Bite-sized bits of history include Olympia locations

Shirley Stirling portrait

J.J. Prats was here - right here in Olympia - doing what he is known for, documenting history! Mr. Prats, a computer programmer turned history nerd, is the creator of the nonprofit Historical Marker Database (HMdb.org) that hosts 201,000 historical markers in 91 countries (most in the USA), with over 300 more added weekly, each on its own web page.

What is it really? It is, according to their byline, “bite-size bits of local, national, and global history.” It is “public history cast in metal, carved on stone, or embedded in resin.”

An Internet phenomenon

Starting with 179 markers, Prats did it for the love of history and photography and providing a resource missing on the Internet. It went live on January 1, 2006, and by the end of the year, he and a friend from Maryland had uploaded some 700 entries. People started noticing the website and contributing (a phenomenon known as crowd-sourcing), and by 2008, it passed 10,000 entries. The tech giant Google was enthralled and signed a licensing agreement to use The Historical Marker Database and its real-life markers as the basis for the database of the online augmented reality game Ingress and later Pokémon Go.

Go-go-go

“Earlier this September,” says Prats, “we published our 200,000th entry. More than 6,850 contributing correspondents and 39 editors (volunteers all) are responsible for creating and maintaining what has become a significant free resource for local history on the internet. And it's not slowing down. We're adding over 1,000 entries a month!”

Suffrage marker, “Washington Women Win the Vote”, by the Daughters of the American Colonists at the old Capitol building, across from Sylvester …

The visit

JJ Prats visited Olympia in 2016 with his wife and friends, part of a larger trip (for fun) from his then-home in Virginia. He listed two markers at Sylvester Park in downtown Olympia:  Washington Women Win the Vote and [WA State Governor] John Rankin Rogers.

Prats on the HMdb genesis

I am a computer programmer by training, but have always been promoted to management and corporate work, which I apparently did well considering my compensation, but which I never enjoyed doing. I would rather design and write computer programs myself, and would periodically quit my management job to try again, only to quickly find myself in management.

In 2004 my wife Phyllis and I found ourselves empty nesters when the last of our children went off to college. Phyllis decided to get back to sewing and teaching, her passions and got a part-time job that included weekends in a sewing store teaching beginner and advanced machine sewing and machine embroidery. That left me with weekends to myself, and I decided to do what I enjoyed: history, photography, and computer programming. On nice days I would travel the Virginia-Maryland-Delaware-West Virginia countryside with my camera. There are plenty of historic sites to choose from, and I would of course stop and photograph every historical marker I came across.

The digital photos were piling up in folders, and on gloomy weekends I would sort them from one folder to another to satisfy my compulsive-obsessive tendencies until one day I decided to create a digital album for my historical marker collection and put it online.

This was back just before social media took hold of the Internet. Blogs were king back then, and Flickr was just getting started. But none of what I found available would do what I wanted to do with my marker photos. So I decided to design and program it myself.

Early on I realized that the upload forms I was creating for the website could be easily opened up for use by others, so I went in that direction, adding moderation capabilities that I could use to edit and publish entries and, of course, the capability to reject trash and spam entries before they could be seen by others on the internet.

My hobby grew out of control, as I was spending not only my weekends, but every evening editing and approving entries. There was no time left to hit the road and find them myself, much less to improve the database. I was a manager again!

So I approached some of the contributors, those who were entering perfect entries, and offered to let them publish their own entries. Those who agreed became "contributing editors." This relieved the pressure for a while. Eventually, I talked some of the contributing editors into forming a Board of Editors and to help me edit entries. We divided the country into regions and they became "regional editors." We were an organization! We now have 6,800 correspondents and published by 39 editors, volunteers all.

Prats on server

Prats retired in 2020, but started HMdb 16 years earlier – talk about retirement planning! “I talked my employer into letting me use unused resources on their public-facing web server. I purchased a domain name for $15, set up a website, and went to work.” At one point, he funded the website personally, buying a server and, for a while, running it on top of his freezer in the basement. Then at a hosting site, and now ‘in the cloud.’ “Golfers spend more money on their hobby than I spent on mine,” he commented. “Today there is sufficient traffic so the website is self-funded from advertising.”

Suffrage marker, “Washington Women Win the Vote”, by the Daughters of the American Colonists at the old Capitol building, across from Sylvester …

Only 47^th out of 50

Washington State ranks 47^th among states represented in the HMdb, but hopefully, this article will recruit volunteers to augment the numbers. Washington State is currently represented by 890 historical markers and 37 war memorials—each individually presented on 936 illustrated, annotated, and searchable pages. So far: 24 in Thurston County and 16 in Olympia.

To join HMdb, add a marker, photo, link, or commentary, or correct an error. You may participate using your name or may do so anonymously… and claim the title, “Contributing Correspondent.”

Contact: J.J. Prats, Editor and Publisher www.hmdb.org   The regional editor covering Washington State is Syd Whittle s.whittle@hmdb.org

Shirley Stirling, of Lacey, writes about good things people in Thurston County are doing. If you’d like to nominate someone to be profiled, contact her at shirley@theJOLTnews.com or comment below.