Writer Wanders Off The Beaten Path Author Chronicles Washington’s History

For the past five years, author Bill Gulick has avoided Washington’s interstates and, instead, taken its back roads.

He has woven along Puget Sound, navigated the routes of the Cascades and followed the state’s rivers for his most recent book, “A Traveler’s History of Washington: A Roadside Historical Guide.”

“I made a little rule on these roadside histories not to put in a road I haven’t driven on,” said Gulick, who has also written a guide to Oregon.

Released last month, the book is divided into six sections, one for each region of the state. Gulick tells the stories behind these regions, starting from as far back as the arrival of white settlers to the present.

Caxton Publishers of Caldwell, Idaho, published 10,000 copies of the book in paperback, which costs $17.95.

“It isn’t just a simple guide of what to eat, drink and where to stay,” said Gulick, 80. “This is mainly a book for people who travel the state and wonder: ‘What happened here?”’

Among the stories in the book, Gulick tells of a Japanese ship that was caught in the currents and helplessly drifted toward Washington as its crew died, the desperate attempts of frontiersmen to attract more single women to the area, the boom of Washington’s towns and the effects of all this on the environment and those who already occupied the land.

“I get intrigued with these characters and try to tell history through them,” Gulick said.

His research for the book involved many return visits to the state’s well-known and lesser-known attractions. He has made eight trips to Mount St. Helens for the book, but regrets never having visited the area before the mountain erupted.

“So the moral is, if there’s something you want to do, do it before it’s gone,” Gulick said.

He and his traveling companion and co-researcher wife, Jeanne, visited libraries, colleges and historical societies throughout the state, as well as the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., for information that could only be found there.

Gulick works mornings five days a week in the den of his Walla Walla home. He has also recently completed a series of three books about the Columbia River, to go to print next year, and has started a novel following two families through the generations.

Gulick said the success of his non-fiction book, “Snake River County,” surprised one New York publisher who never thought there would be much interest in the history of the area, aside from that of the few people he perceived populated this region.

“He said, ‘How many literate sheepherders, cowboys and Indians have you got out there?”’ Gulick recalled.

All 10,000 copies of the 1986 book’s first printing sold in six weeks. It is now in its fifth printing.

Gulick, who moved to Walla Walla 45 years ago, has won numerous awards, including the Levi Strauss Saddleman Award in 1983.