Thursday, June 24, 2004
Bellevue: It's First 100 Years
My final acquisition from the spring library sale is also waiting room material. It's a history of the city of Bellevue, which sits across the Lake from Seattle. It's a complete enough book, but is certainly not a people's history. The Japanese internement of World War Two, for example, gets far less copy that the history of the city's downtown mall, Bellevue Square. Many of the earlier sections are obviously culled from land records and other historical documents, rather than personal recollections. Having attempted to write a suburban history once myself, though, I can appreciate the burden of having to fill in the gaps between anecdotes. Another weakness is that the book was not written for the ages. There are numerous references to an old homestead having stood "where the x building now stands." Of course, now that 20 years have passed since the book's publication, some of those referenced buildings are now history. Still, it was an interesting enough read and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the city of Bellevue. For me, however, the best part of the book was the colophon on the back page where it mentioned everyone involved in the production of the book, giving their name and what they did. An odd little touch which ended with the lines: "This was a fun project. We had no special difficulty with the work." Man, I'd love to be able to sign that to my jobs. I wonder if Ye Galleon Press is hiring?
Labels: WaitingRoomMaterial
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