Walt Crowley: Seattle city historian dies at 60
A voice, pen and institutional memory of the city has gone silent. Walt Crowley, chronicler of Seattle's people, places and things, died Friday night after a stroke. He was 60.
In four decades spanning student revolution and the information revolution, Mr. Crowley went from campus radical to the city's most prominent citizen historian, co-founding and running HistoryLink.org, an online encyclopedia of Washington state history.
"It's only Walt and his efforts that have constantly forced us to pause and think about what we've been and where we're going," said Hubert Locke, professor and dean emeritus of the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington. "We really wouldn't have had HistoryLink as a public gift, a public good, apart from Walt's effort."
More than passive observer, Mr. Crowley drew from the past to serve as oracle for the future. As he wrote in a 2000 Seattle Times editorial: "Our faith in reason and progress -- our belief that tomorrow is not merely yesterday dressed up in modern costume -- demands that we recognize the full humanity, good and bad, of those who came before us and that we tread carefully in blazing the trails leading to the future our own children will inherit."...
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In four decades spanning student revolution and the information revolution, Mr. Crowley went from campus radical to the city's most prominent citizen historian, co-founding and running HistoryLink.org, an online encyclopedia of Washington state history.
"It's only Walt and his efforts that have constantly forced us to pause and think about what we've been and where we're going," said Hubert Locke, professor and dean emeritus of the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington. "We really wouldn't have had HistoryLink as a public gift, a public good, apart from Walt's effort."
More than passive observer, Mr. Crowley drew from the past to serve as oracle for the future. As he wrote in a 2000 Seattle Times editorial: "Our faith in reason and progress -- our belief that tomorrow is not merely yesterday dressed up in modern costume -- demands that we recognize the full humanity, good and bad, of those who came before us and that we tread carefully in blazing the trails leading to the future our own children will inherit."...