 2024, 6:05am Clark County Life

Just east of the Kansas border at Carthage, Mo., 21-year-old Sarah Elizabeth Butler (1857-1931) opened her diary. Inside, she wrote eight sentences recording the first day of her trek along the Oregon Trail to the Washington Territory. She loaded that entry with information, perhaps rivaling her family’s packing of their… Read story

Bob and Marian Russell, who survived the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, look over some old newspaper clippings at their Vancouver home in this photo originally published in The Columbian in 1998.

Clark County History: Local couple survived Japanese death camp

Bob and Marian Russell, who survived the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, look over some old newspaper clippings at their Vancouver home in this photo originally published in The Columbian in 1998.

March 16, 2024, 6:04am Clark County Life

A lesser-known fact about America entering World War II is the bombing of a U.S. Navy base at Cavite on Manila Bay, Philippines, on Dec. 10, 1941, three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese wanted the Philippine Islands because they needed access to the raw materials of… Read story

In this 1942 photo, American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese are shown at the start of the Bataan Death March. A Vancouver High School graduate and Army chaplain, Ralph W.E. Brown, was among the prisoners. He ministered to soldiers until his death in January 1945 in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

Clark County history: Vancouver High graduate received WWII Distinguished Service Cross

In this 1942 photo, American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese are shown at the start of the Bataan Death March. A Vancouver High School graduate and Army chaplain, Ralph W.E. Brown, was among the prisoners. He ministered to soldiers until his death in January 1945 in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

March 9, 2024, 6:02am Clark County Life

Three months after the invasion of the Philippine Islands and the Battle of Bataan, the Japanese captured nearly 78,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war. Japanese soldiers marched them for six days down the Bataan peninsula to a railhead, denying them food and water before dispersing them to internment camps.… Read story

A self-portrait of Paul Kane (1810-1871), who sketched and painted First Nations and Metis people on trips across Canada and later through America&rsquo;s Hudson&rsquo;s Bay Company territory in 1846-1847, staying at Fort Vancouver for several months.

Clark County history: Paul Kane

A self-portrait of Paul Kane (1810-1871), who sketched and painted First Nations and Metis people on trips across Canada and later through America&rsquo;s Hudson&rsquo;s Bay Company territory in 1846-1847, staying at Fort Vancouver for several months.

March 2, 2024, 6:00am Clark County Life

Thrown over his horse’s head while pursuing a bison, a stunned Paul Kane quickly remounted, thanks to the Indigenous men who’d caught his pony. Read story

A group poses at the Vancouver Municipal Airport, perhaps sometime around its 1930 dedication. From left to right, the sitting front and standing back rows show Bert Justin, Charles Mears, Freddie Sauers, Art Whitaker, Sid Monastes, an unknown man and Fred Rafferty; and in the rear row: Henry Rasmussen, Ed Klysner, Les Boyd, Edith Foltz, Major Gilbert Eckerson, &igrave;Dad&icirc; Bacon and Lt. Carlton Bond.

Images From the Attic: Clark County history

A group poses at the Vancouver Municipal Airport, perhaps sometime around its 1930 dedication. From left to right, the sitting front and standing back rows show Bert Justin, Charles Mears, Freddie Sauers, Art Whitaker, Sid Monastes, an unknown man and Fred Rafferty; and in the rear row: Henry Rasmussen, Ed Klysner, Les Boyd, Edith Foltz, Major Gilbert Eckerson, &igrave;Dad&icirc; Bacon and Lt. Carlton Bond.

February 24, 2024, 5:43am Clark County Life

Forced labor helped build Vancouver’s Municipal Airport during 1929. Several men guilty of vagrancy or drunkenness found themselves working at the nascent field constructing its first hangars while others cleared ground for more. While on the job three prisoners took “French leave,” as The Columbian chided. One was found dining… Read story

As a teenager in the 1920s, Louis Proctor of Vancouver built airplane models powered by rubber bands; later, his model airplane kits produced by his company, Proctor Enterprises, became popular with collectors.

Images From the Attic: Youth gets own air show

As a teenager in the 1920s, Louis Proctor of Vancouver built airplane models powered by rubber bands; later, his model airplane kits produced by his company, Proctor Enterprises, became popular with collectors.

February 17, 2024, 6:27am Clark County Life

In 1929, newspapers from Honolulu to Boston published the name and photo of a 19-year-old Vancouver boy, Louis Proctor. Proctor had won first place in the National Airplane Model League of America contest. Read story

A crowd of 20,000 people gathered at Pearson Airfield and along the shore of the Columbia River for its 1925 dedication. As far as can be established, its namesake, Lt. Alexander Pearson, never set foot on the field or in Vancouver.

Clark County history: Army Air Service Lt. Oakley Kelly

A crowd of 20,000 people gathered at Pearson Airfield and along the shore of the Columbia River for its 1925 dedication. As far as can be established, its namesake, Lt. Alexander Pearson, never set foot on the field or in Vancouver.

February 10, 2024, 6:02am Clark County Life

Army Air Service Lt. Oakley Kelly finagled the War Department into naming Vancouver’s airport after fellow aviation pioneer Lt. Alexander Pearson, who died Sept. 2, 1924, testing a prototype aircraft for the Army. Read story

York, a slave in bondage to William Clark during the voyage of the Corps of Discovery, is depicted in this 1912 painting, &ldquo;Lewis and Clark at Three Forks,&rdquo; by E.S. Paxson. No actual image of York is known to exist.

Clark County history: York

York, a slave in bondage to William Clark during the voyage of the Corps of Discovery, is depicted in this 1912 painting, &ldquo;Lewis and Clark at Three Forks,&rdquo; by E.S. Paxson. No actual image of York is known to exist.

February 3, 2024, 6:06am Clark County Life

The enslaved York was the only Black member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. William Clark inherited him from his father and wrote about him in the expedition’s journals, sometimes negatively. Besides the journal references, historians know little of York’s life before or after the expedition. Yet even in the… Read story