If you have been following the podcast collaboration we’ve been doing with the ladies of The City of Subdued Podcast, this post is in reference to season 2 (BAD TOWN), episode 11 where we continue our discussion from episode 10 and introduce the story of the MAPLE FALLS MURDER FARM! We discuss the creepy murderer who took the blame for the death of Frederick Dames (episode 10) … and while he was perhaps Whatcom County’s first serial killer… did he really butcher the butcher? You be the judge!

In this week’s episode, we get into one of our favorite Bellingham true-crime stories, an unsolved mystery and murder of a local butcher. The victim was Frederick Dames, a civil war veteran who opened a meat market on Elk Street (now State Street) where he was found brutally murdered in 1905… Content warning for extremely gruesome descriptions of this particularly heinous murder.

This year the Good Time Girls’ annual celebration of holiday themed Belling-history and seasonal fun is going virtual!

Once again, If you didn’t already know - the Good Time Girls have teamed up with the ladies of The City of Subdued Podcast to bring you the darkest, the most oppressive, the spookiest, and the baddest parts of Bellingham History! This week’s episode is particularly dark and oppressive. We discuss the history of the Ku Klux Klan, aka the KKK, here in Bellingham, Whatcom County and the PNW.

This week in episode 8 we get into prohibition era Bad-Town, complete with rum running, bootlegging and speak-easies (aka Blind Pigs). AND a story straight from the LaBree family vaults. …I discovered the story of the D’Aprile brothers when searching the Bellingham Herald archives and found my great-grandfather was a “runner” who helped to supply the brothers with booze to sell in their “blind pig,” and did some time in the Whatcom County Jail….

In this week’s episode, we discuss a 1922 court case involving Bellingham’s “baddest” lady barber, Lorena Upper, accused of violating the “red light statute.”

If you didn’t already know - the Good Time Girls have teamed up with the ladies of The City of Subdued Podcast to bring you the darkest, the most oppressive, the spookiest, and the baaaaaadest parts of Bellingham History! In this week’s episode we feature stories of the less-often-arrested sex. We tell stories about women who ran afoul of the law, as well as the women charged with policing them!

THIS EPISODE’S STORY is about a murder that occurred on Forest Street, near the Majestic Hall in Bellingham, Washington. It is a rather sordid tale that involves a whole cast of seriously damaged folks. It’s about a man who shot his wife and his son-in-law,--- who was also his wife’s lover---. It’s about fancy-talking lawyers with pink toupees --and-- a particularly savage and patriarchal biblical law (even for the 1890's) filed under the Laws of Moses. And lastly, it’s about the flaws in our justice system then and NOW.

As autumn brings spider webs and spooky things, here is a seasonal tale from the Good Time Girls’ “Gore and Lore” crypt… That summer things really started “heating up” around Fairhaven as the town was swept by a series of fires, believed to be of “incendiary origin.”  

Do you love old maps and geography? We do! We love this page and project, if you are interested in how the geography of our shorelines of Bellingham, Washington have changed over time, check this great website out!

Late one night in 1902 two graduates from the state prison decide to rob a few of the boys at Butch’s Place Saloon. The clientele and bullets flew like promises at election time. Two men were wounded, one man killed, and two sent up the river for a stretch of 12 to 20 years.” And in all caps, a quote from Bad Bud Cox: “I’M GLAD THE WITNESSES ARE ALL YOUNG SO THAT THEY WILL LIVE UNTIL I GET OUT OF THE PEN AND CAN KILL THEM!”

Our second episode is now live! The Good Time Girls have teamed up with the ladies of The City of Subdued Podcast to bring you the darkest, the most oppressive, the spookiest, and the baaaaaadest parts of Bellingham History! This episode is on its surface about “local lore” that is creepy and bad indeed, but in the worst way. Because the reality behind it is undeniably dark and shameful.

We have been busy recording a lot of “bad” Belling-history as guest hosts on the City of Subdued ___ Podcast! As many of you may know, the Good Time Girls have a lot of stories about bad people doing bad things… (with “bad” being a rather subjective term at times). This is hardly surprising, given the fact that our main tours are called the “Sin and Gin” tours, which are all about how the town was largely funded by booze and brothels… and then our very popular spooky “Gore and Lore” Tours cover creepy history – ghost stories, murders and true crime. If something “bad” happened in Bellingham, we have probably researched it. And we’re here to tell you ALLLLLL about it!

We are offering some fun virtual events in conjunction with Bellingham Parks and Recreation for your autumnal enjoyment! A great option at half-price our normal tours and you don’t have to leave your couch! Some fun seasonal content including Bayview Cemetery history, spooky historical tales live from Woodstock Farms, and those mysterious Fairhaven Markers!

WE stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Movement.

We recognize that we are part of a society where the lives of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color continue to be oppressed by structural racism, lack of opportunity, health disparities, and direct violence by the police and others.

We protest the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and the many other unarmed Black people by the police. We would like to express our solidarity with protesters standing up to structural and physical acts of violence across the United States. Police violence falls within a larger pattern of racism and imperialism that has a long history. We believe that history matters.

We believe that Black Lives Matter.

#Onthisday in #Bellinghistory, November 13, 1913, the Herald reported on a scandalous affair involving the arrest of a pair of traveling clairvoyants on charges of “lewd living.” 

This story ties in with one of our favorite topics – Spiritualism!  If you’ve been on one of our “Gore and Lore” tours you may have heard us talk about the Spiritualist Congregations of Bellingham.

Although the idea of communicating with the dead has likely been around since the dawn of time, “Spiritualism” is said to be a “purely American invention.”  Like Jazz!

Ella Rhoads Higginson’s recollection of her arrival on the shores of Bellingham Bay on a dark night in October of 1888 and the “horrors” she encountered, is the perfect seasonal read for BellingHistory nerds. The story was written some 20 years after the fact and originally published in the American Reveille June 14, 1908. It was later reprinted in Edith Beebe Carhart’s 1926 compilation “A History of Bellingham, Washington” and in Lela Jackson Edson’s 1951 “The Fourth Corner.”

This post was inspired by a 1908 news blurb about a new building on Railroad Avenue to be occupied by Curt Pless’ Feed and Seed business, and Pless’ mysterious disappearance soon after. #Onthisday in #Bellinghistory October 3, 1908 the Herald reported on the “New Headquarters for the Pless Hay & Grain Company,” on the corner of Railroad and Magnolia, better known in recent years as the home of Avalon Records and Clark’s Feed and Seed, recently gutted by fire.  “One of the most up-to-date buildings of the year erected for housing a feed and grain business is the above warehouse, built at the corner of Railroad Avenue and Magnolia Street and leased for a long period by Curt Pless & Co.”  

It’s that time of year again, time for Bellingham’s Annual SeaFeast Festival, celebrating Bellingham’s maritime bounty and heritage. A few years ago we joined forced with our beloved Sea Shanty Singalong to start a new SeaFeast tradition!This year we will be singing salty songs in the Mountain Room at Boundary Bay, following the Fisher Poets on Bellingham Bay on Saturday, September 21st.

One of our favorite “historic markers” along Harris Avenue in Fairhaven is the one that reads “Cleopatra’s Barge, Lions and Camels Paraded Here 1891”   near the west end of the Padden Creek Lagoon…