(bright music) (typewriter clacking) - And upon further review, former "Mossback's Northwest" producer Stephen Hegg and I take an older episode of the series and update what we heard from viewers and what we learned after it was broadcast.

In this case, we go back to a season five episode we called "The Other Curtis Brother," about the phenomenal regional photographer, Asahel Curtis, brother of another famous photographer, Edward S. Curtis.

In it, we talked about the importance of Asahel's work to document the northwest from the 1890s to the 1940s.

Take a look.

(inspiring music) He also unapologetically recorded the exploitation of that environment, the loggers, the railroads, the heavy work of turning the wilderness into cities and ships.

And he wasn't just documenting the growing and changing region.

He was a booster, a promoter of growth and development.

His livelihood as a commercial photographer relied on it.

Yet he also advocated to save some wilderness and national parks like Mount Rainier.

Though he fought hard to limit the size of Olympic National Park so that those who made a living from the resource economy would not be negatively impacted.

So Stephen, featuring Asahel Curtis was your idea.

Why did you wanna do it?

- Many years ago, I co-produced a documentary about the Curtis Brothers.

(inspiring music) Edward, of course, became very famous for his nostalgic and romantic depictions of native tribes and people.

Asahel's lens was completely different.

Asahel photographed everything.

He photographed railroads and he photographed Mount Rainier.

He photographed manufacturing and the first mountain climbing settlers on Mount Rainier and the beauty of recreation in the northwest.

He was everywhere, and I was just fascinated by him.

What have we learned since our episode on Asahel Curtis?

- Well, the response to the episode was amazing.

Viewers let us know that they had Asahel Curtis images in their scrapbooks at home.

People were finding things like lantern slides in their garage.

And so we suggested that people contact the Washington State Historical Society because they have the largest collection of Asahel Curtis images.

And the head of collections, Margaret Weatherby, said that they were about to embark on this project of digitizing 55,000 Asahel Curtis images, which is extraordinary.

That's the entire collection.

They're working from the original glass plate and nitrate negatives, which they keep in a giant freezer because they're so fragile.

- How is that going?

- Well, I think it's going really well, but it's a slow process.

They can do about a hundred images a day.

And the negatives, as I mentioned, are kept in cold storage.

Everything needs to be handled very differently and very carefully.

- Are there any surprises?

What are they finding?

- Well we've been able to see some of the pictures emerging and it's just the tip of the tip of the iceberg of Asahel Curtis' stuff.

I think they're finding everything from news photos, promotional photos, of landscapes, pictures of all kinds of people in all walks of life.

- Can we see some?

- You bet.

Take a look.

(inspiring music) - Do you know the backstory to some of these images, like the building that's all lit up night?

- [Knute] This is the old Washington Hotel in Seattle on Denny Hill.

And of course, neither of them still exist.

One was washed away and the other torn down.

It's, the hotel is rimmed in incredible lights.

It's a night shot.

And this was part of a welcome for Teddy Roosevelt.

In 1903, he visited Seattle and the city fathers wanted the entire city lit up as a kind of welcoming beacon.

And this hotel where Teddy Roosevelt stayed was the centerpiece.

- It must have been an incredibly hard shot to take.

- Thinking about taking a photograph like that at night, it's pretty amazing.

Here's another one.

This is an image that caught my eye.

It shows a fourth grade class, in Queen Anne Hill, turn of the century, and they're all holding these handmade bird houses.

And it was like, why?

Why is he taking this picture?

Well, I dug into it and it turned out that their school principal, Adelaide Pollock, was a very serious bird person.

She was called Seattle's Bird Lady.

She wanted the students to learn how to appreciate and identify birds.

And so this was something that became like part of the curriculum.

She was a founder of the Seattle Autobahn Society.

- So what's next?

- So we're making a documentary about the Asahel Curtis Project.

You can find out more on the Washington State Historical Society website.

They're planning to make all of these images available online when they're finished, which I think is an amazing thing.

And they're talking about doing a exhibit at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma.

And I think it's gonna have a huge impact on how we see the Pacific Northwest.

- And who knows what people will find in these images?

- I think it's gonna reshape how we think about our collective past.

(inspiring music) - [Stephen] For more on this episode, listen to the Mossback Podcast.

Just search for Mossback wherever you listen.