At the turn of the 20th century, a boy from small town Iowa chose the stage name “Huntress” and followed his dreams, using his many artistic skills to find success. Imagine Huntress rolling on a sparkling snowball across the vaudeville stage of the Grand Theatre in Bellingham in 1905.

This episode is about exotic birds as pets…  particularly Parrots, weird parrot stories we’ve collected from BellingHISTORY.  You’ll meet a few Polly’s and a parrot thankfully named Mildred, hear the stories of beer guzzling bar birds and Whatcom County’s oldest feathered friend. 

In this episode we tell the story of Hill’s Ostrich Farm, operated by William E. Hill in 1911 in Bellingham, on Electric Avenue near Whatcom Falls Park.  We delve into the history of Ostrich Farming and how there came to be such a feather-brained idea in the first place, the fate of the farm and the Ostrich plume craze, as well as some more recent news from the world of ratite farming.  Ostrich burger anyone?  

This episode is a general basic overview of the history of this area, the background that might be useful to know while listening to our podcast and our stories based here in this town and this place on the planet. If you don’t need a quick refresher on US/Washington/PNW and the basics of how the town came to be here, feel free to skip this one!

This minisode, like all of our other episodes, is about history… only this is our history! The origin story of The Good Time Girls and this podcast. Where did we come from, what we do and who we are as business owners and guides. In this episode we give you the lowdown on what we are all about and why we decided to make this podcast. If you are already familiar with the Good Time Girls, we won’t be offended if you skip this one - but if you are new to the Good Time Girls and want some more background on us, or just can’t get enough of listening to us babble, this is for you!

Last fall when I started thinking of ideas for columns for the Betty Pages, I was excited to write interesting stories about early drag performers here in our corner of the world. However writing about these stories has taken on a weightier context as a wave of anti-drag hysteria has escalated across the country, and bills designed to restrict and prohibit drag performances work their way through state legislatures.

The Good Time Girls’ Sea Shanty Sing-a-long is back! The Bellingham Good Time Girls' will lead a rousing sing-a-long of sea shanties for a great cause—Bellingham SeaFeast! Join us at Boundary Bay Brewery on Saturday, March 11 from 5-8pm. $10 donation at the door.

In June of 1905 Beck’s Theatre in Bellingham advertised a magnificent vaudeville bill for the summer that included “The Great Richards and his $5000 diamond dress.”

We are officially winners for "best cultural event" in the entertainment category in Cascadia Daily News Readers' Choice Awards! We'd like to thank everyone in Bellingham! And Whatcom County! And Beyond! We'd like to thank Sarah and Andra for accepting the award on behalf of all of us Good Time Girls and Cascadia Daily News for the honors. We are proud to be a part of this community! Cheers!

I had previously run across Vardaman in the Bellingham Herald on a vaudeville bill from the summer of 1904, advertising “the Auburn-Haired Beauty.” Further described in the paper as “the celebrated Vardman (sic) the female impersonator… can hardly be told from a female, so clever is he.”

The marker was a small reminder that issues of gender identity are not new and that drag shows existed here in Bellingham at the turn of the previous century. The marker has been lost, and the historical record of Joseph Noel’s life is sparse. We can keep telling what we know of his story: Mr. Noel wore a dress and welcomed the guests.

Bayview Cemetery was founded in 1887 when the town of Whatcom purchased a 10-acre plot on the outskirts of town on “the wagon road to the lake.” We’ll discuss what came before, how the cemetery got started and how it’s grown over time. We’ll explore the older sections of the cemetery and visit some of the most intriguing monuments. We’ll say hello to a lot of interesting folks who were laid to eternal rest over a century ago.

The Good Time Girls are ready to roll out our 2022 tour season, bringing you all the BellingHistory tours you love and more. Our public tours will start May 13 and run through the end of October.

Fall has certainly fallen and we are here for it. We’ve launched or seasonal Gore and Lore Tours, and now we are very excited to bring you tours involving another sort of spirits… boooooo-ooze! Corny jokes aside, we are super excited to partner once again with the fabulous folks at Chuckanut Bay Distillery to bring you tours of their amazing facility.

We feel like fall is falling early this year… maybe it’s the bout of rainy weather, maybe it’s the gloom of this never-ending pandemic… but we’re getting A LOT of inquiries about GORE AND LORE TOURS. Y’all are in a DARK MOOD already…. LET’S DO IT. WE ARE STARTING OUR GORE AND LORE TOURS EARLY THIS YEAR! THESE ARE ALWAYS OUR MOST POPULAR TOURS, SO WE JUST DECIDED TO BRING IT ON! BOOKABLE NOW DATES STARTING MID-SEPTEMBER THROUGH HALLOWEEN….

Get outside with us and explore Bellingham’s past with free guided tours of Downtown and Fairhaven, hosted weekly throughout the summer by the City of Bellingham. The tours are part of the City’s efforts to highlight history and support economic recovery by bringing people into Bellingham’s historic commercial districts. We are excited to be able to help in these efforts and to make local history more accessible this summer with these brand new tours. We’ll take you back in time to explore Bellingham’s historic people, buildings, sites and landscapes…

Being purveyors of good times here in Bellingham, we’ve compiled a list of suggestions to engage all your senses this St. Valentine’s Day! Whether your joining us for our Lonely Tart’s Club Virtual Valentine’s event, or doing your own thing, read on for cocktail recipes from our own mix-mistress Sarah, our favorite take-out offerings around town, and a specially curated Valentine’s Day inspired playlist with songs of love and lament (and everything in-between).

Well 2021 is off to a rollicking start! We are doing our best to keep moving forward, onward and upward... We hope everyone is staying safe and sane during the midst of these historic times.

We appreciate everyone’s patience while we update our offerings for this new year.

We will continue to offer small private in-person tours in 2021, until it is safe to again congregate in larger groups.  We now have private tours of Bayview Cemetery available, and more new tours in the works.

We’ve reached the end of the season and we recorded a bonus episode to Answer all the Qs! We requested questions from YOU, the listeners and you sent them! Thanks for asking! In this episode you will here us to attempt to answer the following…

As we wind up 2020 and Season 2 of the City of Subdued BAD TOWN podcast, we are reflecting on all that this year has been, and boy has it been a doozy.

As you probably know, Good Time Girls Kolby, Marissa and Wren teamed up with the City of Subdued Hostesses with the mostesses Annika and Maria to bring you a season of the darkest, the most oppressive, the spookiest, and the baaaaaadest parts of Bellingham History!  If you have questions about anything you heard on the podcast, now is your chance to ask and get answers!