It's a cold day in February of 1907, and the muddy streets of Port Gamble are lined with tidy houses that, not surprisingly, create a scene that looks like early New England. Port Gamble was a company town of the Puget Mill Company, whose founders were from the state of Maine. The mill recently closed, but the town still retains its manicured, nineteenth-century appearance.

Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries, photographer unknown; neg. no. UW4948

The Evergreen State: In History, In the Hallway

Richard Engeman, Special Collections

The first-floor Suzzallo hallway is very wide and very white, and it efficiently handles heavy traffic between the Red Square entrance and the lobby of the Allen Library. The width and the whiteness are virtues, because there is room enough and light enough for the many students, staff, and faculty who linger to examine the photographic displays lining the hallway.

A new exhibit includes enlargements of twenty historical photographs from around the state of Washington. The images reflect the fact that the University draws its support and its students from every corner of the state. Ilwaco, Nespelem, Blaine, Tacoma, wheat fields, a mountain sawmill, and a traffic jam at Stevens Pass in the 1920s are among the topics. Richard Engeman and Kurt Kiefer selected the images from the collection of regional photographs in the the Special Collections and Preservation Division.

The hallway also features two other photo exhibits drawn from Special Collections holdings. One is a selection of views of the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition held on the UW campus. The other depicts scenes among the Chilkat Tlingit in southeastern Alaska, taken by an amateur photographer in 1894.