"Snoqualmie Pass" Reviewed

The local Valley View community newspaper has just published an article about my book, "Snoqualmie Pass," which was released through Arcadia Publishing in October 2007:

"'Snoqualmie Pass' Tells it Like it Was", Valley View, February 18, 2008 edition.

I was rather surprised to get a phone call last week at work from the editor, Lisa Allen, who requested an interview. This is one of several articles written in local papers over the last few months, and I don't think I'm quite used to it yet. I still feel rather like a wide-eyed child when it comes to the media.

Happily, "Snoqualmie Pass" is providing more and more folks a glimpse of the overall history of the area, which is something that Arcadia's Images of America series does quite well. As my editor likes to say: "Arcadia is the Starbucks of history publishers": quick, accessible, and tastes good, too!

I came into contact with the series during my first trip to Minnesota to meet cousins and do family history research. I had been looking for a photograph of an old building in 1890s Duluth, where an ancestor worked in an office as an attorney. I only had a few minutes in Duluth to have lunch and hunt for useful information. I quickly located a gift shop, and with cousins in tow, went inside and headed for the book rack. I spotted and picked up a copy of Arcadia's "Duluth," by Sheldon Aubut, and when I turned to the pages of downtown architecture, I struck gold. I told a cousin about the story behind the building in the photograph, he asked "How did you DO that?" I was tempted to tell him: "Trust in the force." But, after paying the cashier, I thanked my lucky stars and logged Arcadia Publishing into the back of my mind as a potential future resource, little suspecting I would add to their series within a few years.

If "Snoqualmie Pass" helps or inspires even just one person through a special archival photograph or descriptive historical tidbit, just like "Duluth" helped me in my research, then the book has accomplished its mission.

You can get a glimpse inside "Snoqualmie Pass," by John and Chery Kinnick at Google Books.