Our Sites On the World Wide Web
The evolution of communication with its twists and turns: from paintings on the walls of caves in France to the Egyptian hieroglyphs etched in stone to the invention of the printing press; to telegraph/telephone to the motion picture to video broadcasts; this evolution has now brought us global computer networks.
Messages fly around the world in a blink of the eye. With this perspective in mind, we decided to contribute our specialty: the written word about the history of the American Old West (and a few pictures and our favorite, line art) to the mass medium of the internet. Our main mission: "Linking the past with the future!"
Continuing our pursuit of information. . .
July 1995 ~ we learned that HTML was a way to make a page for the web and that it means HyperTextMark-upLanguage and the codes looked as intimidating as the name sounded. That was the month we changed from modem-to-modem Bulletin Board Services (fondly remembered as BBSs) to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). After much stumbling around, and one short four-hour course from Sam Churchill, we learned enough to launch the Historical Gazette web site in September 1995.In early 1996, the editor of the Wallowa County Chieftain, Rick Swart, had us construct his web site. That work fueled our desire to help others to "link" up with the future, we wanted to continue constructing web sites for small, weekly newspapers. It seemed to us to be the natural transition for newspapers as they were already in the "information business."
In July and August of 1996, we had the pleasure of constructing the web site for The Woman's Journal, using the NewsPaper's same design and content features as in their monthly publication which was full of great writing by award-winning columnists and beautiful original art. Topics changed each month with news that affected the lives of women and the world. Unfortunately, we stopped doing the WJ web site in September 1999 and the paper has suspended publication as of May 2000. The site was hosted by our ISP Aracnet.com in Portland, Oregon and it has now disappeared from view.
Another newspaper that we are proud to have helped make that leap is the Rogue River Press in Southern, Ore. (August 1997) We worked with publisher/editor Dave Ehrhardt almost a year through the internet and on the phone before we finally met him "in person" ~ we felt we already knew him! He found us because the Chieftain's site. Dave and his newspaper staff, just as Rick Swart did, picked up the task of doing the web site and last I looked it was still on and going strong.
Another web contact caused us to look back at the HG web site and see what wasN'T happening: updates or a new face. The 'email meeting' again brought us more opportunity... The editor and owner of the famous Comstock chronicler, the Territorial Enterprise found us through our Dan DeQuille pages. Tom Muzzio and our editor, Bridget Smith, met at Huber's Cafe in downtown Portland in October 1998. We "clicked on" the topic of history and what the TE means in American Old West history. Of course, Mark Twain worked there in his younger days along with our star [ghost] reporter, DeQuille. The story goes that Twain and DeQuille had hilarious times together and much of what was written many days in the TE was done either drunken or hung-over from the previous night's drinking.
The intertwinedness of the web continues...
The owners of A-Ball Plumbing Supply enjoy history and historic homes very much and their business reflects that interest. As was his habit in the early days of the web, Kent Frutiger was surfing the newsgroups in late 1995 and found the Historical Gazette mentioned in one of the Usenet news groups. I think I was doing a Trivia contest at the time ~ Oh, for the time for that now! ~ anyway, he emailed and asked for more information..."The rest," as it is said, "is history." The web work that I do for A-Ball Plumbing Supply is not apparent on the front page of his site. You must go in... dig around a little. I did his Ye Old Bookshop pages that reside on his PlumbNet site, but is linked to the A-Ball site, you see, it can get confusing. I did quite a few of his Featured [New] Products pages. My favorite is the Herbeau mini-site. Complex enough to be interesting and beautiful photos of products to work with.Another site we created (April 1996) was the personal project of an editor of the Historical Gazette, Keith Whittle. In 1957, while a young boy, he witnessed the flash of an atomic test in Nevada. Read his recollections and research at the web site Anno Atomi - Growing Up with the Atom. The starkness of the black and white design fits well with the material.
Another Atomic History web site Keith Whittle created is again due to his hard work and vision. [It certainly doesn't pay money!] A gentleman we met when he was lecturing about his experience as an Atomic Veteran inspired Keith to do it again. This man's story was so compelling that before we knew it, we were working on yet another web site (launched October 1996). We hope you'll take a few minutes to visit The Atomic Duty of Pvt. Bill Bires and find out what it was like to be a service member doing duty in the very beginnings of the Cold War at the Nevada Test Site. It was named cool site of the day by Hot Wired in March 1997.
Just when you think there's not another way to approach the topic of Atomic History, Keith Whittle takes on the task of creating ~ and then maintaining ~ a web site designed for recording the living history of Atomic Veterans. It's main working title has been Portland Oregon Atomic Veterans but we came to think of it as a child of the Historical Gazette, and so we named it the Atomic Veterans History Project because it is, after all, history. Indeed, it is a very important part of America's 20th Century history. Its effects are those of the Cold War. These personal history stories awakened many readers to the knowledge that the atomic light that will haunt us (society) throughout the whole 21st Century. Be inspired by the words of the atomic veterans who tell their personal history on our web site. They deserve more honor and respect than they currently receive for being a veteran who gave their all for their country during the atomic "tests" of the Cold War.
Most recently we finished working on a web site which is very much related to history... not too distant a history either... Anne Frank: A History for Today Exhibit which was at the Lloyd Center in Portland, Oregon. The web site has been consumed a lot of our time, but now that we're set loose, we're working on updating our site and stirring up some other projects to "bring history home" to you.
So, perhaps now you understand why our own, first beloved, web site has lanquished unchanged. We've just been busy, moving that old grindstone around like most everyone else in America. Eventually we had to create a separate entity and have another ISP where you can visit some of our other web sites. It is also as if this company is the 'mother' company of the Historical Gazette, it's CyBrid Citizen Communications. Visit that link if you're interested in seeing some of our off-topic sites [meaning maybe history, but maybe not]. If you like what we do and you want to have someone who has a big view of history working on your web site, please contact us by email.
When you visit a site because we've linked to theirs and you decide to communicate, please tell them you found their link at the Historical Gazette!
