Evan J Albright
@ejalbright.bsky.social
Writer. Current history research topics: Chichen Itza, Central Oregon (1940-1970), William Henry Lewis (1868-1949), US depredation claims (Native American)
Happened to stumble across this clipping from 1959 of a proposed national "Indian Day." No idea what ever became of this effort. I found this because a person I'm currently writing about, Vernon Jackson of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs (Ore.), was on the committee.
October 13, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Happened to stumble across this clipping from 1959 of a proposed national "Indian Day." No idea what ever became of this effort. I found this because a person I'm currently writing about, Vernon Jackson of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs (Ore.), was on the committee.
4/ The Maya at the Mouse was held at the Coronado Resort at Walt Disney World where you can find this at the playground!
March 10, 2025 at 9:19 PM
4/ The Maya at the Mouse was held at the Coronado Resort at Walt Disney World where you can find this at the playground!
3/ Apparently this will be part of an Indiana Jones adventure. Maya-philes may remember that "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull" had Maya/Chichen Itza iconography in the set design, even though the location was supposedly South America. My personal fave, Chac Mool, was there on the screen.
March 10, 2025 at 9:19 PM
3/ Apparently this will be part of an Indiana Jones adventure. Maya-philes may remember that "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull" had Maya/Chichen Itza iconography in the set design, even though the location was supposedly South America. My personal fave, Chac Mool, was there on the screen.
If you see this post, quote with a bridge from your gallery
January 24, 2025 at 3:00 AM
If you see this post, quote with a bridge from your gallery
The indigenous people of today's Central Oregon carved hundreds of pictographs on local geology. Much of the art is intact, but occasionally some joker decides to deface it. This vandal scratched "Popeye" over a petroglyph. Popeye enters the public domain Jan. 1; the pictograph was before copyrights
December 23, 2024 at 5:55 PM
The indigenous people of today's Central Oregon carved hundreds of pictographs on local geology. Much of the art is intact, but occasionally some joker decides to deface it. This vandal scratched "Popeye" over a petroglyph. Popeye enters the public domain Jan. 1; the pictograph was before copyrights
How Christmas is celebrated at Chichen Itza!
December 20, 2024 at 8:21 PM
How Christmas is celebrated at Chichen Itza!
Spending the holiday writing Central Oregon history. Here's a Christmas greeting that anyone who has spent time in the area will recognize even though this card is more than a century old.
December 19, 2024 at 5:26 PM
Spending the holiday writing Central Oregon history. Here's a Christmas greeting that anyone who has spent time in the area will recognize even though this card is more than a century old.
<today's research>
I'm writing about police procedures in the 1950s, so looking for best practices of the period. Here's a Google Books excerpt from the auxiliary officers manual in the Washington State Highway Patrol. Number three--what to do when you encounter an atomic bomb--is solid advice.
I'm writing about police procedures in the 1950s, so looking for best practices of the period. Here's a Google Books excerpt from the auxiliary officers manual in the Washington State Highway Patrol. Number three--what to do when you encounter an atomic bomb--is solid advice.
December 12, 2024 at 1:49 AM
<today's research>
I'm writing about police procedures in the 1950s, so looking for best practices of the period. Here's a Google Books excerpt from the auxiliary officers manual in the Washington State Highway Patrol. Number three--what to do when you encounter an atomic bomb--is solid advice.
I'm writing about police procedures in the 1950s, so looking for best practices of the period. Here's a Google Books excerpt from the auxiliary officers manual in the Washington State Highway Patrol. Number three--what to do when you encounter an atomic bomb--is solid advice.
Just connected on this platform with an old Wikipedia/social media colleague, @infrogmation.bsky.social . In his honor, here's one of his mom's photos of #ChichenItza from 1973 that really caught my attention. This tunnel into El Castillo was dug in 1931! Incredible it was open 42 years later!
December 6, 2024 at 3:50 PM
Just connected on this platform with an old Wikipedia/social media colleague, @infrogmation.bsky.social . In his honor, here's one of his mom's photos of #ChichenItza from 1973 that really caught my attention. This tunnel into El Castillo was dug in 1931! Incredible it was open 42 years later!
<today's research>
I love these stories. Here a WWII vet in 1952 who embezzles $17K (~$200,000 today) "for a woman." Five years later he does it again at a potato firm in Central Oregon. After he gets out of prison, he returns to his hometown where he does accounting/taxes for 30 years. Small towns!
I love these stories. Here a WWII vet in 1952 who embezzles $17K (~$200,000 today) "for a woman." Five years later he does it again at a potato firm in Central Oregon. After he gets out of prison, he returns to his hometown where he does accounting/taxes for 30 years. Small towns!
December 5, 2024 at 6:10 PM
<today's research>
I love these stories. Here a WWII vet in 1952 who embezzles $17K (~$200,000 today) "for a woman." Five years later he does it again at a potato firm in Central Oregon. After he gets out of prison, he returns to his hometown where he does accounting/taxes for 30 years. Small towns!
I love these stories. Here a WWII vet in 1952 who embezzles $17K (~$200,000 today) "for a woman." Five years later he does it again at a potato firm in Central Oregon. After he gets out of prison, he returns to his hometown where he does accounting/taxes for 30 years. Small towns!
Coincidentally, Aldous Huxley visited Oregon around the same time to visit Oregon's mental hospital (the same one that Ken Kesey set "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") to talk about a completely different type of insanity--Nationalism.
November 29, 2024 at 8:14 PM
Coincidentally, Aldous Huxley visited Oregon around the same time to visit Oregon's mental hospital (the same one that Ken Kesey set "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") to talk about a completely different type of insanity--Nationalism.
<today's research> History of the insanity plea in Oregon, specifically 1961's Senate Bill 96 that the Legislature approved and would have changed the definition from not being able to distinguish right from wrong to an inability to conform to societal norms. Gov. Mark Hatfield vetoed it.
November 29, 2024 at 8:14 PM
<today's research> History of the insanity plea in Oregon, specifically 1961's Senate Bill 96 that the Legislature approved and would have changed the definition from not being able to distinguish right from wrong to an inability to conform to societal norms. Gov. Mark Hatfield vetoed it.
<today's research>
Getting ready to interview an 80-plus-year-old woman who was a witness in a murder trial held more than sixty years ago. There's a very good chance she is the last one alive who attended.
Getting ready to interview an 80-plus-year-old woman who was a witness in a murder trial held more than sixty years ago. There's a very good chance she is the last one alive who attended.
November 23, 2024 at 9:11 PM
<today's research>
Getting ready to interview an 80-plus-year-old woman who was a witness in a murder trial held more than sixty years ago. There's a very good chance she is the last one alive who attended.
Getting ready to interview an 80-plus-year-old woman who was a witness in a murder trial held more than sixty years ago. There's a very good chance she is the last one alive who attended.
Very sorry to hear of the passing of archaeologist William Ringle. This article made a strong impression when I read it early in my research on #ChichenItza. www.jstor.org/stable/26308...
November 16, 2024 at 1:35 PM
Very sorry to hear of the passing of archaeologist William Ringle. This article made a strong impression when I read it early in my research on #ChichenItza. www.jstor.org/stable/26308...
<today's research>
How many knew that in 1922 catching Yellow Fever makes you hallucinate that the ruins of Chichen Itza are in a mountainous region?
From World's Work magazine.
How many knew that in 1922 catching Yellow Fever makes you hallucinate that the ruins of Chichen Itza are in a mountainous region?
From World's Work magazine.
November 15, 2024 at 5:19 PM
<today's research>
How many knew that in 1922 catching Yellow Fever makes you hallucinate that the ruins of Chichen Itza are in a mountainous region?
From World's Work magazine.
How many knew that in 1922 catching Yellow Fever makes you hallucinate that the ruins of Chichen Itza are in a mountainous region?
From World's Work magazine.
<today's research> How did Pelton Dam, on the Deschutes River in Central Oregon, get its name? I did a lot of digging and came up with my theory, that it was named for the man who designed an early water turbine. The Oregon Geographic Names book, truly a wonderful resource, says I'm wrong.
November 14, 2024 at 11:52 PM
<today's research> How did Pelton Dam, on the Deschutes River in Central Oregon, get its name? I did a lot of digging and came up with my theory, that it was named for the man who designed an early water turbine. The Oregon Geographic Names book, truly a wonderful resource, says I'm wrong.
Today's research: The secret history of Oregon's Pelton Dam. This project went all the way to the US Supreme Court. And my dad, the district attorney in the county where the dam was proposed, played a role (including a clandestine meeting with Oregon's governor).
November 12, 2024 at 11:12 PM
Today's research: The secret history of Oregon's Pelton Dam. This project went all the way to the US Supreme Court. And my dad, the district attorney in the county where the dam was proposed, played a role (including a clandestine meeting with Oregon's governor).
Here's a story I wrote for my local newspaper in 1993 celebrating my Cape Cod hometown's most famous citizen, the FIRST president elected to non-consecutive terms, Grover Cleveland. This is a tale of a scandal that almost was.
November 8, 2024 at 6:30 PM
Here's a story I wrote for my local newspaper in 1993 celebrating my Cape Cod hometown's most famous citizen, the FIRST president elected to non-consecutive terms, Grover Cleveland. This is a tale of a scandal that almost was.
Five years ago ESPN blitzed the airways claiming American football hit the 150-year mark. Complete crap. The real Century-Plus-Fifty date is today, when Harvard played McGill in Cambridge, Mass in 1874. THAT was the first modern football game, not the Princeton-Rutgers soccer match of 1869.
May 14, 2024 at 5:22 PM
Five years ago ESPN blitzed the airways claiming American football hit the 150-year mark. Complete crap. The real Century-Plus-Fifty date is today, when Harvard played McGill in Cambridge, Mass in 1874. THAT was the first modern football game, not the Princeton-Rutgers soccer match of 1869.
Non sequitur. Yesterday I picked up a copy of 1493, to go with my previously purchased copy of 1491. Has anyone approached you to write a book dedicated to 1492 so your readers' collective bookshelves don't look like we missed a volume?
May 5, 2024 at 2:19 PM
Non sequitur. Yesterday I picked up a copy of 1493, to go with my previously purchased copy of 1491. Has anyone approached you to write a book dedicated to 1492 so your readers' collective bookshelves don't look like we missed a volume?
As most bombings are not politically motivated, it may not be an indicator of unrest. According to the Bomb Data Center, 1992-1994 averaged 3,000 bombings per year, which correlated with overall high crime stats in those years.
May 4, 2024 at 11:02 PM
As most bombings are not politically motivated, it may not be an indicator of unrest. According to the Bomb Data Center, 1992-1994 averaged 3,000 bombings per year, which correlated with overall high crime stats in those years.
#HistoryOutOfContext Baltimore American, 16 May 1892
April 19, 2024 at 2:07 PM
#HistoryOutOfContext Baltimore American, 16 May 1892
Yesterday I needed to know the name of the editor of the Harvard Graduates Magazine in 1895. All issues for that year are online, but with no masthead or even Table of Contents. Fortunately I had purchased a lot of old Harvard mags on eBay 20 years ago. Voila! But why did copiers omit those pages?
April 18, 2024 at 12:15 PM
Yesterday I needed to know the name of the editor of the Harvard Graduates Magazine in 1895. All issues for that year are online, but with no masthead or even Table of Contents. Fortunately I had purchased a lot of old Harvard mags on eBay 20 years ago. Voila! But why did copiers omit those pages?
#ENDNOTEFODDER Another example of great stuff turned up during research that has nothing to do with my biographical subject. Still, I'll try my best to stick it in an endnote.
Theodore Roosevelt: “For heaven’s sake don’t give that man [Philip B. Stewart] the impression I want to knife a grizzly!”
Theodore Roosevelt: “For heaven’s sake don’t give that man [Philip B. Stewart] the impression I want to knife a grizzly!”
April 3, 2024 at 9:53 PM
#ENDNOTEFODDER Another example of great stuff turned up during research that has nothing to do with my biographical subject. Still, I'll try my best to stick it in an endnote.
Theodore Roosevelt: “For heaven’s sake don’t give that man [Philip B. Stewart] the impression I want to knife a grizzly!”
Theodore Roosevelt: “For heaven’s sake don’t give that man [Philip B. Stewart] the impression I want to knife a grizzly!”
So sad I discovered him seven years after that when I read Howards End, a brilliant novel he wrote SIXTY years before he died.
Later I discovered his chilling novella, "A Story of a Panic"--something I thought would make a great film--was written 66 years before he died (when he was 25).
Later I discovered his chilling novella, "A Story of a Panic"--something I thought would make a great film--was written 66 years before he died (when he was 25).
March 25, 2024 at 6:47 PM
So sad I discovered him seven years after that when I read Howards End, a brilliant novel he wrote SIXTY years before he died.
Later I discovered his chilling novella, "A Story of a Panic"--something I thought would make a great film--was written 66 years before he died (when he was 25).
Later I discovered his chilling novella, "A Story of a Panic"--something I thought would make a great film--was written 66 years before he died (when he was 25).