Cascade of History

On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel presents complete audio from a grassroots media event held at the National Archives in San Bruno, CA on Monday, August 24, 2026. CASCADE OF HISTORY has been covering this story since late June 2026, when word was leaked that the National Archives and Records Administration – or NARA – was taking steps behind the scenes and with no stakeholder cosultation to shut down National Archives locations in the Bay Area and Chicago. Opposition to the closures has been considerable, and is growing. The main speaker for the event is Representative Kevin Mullin (CA-15). Representative Mullin is j...

Feliks Banel's guests on this ENCORE PRESENTATION of a LIVE REMOTE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY from the June 26, 2025 farewell event for Seattle High School Memorial Stadium include Clay Eals and Jean Sherrard of the Seattle Times' Seattle Now & Then; Northwest sports historian and collector David Eskenazi; and music historian Eric Magnuson. The beloved 1947 stadium, deemed unworthy of landmark status by the City of Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board, has since been demolished and a shiny new stadium is being built in its place. The original structure, designed by noted architect George Stoddard, was dedicated in 1947 to the memory of 800+ Seattle...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Rachel Cushman, Secretary-Treasurer of the Chinook Indian Nation, in a conversation marking 175 years since the negotiation of treaties at Tansy Point near the mouth of the Columbia River and looking ahead to what comes next. According to their website, “The Chinook Indian Nation is made up of the five western-most Chinookan speaking tribes at the mouth of the Columbia River. Our nearly 70-year-old constitution codifies who we are and identifies our five constituent tribes – the Clatsop and Cathlamet (Kathlamet) of present-day Oregon and the Lower Chinook, Wahkiakum (Waukikum) and...

Feliks Banel's guests on this LIVE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY include Bill Yeend, longtime Seattle-area broadcaster who moved back to his native Spokane several years ago, and Spokane historian Liz Wood. In separate interviews, each describes their experiences on the periphery of wildfires that hit the Spokane area on August 1, 2026. Ms. Wood also describes a recent history project to debunk a particularly persistent Spokane history myth. We also listen to vintage audio of the late, great Spokane-born broadcaster (and radio historian) Bill Brubaker, describing the role that local radio played in Roseburg, Oregon after the August 1958 dynamite blast that...

Feliks Banel's guests on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY are Naomi Ostwald Kawamura, Executive Director of Densho and Skyla Sachiko Tomine, National Organizing Fellow of Tsuru for Solidarity. Densho and Tsuru for Solidarity have paired up to lead a grassroots effort to halt the closure of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) branch in San Bruno, California. Densho and Tsuru for Solidarity convened a webinar earlier this week with nearly 100 participants. In this conversation for CASCADE OF HISTORY, recorded on the evening of Thursday, August 6, 2026, Ms. Kawamura and Ms. Tomine describe why their respective organizations are collaborating...

On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel digs for a second time into the “This NOT Just In” archives for three installments from the occasional history series that aired from 2010 to 2016 on KUOW 94.9 FM in Seattle. The premise of “This NOT Just In” was to use archival audio to shed light on forgotten or not fully understood stories from Pacific Northwest history. In this second "This NOT Just In" Archival Revival, we hear about when President Harry Truman killed time at Mount Rainier in 1945 while waiting for the first meeting United Nations to get underway in San Francisc...

On this BONUS "LIL’ THUNDERBOAT" ENCORE EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel once again presents vintage audio from KIRO Radio from 2018 with the history of "street hydros" - those miniature plywood hydroplanes that Seattle area kids made from scratch and towed behind their bikes from the 1950s to the 1980s. Included in the story are observations and memories of street hydros from John Keister, Dave Dederer, Bill Wixey, Chip Hanauer and the late, great Pat O'Day (who also performs the play-by-play for an imaginary street hydro race). Street Hydro Story and Photo Gallery: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Jj...

On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel digs into the “This NOT Just In” archives for three installments from the occasional history series that aired from 2010 to 2016 on KUOW 94.9 FM in Seattle. The premise of “This NOT Just In” was to use archival audio to shed light on forgotten or not fully understood stories from Pacific Northwest history. In this first of what will likely be many episodes sharing “This NOT Just In” installments in the months and years ahead, we hear about when President Harding gave a speech in Seattle in July 1923 that turned out to be his final...

On the BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, we present an ENCORE of our LIVE REMOTE BROADCAST from the ruins of the Ryan House in Sumner, Washington in July 2025. Feliks Banel’s guests include Nick Biermann of Save Ryan House, Nancy Ryan Dressel (descendant of the builder of the Ryan House), Tina Patton Burnett, and other grassroots historic preservationists and lovers of local history who had been working for nearly two years to try to save one of the oldest structures in the Evergreen State. It was part vigil, part wake, part celebration of life, and an attempt to process a...

Feliks Banel's guests on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY are Gretchen Neidhardt and Hilarie Pozesky of the group Chicago Area Archivists. They are part of a grassroots effort to mobilize and halt the quietly announced closure of the Chicago branch of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). CASCADE OF HISTORY has been covering this story since an internal NARA memo was leaked in late June with details that have still not yet been shared publicly by NARA. That memo describes the closure of NARA regional archival facilities in Chicago, Illinois and San Bruno, California, and imminent removal...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Lloyd Lytle, a leader of the grassroots group that had been fighting over the past year to save the historic Masonic Home of Washington in Des Moines, Washington. On Thursday, July 23, 2026, the group announced an end to their legal battle. Lytle posted a message on social media earlier Thursday. In this interview, he shares the group's thinking and what might come next as far as a possible timeline for demolition of the Masonic Home. CASCADE OF HISTORY spoke with Lloyd Lytle on the evening of Thursday, July 23, 2026. GoFundMe...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Paula Johnson, Senior Archaeologist and Director-at-Large based in the Seattle office of WillametteCRA (CRA stands for “Cultural Resources Associates”). In this conversation, recorded on July 23, 2026, Johnson describes how the federal historic preservation regulations known as Section 106 work, and then outlines the threat facing 60 years of precedent in how the federal government treats historically significant resources. She also describes how the historic preservation community is mobilizing to push back against what amounts to a gutting of the rules - including elimination of public notice and input and tribal consultation - an...

On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel pays tribute to the late Chris Wedes, who played J.P. Patches on KIRO TV in Seattle from 1958 to 1981, and who remains one of the most beloved performers and broadcasters in the history of the Pacific Northwest. In this interview from 2010, Wedes looks back on what it meant to play J.P. for all those years, and how he continued to connect with “Patches Pals” even after his show left the air. This audio was originally produced by Feliks Banel and Casey McNerthney for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's local history podcast "Seat...

This special LIVE REMOTE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY originated from a community bluegrass jam inside the historic Mikkelsen Barn in Walla Walla County near Waitsburg, Washington. Along with a lot of live music, interview guests include HERITAGE BARN HERO Kristin Darrow, who restored the circa 1920 barn and an adjoining grain elevator with support from the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation’s Heritage Barn Grant Program, which is administered by the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation; and Touchet Valley Acoustic Music Project (TVAMP) founder Kate Hockersmith, a longtime Waitsburg resident (and musician) who began organizing community bluegrass pe...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Ken Hong, who grew up in San Mateo, California. Mr. Hong now lives in Pennsylvania, where he serves as executive director of Make Us Visible Pennsylvania, a group that, according to its website, supports a "nationwide initiative to update school curricula with accurate information about Asian American & Pacific Islander history and culture." Mr. Hong visited the National Archives in San Bruno, California - one of the two branches, along with Chicago, which was abruptly targeted for closure by the National Archives and Records Administration - with his father 25...

For this SUMMER ENCORE EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel presents a tribute to late Pacific Northwest radio DJ and pop culture renaissance man - and longtime hydro race announcer - Pat O’Day. With a vintage aircheck and two long excerpts from an oral history recorded by WSU Professor Hugh Rundell in the late 1970s, we hear directly from Pat O’Day about his early influences and his peripatetic radio career around the Evergreen State (and a corner of the Beaver State). O’Day, born Paul Berg, made his Seattle debut on radio station KAYO – and officially introduced his “Pat...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Harry Mok, assistant editor, columnist and editorial board member for the Opinion section of The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. Mr. Mok published a piece earlier this week criticizing the imminent closure of the San Francisco (San Bruno) branch of the National Archives. The closure was quietly announced on June 26, 2026 on the NARA website; NARA leadership and public affairs officials have still not responded to CASCADE OF HISTORY's multiple inquiries seeking more information. Mr. Mok's piece is called "Trump is trying to bury Bay Area window into Chinese American...

Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Grant Din of Oakland, California. Mr. Din is a member of a grassroots group called SAVE OUR NATIONAL ARCHIVES (SONA) which is mobilizing to fight the planned closure of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) facility in San Bruno, California. The closure was quietly announced on June 26, 2026 on the NARA website; NARA leadership and public affairs officials have not returned CASCADE OF HISTORY's multiple messages. CASCADE OF HISTORY spoke with Grant Din on the evening of Wednesday, July 1, 2026. Save Our National Archives (SONA) Website: https://www.saveournationalarchives...

Feliks Banel's guests on this special LIVE REMOTE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY from the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in Seattle's Pioneer Square include folksinger Al Hirsch; Charles Beall, Superintendent of Seattle Area National Park Sites; Seattle City Councilmember Rob Saka (District 1); Dan Evans, Jr.; filmmaker and documentarian B.J. Bullert and her husband Ken Workman, Chief Seattle descendant; Jon Scholes, CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association; Lisa Howard, Executive Director of the Alliance for Pioneer Square; NPS Trails & Rails volunteer Rob Carr; retired NPS Park Ranger Sean O'Meara; NPS Trails & Rails Coordinator Steve Lovell; Historic Seattle Executive...

Feliks Banel's guests on this ENCORE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY are longtime local journalist Essex Porter reflecting on his television career at KIRO 7 News (recorded not long after he retired in late 2021), and meteorologist Scott Sistek, in a conversation recorded just after the devastating June 2021 Pacific Northwest "heatdome." Both interviews are from the archives of COLUMBIA CONVERSATIONS, for which Feliks was the founding producer and host. This SUMMERTIME EDITION broadcast of CASCADE OF HISTORY was presented at 8pm Pacific Time on Sunday, June 28, 2026. Scott Sistek’s Emerald City Weather Blog: https://emeraldcityweather.com/ Links to more information as well as...