Rails To Paradise

BIOGRAPHIES

Russell Holter is a professional Historic Preservationist working with the State Historic Preservation Officer at the Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, in Olympia, Washington. Russell has worked for the department since April of 2002. His duties with the State include reviewing the appropriateness of retrofits, restorations and rehabilitations of historic structures. Russell is also called upon to review residential weatherization projects and also looked upon for his understanding of transportation issues.

Russell Holter is the past President of the Cascade Rail Foundation, a group of dedicated volunteers that he helped form in 1999. The Cascade Rail Foundation works in close association with Washington State Parks to create a rail heritage museum in Cle Elum, Washington. The 10-year mission of this organization is to raise private funds for the development of 12 acres of a former railyard into major tourist attraction. The Cascade Rail Foundation in working with Washington State Parks raised over $700,000 towards this goal.

Prior to his service with the State, Russell had a private consulting firm: Holter Historical Research. Through Holter Historical Research, Russell worked on surveying hundreds of historic properties affected by the Nisqually Earthquake in 2001. He also helped place several Tacoma area structures on various heritage registers. He helped draft historic narratives for Environmental Impact Statements and was the author of the historic narrative for the Capitol Campus Landscape Regeneration Plan for Washington State.

Russell worked on the Tacoma Eastern Railway as a conductor for several years. It was his experience working on this line where he gained an appreciation for the rail heritage of the Tacoma area. The more questions he had concerning the development of the Tacoma Eastern, the more he realized that the line was subject to folklore, tales, and falsehoods. Every new scrap of information found on the Tacoma Eastern Railroad served to remind him how important it was in setting the railroad story straight for his readers.

Russell can typically be found collecting rare books, attending opera, reading history, studying architecture, photography, researching obscure facts and writing. Russell has a couple historical articles published and has written several manuscripts. Of his unpublished works the likely candidates for publication are Tacoma’s Fateful Fourth: the History of the Worst Trolley Accident in America, July 4, 1900; Clams on the Roof: an essay about small-market radio high jinx in Washington State during the 1990’s; and, Rails to Paradise: the History of the Tacoma Eastern Railroad (1890-1919).

Jesse Clark McAbee is the Project Manager for the Morton Historic Train Depot Restoration Project. This $1.5 million dollar restoration of the only remaining Tacoma Eastern Railroad depot will preserve one of the most rare two-story, wood depots in the state. Built in 1910 the depot will be an operating train station with railroad exhibits and will function as the anchor point of the White Pass Scenic Byway Morton Visitor Center. Clark has a number of years of successful grant writing and business management and prior to taking the Morton Depot position with the Cowlitz River Valley Historical Society he was Executive Director of the Lewis County Historical Museum in Chehalis, Washington.

His formal education includes a B.A. in History from Washington State University (1980) and a Certificate in Museum Studies from University of Washington’s inaugural class of that program in 1998. His undergraduate study included the equivalency of minors in both Geology and Military Management. He has continued his professional training by attending numerous Washington State Department of Transportation classes including Cultural Resources Training and Local Agency Guidelines as well as attending the Pacific Northwest Field School for Historic Preservation. Clark is a veteran with 3 years of active duty and 8 years in the Naval Reserve as a Naval Intelligence Officer and held a Top Secret Clearance while serving both afloat, stateside and abroad.

Clark has done numerous presentations on the steam-logging era in Washington State at venues from Canada to California and has assisted other authors with information and research for a variety of railroad-related books and articles. His histories on such Washington State companies as Bay Logging, Raymond, the White River Lumber, Enumclaw, St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber, Kapowsin and Northern Coast Timber, Pierce county have been published in museum quarterlies, on the Internet and in the logging history journals Tall Timber Short Lines and The Columbia River & Northwest Timberbeast of Eugene Oregon. As co-founder and past president of the Pacific Coast Logging Historical & Technical Society he edited and published Tall Timber Short Lines for a number of years. Recently he taught a series of classes at Centralia College East on collections and artifact conservation.

As a volunteer he was appointed the Director of the Camp 6 Logging Museum in Pt. Defiance Park after 15 years as the Photo Archivist. He has been involved with the design and construction of several exhibits there as well as volunteering as train crewman for Santa Train, School Daze and other museum operations. He is the Volunteer Interpretive Coordinator for the Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad. Clark has done consulting on exhibits and presentations on the history and technology of Western Washington steam railroading and logging heritage for a number of local museums including the Foothills Historical Society, Seattle’s Museum of History & Industry, the White River Valley Museum, the King County Library system, the Federal Way Historical Society and the Kitsap County Historical Society. In addition Clark has interviewed nearly three-dozen retired loggers who worked during the steam era of logging and is currently writing a history of the Japanese Americans’ contribution to Washington State’s lumber industry prior to World War II. His hobbies include motorcycles, writing, photography, aviation and hiking.