Print Culture in an Early Pacific Northwestern Town

The above advertisement, from the April 9, 1864, edition of the Washington Statesman, provides an interesting glimpse of print culture in the city of Walla Walla when it was a supply center for miners. When vigilantes weren’t busy stringing up horse thieves, they (and perhaps the thieves who were not strung up) could visit their local bookstore and choose from a variety of books and periodicals. They (and others) could also pick up stationery supplies, tissue and sand paper, playing cards, violin strings, pocket knives, “and in fact everything usually found in a Book Store.”

Below is an image of the store, from a map published in 1866.