I tend to think and live local, but am I provincial?

In the 1960s, my grade school was trying to teach us Spanish. My language aptitude was bad so I was even struggling with English. I did better in the section of the class about Latin American geography. My aptitude is better at special reasoning so I developed a fascination in South America. It could be my own world as I wasn't that interested in the world of my other classmates. I wanted to be different. Thinking local was mundane.

Photo my sister Judith took, in the 1980s, of our shared grade school, Edison School in Pullman, WA. The Palouse fields and Kamiak Butte in the background. Edison School has since been torn down.

More recently, my interests have flipped to local. It's now Washington State and Bellingham, where I live. It's still my own world as I see Bellingham from the perspective of a bicyclist while almost everyone else drives.

Sometimes I jokingly say that my friends, who know their way around Europe, still don't know how to get across Bellingham without going on I-5. I know the surface streets, alleys and trails as I have a perspective so many others don't share, bicycling.

In grade school I studied maps and read about that favorite "other" continent of South America.

Now days, my own world is local, but it's my perspective of bicycling and interests that many people don't share. I have big interests in the economic underpinnings that make this world work while others tend to follow the arts and the movies. I'm interested in technical things that other folks just pass by, like the heating systems, power systems, radio towers and so forth.

During grade school, the local state of my classmates, Washington seemed mundane compared to another state which I thought had a much greater diversity of climates; California. It could also be mine versus Washington, the home of my classmates.

I remember hearing, during my grade school days, that Washington was, "nature's wastebasket." When naure got done making other places, she tossed the leftovers into Washington. Yes, this little state, in land area compared to other western states, does have great diversity in geography. It's just not quite as much as California.

Besides looking at maps and encyclopedia articles about California, I remember a book called, "California and the West." That book fascinated me as it described such a diverse state ranging from mountain glaciers to baking deserts. The state had giant redwoods as well as giant cities.

California and the West was mostly about California, but it had small sections about other western states, including Washington, on the back pages.

Recently I did an AI search and found that it was an officially adopted California State Series elementary school textbook. That's, I guess, why it focused on California. Published in 1963 by author John W. Reith.

Since then, my interests have shifted to more local focusing, instead, on my unique perspectives of the world around me. I feel pretty grounded in my own state of Washington and the city I live in, Bellingham.

Besides just my unusual "car free" lifestyle, Washington does provide another world that's other from the world of most friends. I grew up in Pullman on the Idaho border in Eastern Washington. Since college, I've lived in Bellingham on the west side of the state. Because most Washingonians live on the west side, I can be different as I still know about the east side.

Sometimes I get the feeling that most Washingtonians only experience the east side as "fly over country."

I have friends who have traveled to Europe on their frequent flyer miles. While they travel around, I may seem more limited and provincial since I've never been on a jet plane in my life. The farthest I've been, byair, was way back in the 1980s. It was across Washington State from Seattle to Pullman. The plane had propellers. That trip took around one hour, but my favorite way of crossing the state is by bicycle. That trip takes about a week, but it's a longer lasting experience.

The farthest I've ever been, from Washington State, is Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts. I got there by bicycle during my 1991 bike trip across USA.

I'm not totally against jet travel, though it does have a high carbon footprint. I just haven't really had an occasion to get places that quickly. My lifestyle is different than most people in USA.

I've been doing some AI research about the neighborhood I grew up in.

Picture my brother Bill took during my grade school years from the end of our driveway. Streit-Perham (back then) a new dorm complex at the the east border of our neighborhood.

When Washington State College (now WSU in Pullman) rapidly expanded after WWII to accommodate the influx of G.I. Bill students, the university desperately needed to attract and house top-tier researchers and professors. The Turner-Wexler Addition was platted on the northeast edges of College Hill to create a quiet, prestigious residential enclave tailored specifically for WSU faculty families.

Now, in my own words. 3 dead end streets constituted the addition. It is a small piece of private land, wedged between what eventually became two large dormitory projects.

While I'm normally not a fan of dead end streets, the little streets in that neighborhood had no place go, by car at least. They led to the property line of big dorms.

Through traffic continued, around a bend and into the university, farther to the east.

Pedestrians could take an easy walk from that neighborhood to the campus. Dad often walked over the hill and through the dorm complex at the end of our street on his way to work.

At the south border, Regent's Hill dining complex and dorms with other university buildings beyond. My photo.

The neighborhood was originally part of a farm that was later subdivided into both university and private properties. There was an apple orchard, among other things on that farm.

A little stream ran through the farm which was covered over by placing it into a large culvert. When the university built dorms, parking lots and playfields, the land was reshaped.

It wasn't until I got to Bellingham that I made a connection in my mind. One day, while I was sweeping stairs at my custodial job, my mind made a connection between two streams in childhood memories. One was out by the university golf course and the other was through the back yards of folks on my paper route. Those are the same creek separated by the large underground culvert.

My old picture.

Willow trees, but actually the branches of one willow tree. Buried under regrading to build the culvert and the dorms. Branches pointing toward a common trunk.

This little grove is now gone as yet another new dorm has been built.

The original Wexler farmhouse is still in that area. It's life story used to interest me, during childhood. It went from being out on a farm to being in an urban setting, surrounded by other homes and large buildings.

Google Streetview image.

Today, the houses in that neighborhood, are mostly student rentals as faculty tend to live in other parts of town these days.

During my childhood, most of the houses were occupied by faculty families with some rental apartments for students in a few homes.

At one end of our street was a small house rented to a grad student. This many years later, I met someone at a discussion group here in Bellingham who lived in that small house. I met her here in Bellingham, where I now live; some 400 road miles from Pullman. Another one of those small world experiences.

Regents hill at the other end of our dead end streets. This photo I took in 2022 after most of the apple trees were gone.

Regents Hill is university property, but basically it was our neighborhood park. We had Fourth of July picnics there. It served as an ampatheater for folks watching kids set off little fire works. I remembr many neighbohood kid slumber parties, in sleeping bags, up on that hill.

The interplay of grounds and buildings of Regent's Hill. My picture.

Picture my brother Bill took in the 1960s out over the neighborhood from a balcony of Striet Perham Dorms.

The choice between dogmatic religion and atheism is bleak. Liberal, open minded religion seems more palatable.

The choice between the dictatorial god of fundamentalists and no soul or spiritual dimension of atheism is a stark and bleak world, in my opinion. I prefer liberal religious organizations that don't dictate what people believe. There can still be, at least a hope, that there is more to life than just the chemical reactions we are made out of. Beyond clear evidence, from science, what is possible and what one wants to believe is anyone's guess.

Religion can be a space for creativity and people often say, "today's science fiction can become tomorrow's science."

It's true that even scientists don't always stick, unquestioningly, to a rigid set of beliefs. Science follows evidence, but scientific ideas change as our understanding of evidence changes. Science evolves.

I think people may have evolved with survival instincts that program us to avoid death and to seek things like meaning and comfort. If these hopes are removed, our society and psychology seems to suffer. On the otherhand unquestioned beliefs in things without scientific evidence can be a problem as well.

I think liberal churches provide more of a balance between rigid fantasies and total lack of what we loosely refer to as "soul."

Churches are not necessary, but they are one source of community as well. It seems like we are evolved to seek community as well.

While I am not in a church, I often go to events held in church buildings.

I grew up in the United Church of Christ, a liberal denomination.

The summer after my freshman year in college, I went back to a discussion in the church of my childhood. It was a "talk back to the minister" event.

In the discussion, I brought up an idea that there was a difference between faith and belief.

I said most people think of faith as an unchanging belief, but I redefined faith as a less tangible connection between the universe, or something we call god, and ourselves. I thought of faith as being a transcendent reality beyond just the words of a belief.

This philosophy professor, named Dr. Bundy at Washington State University, was also in that discussion. He was very impressed with my contribution to the discussion; especially at my young age. My mom was in that discussion as well and was beaming with pride. I remember walking out of that discussion on cloud 9.

Some of those ideas, about transcendence, probably came from learning Transcendental Meditation during high school.

In Pullman, and across the nation, there was a fad in the early 1970s to learn Transcendental Meditation. Posters of the Maharishi were all over the WSU campus.

I decided to try it.

Discussions about these types of things were very welcome in the church I grew up in.

Since then, I have not kept up the twice a day practice of meditation however.

Growing up in a fairly laid back college town was a safe place to learn about the world.

A photo essay about the neighborhood I grew up in. Pullman, WA. - a small town that is pretty enlightened since it's a college town. A good and somewhat unique place to grow up. The only other place I've lived is Bellingham. In some ways, it's similar.

I grew up in a neighborhood of 3 dead end streets. They were really dead end with no culdesac. Cars would often have to back down and turn into our driveway to get pointed back down the street.

I'm usually a critic of dead end streets as with their privacy they can also bring disconnection, but our neighborhood was surrounded, on two sides, by the WSU campus which opened us up to the world.

At the top of our street was a grassy hill that actually belongs to some dorms. Past the hill are more dorms and the campus beyond. On the horizon is Bryan Hall clocktower to the right and Holland Library to the left.

I remember slumber parties on the hill, 4th of July picnics and so forth. It was like our park.

From a plaza on top of the library, one can see across to Kamiak Butte which is 10 miles north of town. A place for picnics and hikes to the ridge.

A large fieldhouse was nearby. During my childhood, it had a dirt floor. Pretty informal so kids could play in it. A good place to fly paper airplanes. It was really drafty and dusty in there.

Across town was my high school, a brand new school my senior year, class of 73. Quite progressive and bult on the trust system; so trusting that there were 5 entrances to the library which was considered a hub for learning. It was 2 floors. Downstairs was a media center.

Eventually they had to reduce the number of doors and put tags in the books to keep books in the library.

Schools, these days, have more security, for many reasons.

The new school looked out across rolling fields of wheat.

New neighborhoods pushed out into the unique ocean of rolling Palouse hills made from windblown loess soils.

I heard that this is a rare landscape.

The high school art teacher, Vic Moore, built a castle from junk parts out in the Palouse. He was real creative.

I used to often wonder the WSU campus and look out from the 12th floor of the tallest building; now called Webster Hall.

Classroom buildings had lots of educational displays.

I used to wander around the halls looking in windows of the radio and TV studios thinking I might have a career in communications. It was a pretty open environment and I met quite a few folks working and learning at KWSU Radio.

My career turned out to be more of an avocation in the online environment (another story).

Growing up in Pullman was good. I now live in Bellingham.

Imagine. What if Pullman's Ferdinand's Ice Cream Bar had stayed in Troy Hall?

During my childhood, dad was a science professor at WSU in Pullman. He taught dairy science and did a lot of research related to the chemistry of milk. His lab and office was in an old building called Troy Hall.

Recently they remodeled Troy and built an atrium on one side. Dairy science has since moved to a different part of campus. Old Troy is now part of the chemistry department.

Back in my childhood days, there was an ice cream shop in Troy called Ferdinand's Bar. It's now moved to a new location on campus. Ferdinand's is famous in Pullman memories. It serves products from the WSU creamery, including the famous Cougar Gold Cheese. I sometimes find Cougar Gold Cheese in Bellingham supermarkets.

Below is Ferdinand's new location near the food science buildings on east part of campus.

If Ferdinand's were still in Troy, the new atrium would be a nice dining location near the center of campus.

I sign off for certain periods each day and I don't need to be on call for anyone. I still log onto the internet several times a day. Just not plugged in 24/7

As for unplugging from the internet, I do use it each day. I find the internet useful.

I don't unplug for long periods of time, like a wilderness adventure, or summer camp for unplugging.

Instead I unplug by just not being connected to it 24/7. I tend to use posts and comments to things like Facebook walls rather than real time chats. My relationships with people don't require me to be there for them 24/7.

I often tell people, I am not a 24 hour radio station.

Before the term 24/7 became popular, I was fascinated in 24 hour radio stations. They were more rare in the late 1960s / early 1970s. I had an interest in the tubes warming up and staying on for days on end.

Living in a basement room in my parents house, I had a 300 watt lightbulb with no lampshade. It did have a porcelain socket for safety. It reminded me of a powerful tube. During college, I set it up in my dorm room, but didn't use it that much. One time I did have it on when a friend was visiting and he said that he felt like he was being interrogated by the KGB.

Most radio stations, back then, went off the air, sometimes with the Star Spangled Banner to resume broadcast next morning. Each morning, they would warm up the transmitter tubes again. It took some time for the tubes to stabilize and then they would flip another switch to start the broadcast day.

TV, back then would often start the day, as well as ending the day with a test pattern.

During high school, I thought I would have a career in radio. Of course I didn't know about social media before that technology change.

I used to hang out in the studios of KWSU Radio, in Pullman to watch and chat with a student host named John Briel thinking it was good to familiarize myself with the field I was planning to go into.

Some material I got while attending Communications Center dedication.

One time, I arrived at the Edward R Murrow Communications Center early in the morning. It was dedicated with that name my senior year in high school. John let me in the building and I watched as he started up the station. When he turned on the transmitter tubes, I said, "they are warming up now." His response was, "yes, everything is starting to cook."

Back then, KWSU had a studio to transmitter microwave link. The transmitter was located out by Knott Dairy Center west of Pullman. Knott Dairy Center named for Joe Knott, a colleague of my dad in the Dairy Science Department. Also a neighbor who's house was kittycorner across the back fence from ours.

The control system was a telephone dial; a rotory dial. Different number codes commanded actions out at the transmitter. Codes for turning on the tubes, codes for sending just the carrior signal as well as codes for starting the broadcast day. One time, during sunset, I saw him dial up the transmitter so I ask, "what did you just do." His answer was, "I just turned on the tower lights." Allows pilots to see the tower and avoid crashing into it.

24 hour stations, in big cities, did interest me. I picked up both KGO and KNBR, from San francisco, at night due to ionospheric skip.

Even the 24 hour stations had to shut down sometimes for transmitter maintenence. KNBR used to have a broadcast week. At 1 am early Monday morning after their Sunday evening period, they went off the air. At 4 am, they would return to the air. Sometimes I would listen to the sign on and sign off with interest. KNBR would sometimes have interesting tones, after going off the air, as they callabrated audio, I guess. Then it would turn to static as they turned off the transmitter.

KGO never seemed to go off the air. It run 24/7, week after week. I figured they had 2 transmitters. When they needed to service one, the other transmitter was switched on.

Sure enough, many years later, on the internet, I saw a picture of the inside of KGO's transmitter building. 2 identical transmitters were side by side.

It's been many years since I've traveled for Christmas, or Thanksgiving.

My two sisters still live in Pullman, WA where I grew up. In more recent years, I've visited during summer months and I've traveled by bicycle. Most recent bike trip to Pullman was summer of 2022.

The old neighborhood looks similar, but some changes as well.

I have a brother in Kentucky and another in southern Oregon. I would be welcome to visit any of my brothers and sisters. If we were to sit around a Thanksgiving, or Christmas table, our politics would be similar enough that we would get along fine on that score.

Still, when I plan to visit my sisters, they often say they would love to see me, but this would not be a good time to visit. There are often problems and other needs going on that make a visit somewhat uncomfortable and inconvenient.

During my last two trips to Pullman, rather than staying with my sisters, I did enjoy a new perspective of staying at a motel in Pullman, rather than my childhood home.

Visited my sisters during the day and also did much sighseeing on my own around town.

A new perspective looking over downtown with WSU campus in background from the Cougarland Motel.

The old high school across the street.

Memories from my freshman to Junior years in high school. My senior year in a new building in another part of town.

This old high school is now "Gladish Community and Cultural Center" named for a former principal of the school, Oscar Gladish, who was a neighbor across the back fence as I was growing up.

My most recent visits to Pullman were by bicycle in 2022 even at age 67 and then in 2023. In 2023 it was by car.

2023 was for the 50th high school reunion. I rode, by car, with a classmate who lives in the Bellingham area. We had a good visit going across the state. I didn't bike in 2023 as the reunion was in August when temperatures, in the middle of Washington State, can climb into the 100s. My 2022 trip was in June, a relatively cool and lush time in the Columbia Basin.

I still do some bike / and now transit combo tours to other areas. Pullman is still a possibility, but mid summers might not be a good idea.

I still have memories, from Christmas visits back to Pullman, during my college years in Bellingham. I grew up in Pullman where WSU is, but still did go away for college.

Taking the Greyhound Bus with transfers in Everett and then Spokane was the way to go for Christmas visits. Trying to do it in one day with snow on the mountain passes and in eastern Washington would cause delays. We usually made it, but sometimes got in real late; like next day after midnight. By bicycle, it usually takes around a week to get to Pullman, but it's a scenic trip; warmer months that is.

I live car free so maybe the most pragmatic way to get to Pullman is by air. Pullman has recently completed an airport upgrade that can accomodate jet service.

One memory, from my college Greyhound Bus days, was the lunch stop at "Martha's Inn Truck Stop." That stop was in the town of George, Washington.

Martha's Inn is only a faded memory, but the old sign is still there, faded by the years of hot sun and cold winter winds.

Image taken during my 2022 bike trip.

I did take the bus back to Bellingham, from Pullman, in 2022 as I planned. Bus and train has returned me from many a bicycle tour.

In 2022, I shipped my bike back to Bellingham using a service called Bike FLights.

It would be better if Greyhound style buses didn't require bikes to be boxed for shipment. County transit buses have bike racks, but service is very limited in Eastern Washington. From what I hear, Flix Bus might work to Spokane without the complexity of finding a bike box.

Remembering the George McGovern, Richard Nixon race in 1972.

Start of my Senior year in high school, 1972 George McGovern was pretty far to the left. He wanted to end the Vietnam War.

The Democrats did back him after a pitched nomination contest. He won the nomination and ran for president, but lost badly in the general election only carrying the state of Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

Republican Richard Nixon won all other states, but by spring of my Senior year, he was embroiled in the Watergate Scandal.

By the summer, between my freshman and sophomore years in college, Nixon became the first US president to resign from office under threat of impeachment and possible removal from office.

Things might be looking better for WSU Cougars.

Old pressbox at WSU Stadium. Photo taken 2009.

Looks like WSU and Oregon State have won control of the former PAC 12 Confrerence; now the PAC 2 Conference. The courts have backed the two remaining schools right to decide what to do with the conference.

Little did I know that there's quite a bit of money in the old conference so that can play a role in the future of both teams as conferences are reconfigured. I was thinking that the debt run up by Cougar Football would really be hard to pay off. As I see it, that debt was run up as WSU was spending a lot of facilities, coaches and so forth to try and keep up with other schools in the PAC 12 Conference.

Now, with the demise of the PAC 12, WSU still has the debt, but little did I realize, there's also money in the PAC 12. Maybe the situation isn't so dire for WSU, but I don't know how that all connects. I'm just drawing connections in my mind. I hear little talk about the money in relation to WSU's debt, but I'm putting two and two together. I'm not sure how this all plays out.

There is lots of media coverage about this situation, but I haven't heard much talk connecting the money and the debt situation.

We'll just have to see what transpires. It looks like things might not be as dire for the Cougars as I had earlier thought.

My speculations about bankruptcy for WSU football.

Walkway along fancy new center for Cougar Football near the stadium in Pullman.

I wonder who WSU athletics debt is owed too? Banks or internal university, state of Washington funds?

If to an outside bank, that could bring up the topic of potential bankruptcy. I wonder if bankruptcy could protect the rest of the university from having to fully pay off that debt?

Most officials would probably think these questions are premature. They are now focusing on the unknown future which involves probably moving to another conference now that the Pac 12 has broken apart. Also potential new sources of revenue from the constantly changing media landscape; internet media and so forth beyond ticket sales.

They are also focusing on this season with the Pac 12 still functioning. The changes in the conference start next year. I've never been a sports fan, myself and it does seem like an unnecessary burden to me.

Western Washington University, here in Bellingham, did away with it's football program during a round of state mandated cuts. Unlike at WSU, football at Western was never that large and I don't think it was ever seen as a net revenue generator. I don't think it ever payed it's own way like a business.

At WSU, I think football payed its own way till recent times when the stakes got higher and it became more expensive to to keep up with the Jones.

A few months ago, I got to thinking WSU should have gone to a less costly, "high stakes" conference before incurring that debt, but hindsight is better than foresight.

Now that situation has come to pass as it looks like WSU will find itself in a different football conference now that the big schools that are closer to big cities, like Seattle and Los Angeles, are planning to leave the Pac 12.

Could groundwork for district heating also provide ground field for a heat pump system?

Picture of a chilled water plant at WSU, Pullman.

I've got to thinking that district heating and geothermal could go together well. They both use pipes in the ground.

District heating uses the pipes to bring heat, or cooling, from a central plant; like a steam plant, to buildings where the heat is used. Geothermal uses pipes through the ground to collect heat, or cooling, from the ground for buildings.

Can't the two go together?

A district heating network provides a lot of surface area of pipes in the ground between buildings. Couldn't the same tranches, or tunnels, also provide space for the refrigerant pipes of a heat pump system?

I'm not an expert on heat pumps, such as how far the pipes can be from the heat pump compressor, but there could be satellite compressors along the system that would feed hot, or cold water into the heating district distribution pipes.

Below, picture of old cooling tower for a chilled water plant they built at WWU, in Bellingham. It was built to cool some new buildings, but later discontinued. The chiller has been removed and space looks like it's used as a shop connected to WWU steam plant.

Now there are plans to eventually convert WWU's heating system to a heatpump system.

Pictures from my 2022 bicycle trip across Washington State are on-line.

Photo album and descriptions are on Flickr. Free access. No sign in required. Click on pictures for enlargement and the longer stories that come with some of the pictures. Navigate using forward and back arrows on side of screen (at least on desktop version).

1965 or 66 view from Streit Perham dorms

Out over my paper route in the shadow of a university

View out over my childhood neighborhood in Pullman, WA. This image was taken by my older brother sometime in the mid 1960s. From a nearby dormitory. He recently shared some of his old slides.

I grew up in a college town. A compact little town of neighborhoods, sidewalks and back fences. Hardly any sprawl. There were tall buildings at the university that sprang up practically next to thousand acre ranches. One could really tell when one was "out of town."

The area shown was basically my "paper route."

Large Castile like structure in upper left is the Theta Ki Fraternity. It was on my route for a while.

One time as I went to collect the bill, it's halls were ankle deep in leaves. Leaf rakers were doing a "frat house prank."

Struggling for 2 and 1/2 years, I eventually gave up the paper route in 8th grade. Hardly made any money at it, but I wasn't a very good book keeper. I didn't keep the route book up to date and ended up delivering papers after people had dropped subscriptions and moved.

I fantasized that my little route would be the start of some big "communications enterprise" in my adult life. Little did I know said "communications empire" would be a web page.

Hardly an enterprise. It still doesn't make much money, but money isn't everything. I am not really that motivated by money.  

Abandoned WSU steam plant they were hoping to renovate. Turns out it's still in use. Left hand must have not known what the right hand was doing?

Exiting plans had started to move forward for renovating Washington State University's old heating plant. Turn it into meeting spaces, offices and eateries. A joint project between WSU and the Port of Whitman County. Some grants were applied for and approved. Some money was spent.

Turns out the plant is still in use! WSU pulled the plug on the project when they determined that the plant wasn't abandoned after all, I guess. Continued below.

WSU steam plant in the Twilight Zone.

It's strange. Somehow communication wasn't happening. My hypothesis is that somewhere in administration, they hadn't checked with the physical plant staff that runs the WSU heating system. Who knows. How could this plan have gone on for nearly 2 years before someone said, wait a minute?

It is kind of disappointing. Just following the news from my home town, I was looking forward to the renovation. Folks from one of the partners, Port of Whitman County, are disappointed also and there is some news of legal action.

An old steam plant, in Spokane, was turned into a great venue for dining, offices and so forth. I visited during a bicycle trip around 2012. Back then, it was called Steam Plant Square and Steam Plant Grill. In it's earlier incarnation it heated parts of downtown Spokane.

Steam plant renovation in Spokane as of my visit 2011.

In Pullman, there must have been kind of a communications screw up, I guess. Did people higher up in administrations forget to talk to lower down staff who are actually running the heating system? That seems to be a common screw up in big organizations. Lack of communication? Talk is often thought of as cheap, as in the phrase "talk is cheap," but talking can be very useful.

Turns out there is an interesting history that predates this situation.

Around early the 2000s, WSU was considering building a new heating plant in conjunction with a power company called Duke Energy. The new plant would generate electricity and provide steam to WSU as part of a cogeneration plant, if I remember correctly.

I thought the plan was with Avista, the local utility, but someone looked it up and remembered better than me. It was Duke Energy, I guess. Anyway.

The old plant, built in the 1920s, would have been renovated into a new WSU Art Gallery. It's in a good location on the edge of campus facing downtown Pullman.

That plan was scrapped when, apparently, it didn't pencil out.

Instead, WSU opted for a less exciting compromise. They needed to expand their steam operations so a new plant was built on the east end of campus along a road called "Grime's Way." The road named after someone, I guess. Back when I was growing up in Pullman, that road was named "Farm Way."

The new plant was built and (I think) an addition was built to the old plant. Some boilers at the east end of campus and other boilers near the old plant at the west side of campus.

The new art gallery was built in another location. It's by the WSU Art Building. They tore down and relocated the old campus police / fire station.

During my years growing up in Pullman, the WSU steam plant burned coal at least in the winter. I toured it, back then and they said it could burn coal, natural gas or oil if need be. Different boilers, burners and so forth.

Older picture of the plant taken during my college years when I was home for the summer. Coal pile seen to the right.

I also heard that they could generate, maybe 20% of the campus electricity from a steam turbine in the front room of of the plant that overlooks the notorious "Power House Hill;" a hill I felt accomplished if I could ride my bike to the top. I'd have to be in the lowest gear.

Image taken 2003 after coal operation had ended.

Coal operation was discontinued in the early 2000s when the current steam heating configuration was built. I think it's all powered by natural gas.

They must still have quite a bit of operating equipment in the old plant. Pumps, steam tunnel entrances, feed water treatment, electrical, maintenance; whatever.

I'm thinking, maybe they could do something on a smaller scale with the front room of that plant; where the steam turbine used to be. I wouldn't know, it's just a guess. Maybe some of the money already approved in the grant can still be used in cleanup or something. It isn't that much money yet. The rennovation idea would ahve cost in the millions.

Image I took around 1973, my senior year in high school. Original look before a somewhat ugly (utilitarian) addition was added.

2003 image with the yellow addition. Someone said it holds old baghouse type pollution control equipment to reduce dust from coal burning? I think that addition came in the 1980s.

One more image from west side of plant, 2003.

Meanwhile, here in Bellingham, Western Washington University has an interesting steam plant with display windows.

Down on Bellingham's waterfront there is a power plant with a fairly boring wall, but they did paint a mural on that wall more recently.

Near Bellingham's waterfront power plant was an old pulp mill, Georgia Pacific West. Most of it has been torn down and that area is slowly turning into a redevelopment district. A partnership between Port of Bellingham and the city. Some of that planning has been rocky as well. It's been a long time in coming.

They are trying to retain some artificts from the old mill for the sake of art. An old granery building has been restored, some condos are under construction, there is a jump track for bikes at least until they find something else to do with that space. It's quite popular. Also there's an outdoor beer garden and some other things.

Old digester tanks, from the pulp mill, can now be lit up in various colors.

My article on WWU steam plant in Bellingham. Published in The Betty Pages.