Seeing Moscow Through Photo Slides

By Vincent O'Connor, LCHS Intern, University of Idaho History undergraduate

I spent the last semester working in Latah County Historical Society’s photo collections. I was tasked with sorting through boxes of transparent photo slides and organizing them into relevant or irrelevant to Latah County. This has given a great insight into the interesting and bountiful history this county has to offer. I mostly dealt with photo slides that came with the carousel still intact. I could date many of the pictures between the 1960s to the 1980s. This allowed me to see what Moscow looked like during the middle 20th century. There were many pictures of the architecture downtown and of Friendship Square. However, the most interesting pictures were of a procession the occurred after Mount Saint Helens erupted.

The pictures depict a horse (or some other equine) drawn carriage with a casket on top of it. The casket had a sign on it that said, “Mount Saint Helen’s busted loose but we didn’t let her cook our goose.”. The procession was headed by what seemed to be a religious figure of some sort. A friar? A priest? A clergyman? It was hard to say. These pictures really surprised me. I did not know what to make of them. The roads seemed clear, so it had to have been months if not a year after Mt Saint Helens erupted.

What was also curious was that the procession seemed to stop at a podium as if there was a speech about to be given. The casket was also there, and it was empty. Was this symbolic for the people who lost their lives or was there no apparent reason for it?

This raised many questions such as, what is the purpose of this procession? Was it simply a commemoration of the victims of the disaster? However, the slogan on the front of the casket made this even more interesting. Was the slogan meant to be a triumph of the town of Moscow or just the people who survived not regarding location.

It was impossible to find further information on this specific procession, but it was surely one of the most interesting groups of slides I came across. It also allowed me to see store fronts that no longer exist in downtown Moscow.

In the end my time at Latah County Historical Society was very impactful on my appreciation for small town history and culture. The slides gave me a great window into the lives of 1960-80s Muscovites and scenes that unfolded downtown. I can say that this internship has helped me appreciate the value of primary sources such as these pictures and the archives that they can be found in.