Walter Charles Crowley (June 20, 1947 – September 21, 2007) was an American historian and activist from

Washington state Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...

. He first entered the public sphere in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

through his involvement with the social and political movements of the 1960s, especially the

underground press The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant (governmental, religious, or institutional) group. In specific rec ...

. He later became more widely known as a local television personality and for his pioneering work as a local historian, including co-creating the website

HistoryLink.org HistoryLink is an online encyclopedia of Washington state history. The site has more than 8,100 entries and attracts 5,000 daily visitors. It has 500 biographies and more than 14,000 images. The non-profit historical organization History Ink prod ...

, which he considered to be his crowning achievement.

Life

Born in

Ferndale, Michigan Ferndale is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It forms part of the Detroit metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 19,190. Ferndale is well known in the Detroit area for its LGBT population and progr ...

, the only child of engineer and inventor Walter A. Crowley and Violet King (now Kilvinger), Walt lived in

Royal Oak, Michigan Royal Oak is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. An inner-ring suburb of Detroit, Royal Oak is about north of Detroit's city limits. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 57,236. Royal Oak is located along th ...

Flint, Michigan Flint is the largest city and seat of Genesee County, Michigan, United States. Located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit, it is a principal city within the region known as Mid Michigan. At the 2020 census, Flint had a population of 8 ...

, the

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

area and

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

until 1961, when his father was hired by

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

and moved to

. Crowley graduated from Seattle's

Nathan Hale High School Nathan Hale High School may refer to: * Nathan Hale High School (Oklahoma), United States * Nathan Hale High School (Washington), United States * Nathan Hale High School (Wisconsin), United States * Nathan Hale-Ray High School, Connecticut ...

, winning state honors as an artist, and briefly worked at Boeing as an illustrator. Entering the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

, he became active in local socialist, antiwar, and civil rights campaigns. In 1967, he joined

Paul Dorpat Paul Dorpat (born 1938) is a historian, author, and photographer, specializing in the history of Seattle and Washington state. He had a weekly column in the '' Seattle Times'' and is the principal historian of HistoryLink.org, a site devoted to ...

underground newspaper The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant (governmental, religious, or institutional) group. In specific rec ...

Helix A helix () is a shape like a corkscrew or spiral staircase. It is a type of smooth space curve with tangent lines at a constant angle to a fixed axis. Helices are important in biology, as the DNA molecule is formed as two intertwined helices, ...

'' as a cartoonist, writer, and editor. The following year he ran for the

Washington State House of Representatives The Washington House of Representatives is the lower house of the Washington State Legislature, and along with the Washington State Senate makes up the legislature of the U.S. state of Washington. It is composed of 98 Representatives from 49 dis ...

on the

Peace & Freedom Party The Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) is a left-wing political party with affiliates and former members in more than a dozen American states, including California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana and Utah, but none now have ballot status besides C ...

ticket. Crowley's service as mediator between the Seattle officials, local leaders, and the community's

street people Street people are people who live a public life on the streets of a city. Street people are frequently homeless, sometimes mentally ill, and often have a transient lifestyle. The delineation of street people is primarily determined by residential ...

led to the founding of a youth hostel and social service agency called the U District Center, which Crowley directed from 1970 to 1972. He later worked for the Seattle

Model Cities Program The Model Cities Program was an element of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty. The concept was presented by labor leader Walter Reuther to President Johnson in an off-the-record White House meeting on May 20, 1965. In ...

and then for the city itself in various planning and outreach roles. He returned to private industry in 1977 and ran unsuccessfully for the

Seattle City Council The Seattle City Council is the legislative body of the city of Seattle, Washington. The Council consists of nine members serving four-year terms, seven of which are elected by electoral districts and two of which are elected in citywide at-lar ...

. He had a variety of civic involvements afterwards, including serving as president of the venerable civic organization Allied Arts. In 1980, Crowley formed Crowley Associates, which publishes guides to Seattle and provides services for many local political campaigns. He was a columnist and commentator in many local forums, most notably having a seven-year run in a "Point-Counterpoint" format with conservative John Carlson on

KIRO Kiro was a colonial post in what is now the Central Equatoria province of South Sudan on the west side of the Bahr al Jebel or White Nile river. It was in part of the Lado enclave. In 1900 there were said to be 1,500 troops from the Congo Free ...

television. Crowley wrote several histories of local civic institutions, from the elite

Rainier Club The Rainier Club is a private club in Seattle, Washington; it has been referred to as "Seattle's preeminent private club."Priscilla LongGentlemen organize Seattle's Rainier Club on February 23, 1888 HistoryLink.org, January 27, 2001. Accessed onli ...

to the blue-collar

Blue Moon Tavern The Blue Moon is a tavern located on the west edge of the University District in Seattle, Washington, United States. It opened in April 1934, four months after the repeal of Prohibition, and has been visited by many counterculture icons over t ...

. He led the campaign to save the Blue Moon from demolition, ran the task force that drafted new laws to restore historic

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

theaters, and served on numerous other civic projects.

HistoryLink.org

In 1997, Crowley discussed preparing a Seattle/

King County King County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 2,269,675 in the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Washington, and the 13th-most populous in the United States. The county seat is Seattle, also the st ...

historical encyclopedia for the 2001 sesquicentennial of the

Denny Party The Denny Party is a group of American pioneers credited with founding Seattle, Washington. They settled at Alki Point on November 13, 1851. History A wagon party headed by Arthur A. Denny left Cherry Grove, Illinois on April 10, 1851. The par ...

. His wife Marie suggested publishing the encyclopedia on the Internet. Alongside Paul Dorpat they incorporated

History Ink HistoryLink is an online encyclopedia of Washington state history. The site has more than 8,100 entries and attracts 5,000 daily visitors. It has 500 biographies and more than 14,000 images. The non-profit historical organization History Ink prod ...

on November 10, 1997, with seed money from Priscilla "Patsy" Collins, by birth a member of Seattle's wealthy and prominent Bullitt family. The prototype of HistoryLink.org debuted on May 1, 1998, and attracted additional funding for a formal launch in 1999. In 2003 HistoryLink.org expanded its content to cover

history. Meanwhile, History Ink continues, focusing on the production of history books. Crowley and HistoryLink.org have won many awards, including *The

Pacific Northwest Historians Guild The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

's 2007 History Award * The Washington State Historic Preservation Office's award for media in 2001 * The Association of King County Historical Organizations ** Award for best long-term project (2000) ** Award for best book (2005) (Alan Stein's history of the

Fairmont Olympic Hotel The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, originally The Olympic Hotel, is a historic hotel in downtown Seattle, Washington. It was built on the original site of the University of Washington's first campus. The hotel opened in 1924, and in 1979, it was added ...

)

Personal life

Walt Crowley married graphic designer and business associate Marie McCaffrey in 1982. In 2005, Crowley was diagnosed with

laryngeal cancer Laryngeal cancers are mostly squamous-cell carcinomas, reflecting their origin from the epithelium of the larynx. Cancer can develop in any part of the larynx. The prognosis is affected by the location of the tumour. For the purposes of staging, ...

and fought it with characteristic stubbornness; the night before his

larynx The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of larynx into pharynx known as the laryngeal inlet is about ...

was removed, he held a "Famous Last (Natural) Words" party. He died at

Virginia Mason Hospital Virginia Mason Hospital is a 336-bed teaching hospital in Seattle, Washington, part of the Virginia Mason Medical Center. The hospital is accredited by the Joint Commission and the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF). F ...

in Seattle on September 21, 2007, at the age of 60, after suffering a stroke following an operation for the cancer.

Bibliography

* ''Helix Drawings 1967-1970'' (Seattle: Medium Rare, 1977) * ''The Compleat Browser's Guide to Pioneer Square'' (Seattle: Pioneer Square Association, 1981) * ''The Continental Family'' (Seattle: Continental Mortgage and Savings Bank, 1997) * ''Forever Blue Moon: The Story of Seattle's Most (In)Famous Tavern'' (Seattle: Blue Moon Tavern, 1992) * ''Group Health Timeline'' (Seattle: HistoryLink for Group Health Cooperative, 1997) * ''Historic Photos of Seattle'' (Paducah, Kentucky: Turner Publishing, 2006) * ''The National Trust Guide: Seattle'' (New York: National Trust for Historic Preservation/John Wiley & Sons, 1998) * ''The Rainier Club, 1888–1988'' (Seattle: Rainier Club, 1988) * ''Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle'' (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995) * ''Routes: An Interpretative History of Public Transportation in Metropolitan Seattle'' (Seattle: Metro Transit, 1993) * ''The Seattle Aquarium's Guide to Life in the Sea'' (Seattle: City of Seattle, 1981) * ''Seattle & King County Timeline'' (Seattle: History Ink/University of Washington Press, 2001 & 2002) * ''Seattle University: A Century of Jesuit Education'' (Seattle: Seattle University, 1991) * ''The Woodland Park Zoo Guide'' (Seattle: Woodland Park Zoological Society, 1995) * ''To Serve the Greatest Number: A History of Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound'' (Seattle: University of Washington Press/Group Health Cooperative, 1996) * ''William J. Sullivan, S. J.: Twenty Years'' (Seattle: Seattle University, 1996)

Collaborations

* With Heather MacIntosh: ''The Story of Union Station in Seattle'' (Seattle: Sound Transit/History Ink, 1999) * With Kit Oldham: ''Moving Washington: A Timeline of the Washington State Department of Transportation, 1905-2004'' (Seattle: HistoryLink/University of Washington Press, 2005) * With Robert Courland: ''The Fairmont: The First Century of a San Francisco Landmark'' (HistoryLink for Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, 2006)

References

External links

HistoryLink.org

Cancer Claims Radio Host's Voice

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

, February 6, 2007, Crowley interviewed just before his larynx was removed.
Crowley interview
KUOW, July 29, 2005 {{DEFAULTSORT:Crowley, Walt 1947 births 2007 deaths People from Ferndale, Michigan History of Washington (state) 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers Peace and Freedom Party politicians Washington (state) politicians Writers from Seattle Historians from Washington (state) American male non-fiction writers Historians from Michigan