From the desk of Shirley Lewis
July 1
Explore historic forts: Fort Vancouver National Historic Site and Fort Nisqually Living History Museum are two examples which were established by the Hudson’s Bay Company in what later became Washington Territory.
July 4 – Observe our nation’s independence by marveling at the scope of U.S. Government publications. Washington State Library is a regional Federal Depository Library for Washington and Alaska. We’ve got the day off to celebrate, but if you have questions about federal government publications, please Ask a Librarian at the Washington State Library.
July 5
Take a hike --- or a walk -- Washington has trails for all modes of perambulation. How about the John Wayne Pioneer Trail in Iron Horse State Park? This trail traverses the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, a not-for-profit organization that works to conserve land from Seattle across the Cascade Mountains to Central Washington.
July 6
Charles Dudley Warner wrote “politics makes strange bedfellows“(Summer in a Garden, Fifteenth Week, end of second paragraph). Here’s a few of biographies and oral histories of notable Washingtonians involved in government, politics, and journalism. Strange bedfellows?
You decide:

- Albert D. Rosellini
- The Inimitable Adele Ferguson: a Biography & Oral History
- Is it True What They Say about Dixy?: A Biography of Dixy Lee Ray
- Henry M. Jackson: a Life in Politics
- John Spellman: Politics Never Broke His Heart
- Slade Gorton: A Half Century in Politics
- Warren G. Magnuson and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century America
- Wild Bill: the Legend and Life of William O. Douglas
- Winning the West for Women: the Life of Suffragist Emma Smith DeVoe
- A Woman First: the Impact of Jennifer Dunn