CASCADE OF HISTORY is the only LIVE radio show presenting news and stories about people doing cool things with and for history in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia. We talk about people, artifacts, books, maps, photos, places, landmarks, public lands, state and national parks, trails, highways, and the historic events that can bring us all together. The show is broadcast LIVE most Sunday nights at 8pm Pacific Time on SPACE 101.1 FM (and streaming via http://www.space101fm.org ) from…
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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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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;…
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,…
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…
On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel sheds light on actions of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) which were revealed last week via a leaked internal memo, including plans for the complete closure of the National Archives facilities in Chicago, Illinois and San Francisco (San Bruno), California. The memo also indicates that changes are coming to the…
Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Richard Hiscocks, historian in the UK behind the website MORE THAN NELSON. Since he was a young boy, Mr. Hiscocks has been researching biographies of officers in the British Navy - several of whom who happen to be namesake for places and geographic features in coastal Washington, Puget Sound and British Columbia. The website's…
Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Lloyd Lytle, a leader of the grassroots group fighting to save the historic Masonic Home of Washington in Des Moines, Washington. Lytle learned on Monday, June 22, 2026 that King County Superior Court in Seattle had ruled against Lytle’s group. They had been seeking to have a demolition permit for the Masonic Home revoked and sent…
On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel has a long, candid and far-ranging conversation with Charles Payton about the 1970s Bicentennial Era origins (and politics and backroom shenanigans) of heritage, history museums and historic preservation in Seattle and King County and the field's successes and challenges over the past half century. Payton has been a fixture in the Seattle…
Feliks Banel presents on this ENCORE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY a tribute to the late “Brakeman Bill” McLain, longtime local kids’ TV show host who passed away on April 9, 2024 at age 96. Brakeman Bill was a fixture on Channel 11 KTNT/KSTW Tacoma-Seattle from 1955 to 1975. This episode features highlights from a long phone interview with Bill McLain and his wife Jean recorded July 6, 2021.…
Feliks Banel’s guests on this ENCORE EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY are a panel of expert local historians, researchers and authors who have been collaborating on a search for evidence of Peter Kirk's long-ago steel mill on Rose Hill, east of downtown Kirkland near the Costco. Matt McCauley, Kent Sullivan, Saundra Middleton (who is a descendant of Peter Kirk) and Michael Donnelly have been studying…
Feliks Banel's guests on this special LIVE REMOTE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY from the Stimson-Green Mansion 125th Birthday Block Party on First Hill in Seattle, Washington include Chris Moore and Abby Amato of the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation; members of the musical groups Spanaway Bay and The Whateverly Brothers; Darren Guyaz of DRYFT Music; and Petra Jouflas of Frye Art…
On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel speaks Erik Bauer, archivist and historian for the regional Episcopal Diocese of Olympia in Seattle, Washington who was selected by the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) to be a "fellow" in the 2026 History Leadership Institute. Bauer works as an archivist and public historian in the Pacific Northwest, and is taking…
Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Patrick J. Sullivan, board secretary of the Puget Sound Coast Artillery Museum at Fort Warden near Port Townsend, Washington. In this conversation, Mr. Sullivan shares the news about the Coast Artillery Museum's imminent closure; after 50 years, the organization's board has voted to sunset its museum facility at Fort Worden, which…
On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel speaks Linda Ziedrich, author of “First Fruits: The Lewellings and the Birth of the Pacific Coast Fruit Industry.” The book is published by Oregon State University Press in Corvallis, Oregon. Ziedrich spent several years researching the peripatetic Lewelling family and their mid-19th century migration from North Carolina, to Indiana, to…
Feliks Banel's guests on this very special ENCORE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY are singer/songwriter Jon Pontrello and retired Seattle Times journalist (and maritime lyricist) Jack Broom. Jon performs several of his original songs of the sea on this episode, including a tribute to Peter Bevis, the late Seattle artist who brought home the old streamline ferry KALAKALA from Ketchikan in 1998. Jon…
Feliks Banel's guests on this special LIVE REMOTE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY from Heritage Day in Black Diamond, Washington include Bill Kombol of the WHEN COAL WAS KING history column for the Voice of the Valley, President George Washington, Zach Pratt of Black Diamond Historical Museum, Katie Garcher of Black Diamond Mine Regional Preserve, and Sherrie Evans of the Black Diamond Historical…
Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Dr. Kate Burrows of the grassroots preservation organization in North Seattle called "Save Crown Hill Cemetery." Dr. Burrows founded the group with neighbors in December 2025. In this conversation, Dr. Burrows shares the good news - that her group's research and other work has apparently eliminated the threatened subdividing and…
Feliks Banel's guests on this very special LIVE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY - sharing stories and memories of Paul Dorpat - include Clay Eals and Jean Sherrard of Seattle Now & Then; Alan J. Stein of HistoryLink; and historian Heather Pihl. Beloved Seattle historian Paul Dorpat passed away earlier this week (on May 27, 2026) at the age of 87. This impromptu gathering of some of those closest…
Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Frederic James Grant V, descendant of Fred Grant, the Seattle author, editor, historian, politician and man-about-town who disappeared in 1894 when the IVANHOE left Seattle for California and was lost at sea. In this conversation, Frederic James Grant V shares the story of his ambitious ancestor Frederic James Grant I, and…
Re-posting this CLAMMY AND FISHY BONUS EPISODE in memory of beloved Seattle historian Paul Dorpat, October 28, 1938 to May 27, 2026. Anyone who works in history, public history or anything related to local history in the Pacific Northwest stands on the shoulders of the kind-hearted, brilliant and very funny Paul Dorpat. He was truly one of the good guys. REST IN PEACE. ORIGINAL EPISODE…
Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Ray Poletti, a Seattle man who's financing an effort - and leading a skilled team - to build a full-scale replica of the "Bubbleator." The Bubbleator was a spherical plexiglas elevator first created for the 1962 World's Fair for the World of Tomorrow exhibit in what's now Climate Pledge Arena, and which was later moved across the…
Feliks Banel's guest on this BREAKING NEWS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Lloyd Lytle, a leader of the grassroots group working to prevent demolition of the historic Masonic Home of Washington in Des Moines, Washington. Lytle joined us by phone immediately after a hearing at King County Superior Court in Seattle was adjourned, and provides an update on the day’s proceedings. Lytle’s group is…
Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Lloyd Lytle, a leader of the grassroots group working to prevent demolition of the historic Masonic Home of Washington in Des Moines, Washington. Later this week, the group will appear in King County Superior Court, seeking to have a demolition permit for the Masonic Home revoked and sent back to the City of Des Moines for further…
Feliks Banel's guests on this BONUS ENCORE EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY include Bill Yeend and Andy Ludlum, who were both working for KIRO Newsradio in Seattle in 1980 when Mount St. Helens erupted; Bill was host of the morning news and Andy was managing editor, and they share their memories and recollections in this live conversation marking the 45th anniversary of the May 18, 1980 eruption.…
Feliks Banel's guests on this LIVE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY include Heather Bosch, longtime radio broadcaster for KIRO Radio and for CBS Radio News - who joined us moments after delivering her final "CBS hourly" national newscast (CBS Radio News will go silent this coming Friday, May 22, 2026); and Jennifer Ott of HistoryLink and author David B. Williams on their new book from UW Press…
Feliks Banel's guests on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY are Lisa Renouard, Lecturer at the University of Washington Architecture Department and Associate at Olson Kundig Architects in Seattle, and the architecture students in a class Ms. Renouard is teaching Spring Quarter 2026. The students have created and are continuing to add to an exhibit called "CITY ERASED: Mapping Seattle's…
Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is David Nicandri, retired longtime director of the Washington State Historical Society, and prolific author on the era of explorers and exploration. For anyone who's ever wondered about the Missouri River and its impact on Pacific Northwest (or "Old Oregon Country") history, David Nicandri fills in the gaps, connects the dots and…
Feliks Banel's guests on this LIVE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY include Bob Antone, Snoqualmie Valley-based musician, artist and UFO/UAP scholar and Steve Edmiston, "Maury Island Incident" filmmaker on last week's government release of UFO/UAP documents; and Kevin Arnold, who recently digitized a treasure trove of audio recordings of "Northwest Barn Dance," a radio program broadcast live from…
Feliks Banel's guests on this LIVE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY include David Jepsen, author of the new novel "Unbelonging" about post-WWII Seattle; author David Norman Lewis on his new non-fiction history book "The Burning of Moses Seattle," about the death of Chief Seattle's grandson in 1905; and listener memories of Expo '86, the Vancouver, BC world's fair which kicked off 40 years ago this…
Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Barbara Swift of Gas Works Park Alliance with an update on the demolition currently underway at historic Gas Works Park in Seattle, and ongoing frustration with documents prepared by Seattle Parks and Recreation. Demolition began on Tuesday, April 28, 2026 with a ladder and cage being removed from one of the west towers just…
Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Sam Litzinger, longtime radio journalist who spent many years at the CBS Radio Network, and who happens to be an accomplished radio historian as well. Sam Litzinger grew up in Titusville, Pennsylvania and took his first job in radio at age 16 at a local station. He went on to a long career as a radio journalist, and someone who…
Feliks Banel's guest on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY is Barbara Swift of Gas Works Park Alliance with an update on plans by the City of Seattle to begin demolishing and removing portions of the historic "cracking towers" at the landmark park. This conversation was recorded on the evening of Wednesday, April 22, 2026. A visit to Gas Works Park earlier this afternoon revealed no apparent…
On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel digs into the audio archives for his interview from October 28, 2020 with Kathi Rennaker, spokesperson for Tacoma-based Brown & Haley, longtime local makers of Almond Roca and Mountain Bars. On Tuesday, April 21, 2026, the Seattle Times reported that Brown and Haley has officially merged with its “longtime import and distribution partner in…
Feliks Banel's guests on this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY are Elke Hautala and Cari Simson of Invisible Histories, a group that produces a monthly podcast and a series of history-themed performance events around Puget Sound. The pair spoke with CASCADE OF HISTORY on Monday, April 20, 2026 to share some of their origin story, as well as preview an event called “History Comes Alive at Harbor…
Feliks Banel's guests on this special LIVE REMOTE BROADCAST of CASCADE OF HISTORY from in front of the soon-to-be-fully-open Burgermaster in Issaquah, Washington include the folk duo Larkwing (featuring Andrew and Bee); Alex Jensen, CEO of Burgermaster; Corby Casler, executive director of the Downtown Issaquah Association; Paul Winterstein of Issaquah History Museums; Hannah Rudin, board member of…
