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Writing the history of this Northwest icon was one of my favorite assignments. After all, who hasn't heard of Tillamook Cheese? No other cheesemaker on the West Coast of America has such a well-earned and enduring reputation.Think of cheddar cheese and Tillamook is the first word that comes to mind. In addition, for decades the Tillamook Cheese plant on the northern edge of the town of Tillamook was the most popular stop for tourists on the entire Oregon coast. The book is still selling steadily after more than a decade in print.
"Archie has captured the essence of Tillamook as well as anyone could. I've lived here all my life and reading the book brings back memories I had forgotten." -- Harold Schild, former general manager, Tillamook Cheese
Alex Haley's book, ROOTS, is the one of the most important books ever written about family history, and since its publication genealogy has emerged as a major industry, and a major hobby for millions of Americans of all colors. Satterfield's friend, the late Richard V. Sawyer, was one of the early practitioners of writing family history for people in the Seattle area, and he referred me to the Chick family on Mercer Island, who wanted a family history written. It was one of my most pleasant experiences as a writer, and I came to believe even more strongly in the basic decency of people who love their families enough to hire a professional writer to write their history.
This was the first commissioned history I took on, and remains the most outspoken because the late Bruce Kennedy, CEO at the time, instructed me to write a "warts and all" history. Earlier I wrote an illustrated history of Southeast Alaska's first airlines rather awkwardly called Alaska Bush Pilots in the Float Country, and many of the people in that book were serving on Alaska Airlines' board of directors. So I wrote one of the most unusual airline histories because it was truly "warts and all," and the old-timers in the airline liked the book as much as did the public.
"He did an outstanding job. He captured living history." -- James A. Johnson, former vice president, Alaska Airlines
 Backroads & Byways of Washington, from Countryman Press, will be published in May or June. Advance copies are being sold on some of the online bookstores, such as Amazon. This is a companion book to another in the series on Missouri, which of course I wrote (or I wouldn't mention it, right?) When the small, picturesque town of Edmonds, Washington, neared its 100th anniversary, the centennial committee decided to commission a history of the town that began as litle more than a row of sawmills and grew into an upscale village-by-the-sound. Fortunately I had been living in Edmonds for several years and the commission was offered to me first. Crescent Foods had been a fixture in Seattle for nearly a century, and owned by the same family most of those years. The Weaver family chose me as their historian after reading some of my articles in the Seattle newspapers, where I had worked several years, and also the history of Alaska Airlines I wrote on a commission. The family wanted a low-keyed history devoid of flash and flurries, and I was happy to deliver just what they wanted. As an aside, the Weaver family proved their decency when a representative of their ad agency suggested to them that they release me as soon as I completed the research in order for a member of their staff to do the actual writing. The ad executive was given a dressing down and told, among other things, that what he suggested went against everything the family stood for. I only heard this story a long time after the book was completed, and after the woman who told me had left the advertising agency.
As mentioned elsewhere, one of my writer friends was Richard V. Sawyer, who specialized in writing family histories. One day while drinking coffee and comparing notes, I told Sawyer that I was trying to reach an agreement with Chuck West, founder of Westours, for a history of his company. Sawyer said he was trying to corral Eddie Bauer into a family history. After discussing the problem for several minutes, we decided to try something unusual: I would approach Eddie Bauer and Sawyer would talk to Chuck West. This change in personnel worked. Sawyer wrote a fine book on West, and I wrote three outdoor how-to books with Eddie Bauer; this one plus Cross Country Skiing and Backpacking. Sadly, the biography of Bauer never happened, though.
I also work as an editor on occasion, as I did when the board of the Sahalee Golf and Country Club asked me to help them prepare a history of their world-class golf course and community east of Seattle. The club members wrote most of the book and I, and an associate, took over editing, further writing and the production work, including design and shepherding the book through printing and binding.
"Archie was delightful to work with. We are very pleased. Our book is unique."--Harry Wilson, Founder of Sahalee Country Club.
Backroads and Byways of Missouri Countryman Press. $16.95, 30 b&w photos, 1 map
This book, a history and guide to Missouri, is actually a rewrite of a book first published several years ago by Country Roads Press. It is a tribute to the state of my birth. One of the first reviews of the revised edition was in the Chicago Tribune, and it is reprinted below:
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Archie Satterfield is a veteran journalist who, as the title indicates, loves to meander down backroads, byways and all manner of lost highways. What he looks for on a trip are the kinds of things that are becoming increasingly rare on the American landscape—quirky towns, ma-and-pa shops and interesting men and women with a story to tell; in other words, places and people with character. And if there is a bit of fascinating history attached to it, all the better. No strip malls or high-speed interstates for Archie. If this type of travel appeals to you, and if you are, to use Satterfield's word, a "lollygagger" at heart, then you will love "Backroads & Byways." Being an old-fashioned kind of driver himself, Satterfield chooses places "that commemorate things that happened before the turn of the 20th Century." And so the endlessly curious Satterfield visits Lewis and Clark State Park, Jesse James' house in St. Joseph, the Amish country around Jamesport, Mark Twain sites in Hannibal and New Madrid, the "epicenter" of Midwestern earthquake country. Branson, the Nashville of Missouri, also is here, but a section on the lost art of front-porch sitting best captures the essence of this short but lovely book as Satterfield celebrates the fact that front porches still exist but laments that nowadays you seldom see anyone actually sitting on them. -- By June Sawyers, The Chicago Tribune
Another reviewer like the book, too:
"You could also make do for about a month using Archie Satterfield’s . . . “Backroads & Byways of Missouri: Drives, Day Trips & Weekend Excursions.” Satterfield makes Missouri a fun place to be. He takes you to the home of Mark Twain at Hannibal. He also drifts down U.S. 160, as it connects Poplar Bluff to Branson over the course of 200 miles. -- By Joe Tennis, Features Writer, Bristol (TN) Herald Courier
The Home Front: An Oral History of the War Years in America by Archie Satterfield, Authors Guild's backinprint.com $23.95. One of the best oral histories of how people lived in the US during WWII received excellent reviews when it first appeared and has been excerpted in dozens of books and is used in college courses all over North America. Nearly 200 persons were interviewed for the book, including several Japanese-Americans who were uprooted and sent to internment camps at least 100 miles inland from the West Coast to prevent sabotage, even though no German- or Italian-Americans were interned anywhere. It was a period of "using it up and doing without," and it was a period of great injustices. Just like now, and yesterday and tomorrow.
"Sometime around the end of World War II, Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond 007 spy series, first visited Jamaica and discovered that it made a wonderful alternative to England's soggy winters. On the flight back to England he told his old friend Ivar Bryce, whose house on the island he had visited, “I’ve made up my mind. I am going to live the rest of my life in Jamaica.
"Although he didn’t move there permanently, he began spending the January to March period every winter, and continued doing so until his death in 1964. By his own admission, he was enamoured of the island's "blazing sunshine, natural beauty and the most healthy life I could wish to live. --Caribbean Travel & Life
"The heart of Missouri wine-making is called the Rhineland, a touch of the Old World strung out along the last 100 miles of the Missouri River before it joins the Mississippi near St. Louis. Oak and walnut timber covers the low hills and row crops join with grapes to march across the rich bottomlands toward the river. Sturdy towns made of limestone and brick perch on the high bluffs along the southern bank of the river, most with the church steeple jutting above the treetops. Some of the oldest wineries in North America were established here. Since most were built of the inevitable stone or brick, they still stand." -- History Channel magazine
"Once you have visited the Balearic Islands, Spain's prized poss- essions in the Mediterranean, you will remember them with a touch of longing the rest of your life. You will remember the big windmills that turn so slowly while pumping water onto the red earth, and the olive trees older than sin clinging to the hillsides. You will remember the cathedral that soars high above Palma, and the deep lavender light along the northern coast. You will also remember the school girls in their blue-and-white uniforms walking down the narrow streets past elderly men sitting at sidewalk tables sipping cafe con leche and playing chess while colorful laundry flutters in the breeze from balconies high overhead." -- Mobil Motorist
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Commissioned Histories
Humor
Famous First Words
The first words spoken between famous couples
Travel
Fifteen More Trips
Fifteen more trips from my travel writing career
Ten Trips
Ten of my favorite trips as a travel writer
History/travel
After the Gold Rush.
A journey through Yukon history
Fiction
Henri and the Old American
How an old American discovers the pleasures of living in France
GROUND EFFECT
Chapter Four
Memoir
Fragments
The first of three books of my memoirs, from the Ozarks to Seattle
History
Tillamook excerpt
The Tillamook Way
The first chapter of the commissioned history
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 Ten Trips Amazon/Kindle. $10.00, are some of my favorite trips, which I took during the years I wrote travel articles. The countries covered are Antarctica, the Arctic, the Balearic Islands, Belize, Chile, France, Ireland, Jamaica, New Zealand and the former Yugoslavia.  Historical Sketches From the Northwest Corner Kindle/Amazon $10.00, is my salute to Washington State, where I lived for more than 40 years. My love of Northwest history came as a result of becoming a friend of Dr. Herman Deutsch, a history professor at Washington State University. This collection of anecdotes and events began as a book many years ago, which didn't work out, so the manuscript sat in my filing cabinet, then on my computer, for several years before I recently remembered it. At about the same time I found the drawing of Captain George Vancouver calling on a village on Vancouver Island, which was done by Bob McCausland, an artist on the Seattle P-I who illustrated many of my book reviews when we worked together, So I am using the excellent drawing as cover art for this collection of historical sketches.  Ground Effect by Archie Satterfield. iUniverse $13.95/$22.95CN. When Grant West crashes his bush plane on a lake high on the Juneau Icecap, his 15-year-old son is the only person who knows how to fly the only plane that can land and take off from the small lake. Is the boy man enough for the job?
To write this novel for juvenile readers, Satterfield used the research from his two nonfiction books about Alaska aviation, and enlisted the help of his niece who is a 747 captain and some of her friends to get the details of flying correct.
“Archie Satterfield has written an eminently readable juvenile novel in the Gentle Ben tradition - although small planes take the place of big bears.
Review by Ann Chandonnet, Juneau Empire
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“Flyers of all ages will recognize the authenticity of this story about flying in Alaska, its perils and the sometimes dangerous beauty of the mountain country.”
Review by JoAnn Roe
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"This is a story about self-reliance, growing up and making adult decisions. . . Any kid who dreams of flying will love this book."
Review by Debbie Carter, Fairbanks News-Miner
 Alaska Bush Pilots in the Float Country by Archie Satterfield. Paperback. iUniverse/Authors Guild $15.95. This history of Southeast Alaska bush pilots has been in print since 1963 and is considered a classic of Alaska aviation history. It tells the stories of the first pilots who came to Southeast Alaska in the late 1920s and early 1930s to start up airlines with the flimsy planes on big, clunky floats. This is the only history written about these pilots.  Klondike Park, iUniverse/backinprint.com. $16.95. This is a history and guide to the Klondike Gold Rush International Historical Park, which begins in Seattle, goes to Skagway, Alaska, over Chilkoot and White Passes, and down the Yukon River to Dawson City, Yukon. |
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