Gustavus Sohon's Cataldo

What did Cataldo Mission look like 150 years ago? The builders of the Mullan Road included Gustavus Sohon, whose many skills included artist. About 1860 he did a drawing of Cataldo -- a scene that changed little over the years. Note the similarity between the photo below and the picture above.

For more images from the Sohon drawing along with other contemporary pictures, go to Sohon, Cataldo in MobileMe Gallery.

Sample Timeline Entry: "54 40 or Fight"

Date, Title, Summary, Importance, Sources

1844 James K. Polk Runs for the Presidency with Slogan "54 40 or Fight"

In 1818 Britain and the United States negotiated a Joint Occupancy agreement for Oregon -- but what territory exactly did Oregon encompass and how long would the agreement last. The northern boundary across the western United States to the Continental Divide was settled at 49 degrees in 1818, but where should it lie beyond the Rockies. In a period of western expansion

Daily Work in History 300

This is a copy of an email I sent on July 12, 2009, reviewing your immediate assignments in History 300:

This email is for all students and for staff and honorary staff of our course. For simplicity Frontier Washington Easterners will be FW-E and Frontier Washington Westerners will be FW-W. The assignments are fundamentally the same with some tweaks for East and West. No river rafting for West-Siders and no Blakely harbor cruise for East-Siders. Sorry!

But this email is not about our wonderful adventures afoot and afloat. Instead it is about our assignments, which ideally add spice to the adventures in historical sites and vice versa. In my assignments overview I've mentioned things like writing comments on each others' blogs, reading HistoryLink entries for Frontier Washington, and making frequent blog entries. But how many comments? How much HistoryLink knowledge? and How many entries? Here's the deal: each week you will need to:

1. Write and post 5 or more comments on blog entries on other course blogs (including blogs on the homepage).

2. Write 2 or more new entries for your own blog with good historical content, citations, and new media. (Part of our job is to help you write better and better historical blog entries.)

3. Be prepared for a diagiostic quiz covering (a) our blogs up to 24 hours before the quiz, and (b) HistoryLink entries for the first half of the timeline.
-- First quiz for FW-E will be next Thursday, and first quiz for FW-W will be next week.
-- By "diagnostic" I mean that this test will be a list of short answer questions with your goal to be to answer as many as possible. I will grade on a simple pass or fail basis. This will help you and me determine whether you are carefully studying the course blogs and learning the basic framework of frontier Washington history.

4. Work with other class members on the class timeline for frontier Washington -- each entry, remember, should include (a) title, (b) brief description, (c) a why statement -- why is this important?, and (d) citations of two or more articles you have studied on this subject. We will continue to work on this in class.

5. Move forward on your final project: your blogs provide a good avenue for developing the final projects.

Some New Web "Finds"

Frontier Washington West is meeting in Seattle today. One of our activities is to add a few recommended web sites on this post -- also practicing linking with Blogger.

1. From April: two maps of the Indian tribes of Washington

2. Google and Life Magazine have just posted a collection of images from Life Magazine -- with a good chronological index.

Why is Cataldo Part of Frontier Washington?

If you visit Cataldo today, you will be just about half way across the Idaho panhandle, but in this 1853 map you can see that Washington Territory extended up to the Rocky Mountains in Montana. And so for a time, anyway, Cataldo was in "Frontier Washington."

The map below provides a more detailed picture from the map above showing the approximate location of Cataldo -- in the area called Horse Plain.

Field Trip Preparation: Mullan and Cataldo

On Friday, July 10, Frontier Washington-East will visit the Mission and Road-Building past of Washington. Both sites are in Idaho today, but were part of Washington Territory in the mid-1800s. Here are some sites that offer historical background:

On the Mullan Road:

-- Overview of the building of the road: 1858-62

-- John Mullan's Report -- published in 1863

-- Early Descriptions of Travel on the Road

On Cataldo:

-- Idaho Parks and Recreation Website

Assignment Overview for Frontier Washington

Frontier Washington: Assignment Overview

Reading, Reviewing, and Analyzing

1. Study existing timelines, especially HistoryLink.org to develop a solid “overview” of Frontier Washington history. Work with partners to develop a “definitive” list of roughly 50 key events in Frontier Washington history.

-- Using the HistoryLink.org timeline, work systematically through roughly 25 percent of the entries each week.

-- Select from among the HistoryLink.org timeline entries and also review other timelines for entries. (See Delicious.com site's list of timelines for ideas.)

-- “Weave” additional information (facts, ideas, maps, images, bibliography) around at least one entry per week for oral presentations to the class.

2. Participate in course blog and Delicious sites on Frontier History.

-- Read the course blog regularly for new posts by the instructors and links to posts on student blogs.

-- Write at lease two comments per week on the course blog and/or student blogs.

-- Read regularly the Frontier Washington Delicious bibliography of web sites.

-- Email Bill Youngs with nominations for the Delicious site -- include URL and your summary.

3. Develop your own blog for Frontier Washington

-- This is the place to test ideas and research skills.

-- Include examples of and thoughts about historical content and resources.

-- Add at least two new posts per week.

-- Use the blog as a way of developing (working your way into) your final project

-- Put at least one comment per week on the blogs of each of the other members of the class.

4. Complete a project on Frontier Washington

-- The project should include two basic elements: a timeline and text.

-- You can balance these any way you like as long as you include both elements.

-- Your project should include at least 2500 of your own words.

-- Essential elements: timeline, words, images, maps, documents, bibliography

-- The bibliography should involve high-level research -- what is the latest and greatest research on this facet of your project?