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Arts & Entertainment

Smithsonian Exhibition "Journey Stories" Opens Thursday At Renton History Museum

Two exhibits highlight the inspiring journey stories of American ancestors and the settlers of Renton open this week.

Two unique and exciting new exhibits are set to open Thursday, September 8 at and give the museum a rare opportunity to showcase a travelling exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution.

 “Journey Stories” from The Smithsonian highlights United States ancestors and their arrival in this country in their desire to move to a new and better world. “Everyone has a story to tell” is the exhibit mantra.  

The exhibit traces the stories of people that came from the Dakotas, The Middle West, or even across oceans, as they encountered rough terrain, established the railroad and highway systems, often with little or nothing as they started their journey.

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The exhibits allows attendees to wind through the exhibit and learn more about the pilgrims, the slaves, and Native Americans. "We were here first," is inscribed on a panel about the Native Americans.

“We came to serve God, and also get rich,” one placard states from Bernal Diaz del Castillo (c. mid 1500’s).

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Attendees will be inspired to learn the story of someone like Lear Green who had herself shipped in a crate from Baltimore to Philadelphia. Or, the stories of Harriet Tubman and Levi Coffin and the Underground Railroad.

School-age children might not know the underground railroad was not a railroad at all — but a series of nighttime walking routes.

The exhibit highlights audio stories — a first for the museum — of Pioneer memories as early inhabitants of the country moved along the Erie Canal, the Great Lakes, and the Sante Fe Trail, eager to arrive on their journeys before fall and winter arrived.

“Mile after mile of the road was level as a floor and deep with dust,” a placard quoting Emma Shepard Hill (c. 1840) reads, with the horrifying example of dead oxen and mules left to decay on the roadsides as they passed by.

The museum’s companion exhibit, “Boom Town,” highlights Renton during World War II in an unprecedented time in its history when it boomeranged in population from 4,488 in 1941 to over 16,000 citizens after the war.

“You can really follow the trends in moving from rivers to railroads to roads,” said Liz Stewart, museum director. A particular favorite part of the exhibit for Stewart is the section on using the rivers as transportation — a precursor to roads and railroads.

"The exhibit is rich in beautiful photographs and research," Stewart said.

The citizens who came searching for jobs at The Boeing Company and found themselves in new territory as they built the planes needed for the war effort.

Renton resident, Pearl Espetveit Jacobson, was a young girl who moved with her parents from North Dakota while her father was on a quest for a job and tells the story in the exhibit of living in a motel until they could prove her father had a defense job.

Jacobson found herself in the scary new world of , during a time when students attended schools in shifts. The High School and .

Renton Patch published a series of articles on distinguished alumni in honor of the school's golden milestone, including ,  and . 

Jacobson recently took the time to record her oral history for the museum. "It was a lot of fun re-living what had happened in those times," she said.

"It was a scary time for me as an 8th grader, moving from a one-room school house to Renton High School," Jacobson said. She and her husband, in Renton.

“The Boomtown exhibit truly highlight Renton’s history of transportation, in addition to the thousands of defense workers who established this town," Stewart said.

The exhibit features the people who came with a car full of children with little in their pockets or bellies, who sought a better future with the promise of jobs in the west.

Most never left — and as the exhibit points out, “It was a one way trip.”  They established schools, and churches and raised their families in Renton.

Herb Postlewait, now 71 and living in Spokane, shared proudly his experiences growing up in Renton when his shipyard-working father moved the family here from Montana in 1942.

A Postlewait family photo, circa 1952, is featured in the exhibit. "We grew up in the era when houses didn't have street addresses and the streets in the Renton Highlands were alphabetical," Postlewait shared in a phone conversation.

"The houses on the west side were designated as permanent housing, the houses on the east as temporary," he said. His family started in permanent housing, but then moved to temporary housing, where the luxuries of electric ranges and heaters and concrete foundations were no longer available.

"My dad wouldn't buy the house for $6,000 when the Renton Housing Authority took the houses over. He thought it was too expensive, so we moved," he said.

The Boomtown exhibit ends with a light note examining vacation practices with photos and artifacts from travellers across America.

The exhibition has been made possible by funding from Main Street U.S.A., Humanities Washington, and . It runs from September 6 through October 15, and is free of charge.

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