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Murray Morgan is best remembered around Seattle as the author of 鈥�,鈥� the lively history of the city鈥檚 early decades that was first published back in the 1950s.

But Morgan wrote plenty of other books, including a handful of additional titles about local history. New editions of some of Morgan鈥檚 most popular titles have just been released, including 鈥淧uget鈥檚 Sound,鈥� his 1979 history of Tacoma and South Puget Sound.

Michael Sullivan was tapped by to write a new introduction to “Puget鈥檚 Sound.” Sullivan is a historian and consultant based in Tacoma, who earlier in 2018 shared with 成人X站 Radio the mystery of a collection of vintage images created by an unknown photographer a century ago.

Morgan was born in 1916 and grew up in Tacoma. Sullivan came to know him pretty well; they worked together on projects, and Morgan would visit the history class that Sullivan taught for UW Tacoma in the 1990s.

Morgan’s writing

Michael Sullivan says that before Murray Morgan became a great regional historian and author, Murray was already being chased by world history.

鈥淗istory follows him around,鈥� Sullivan said. 鈥淗e and his father went to the Olympics and were in the audience with Adolf Hitler when the 鈥溾�� won the Olympic Gold Medal. He and [his wife] Rosa went back to Germany and were on the Rhine River when the Germans invaded Poland, and they had this scary escape as young Americans from Budapest. Then, he came back [to the United States] and was doing his Masters Degree at Columbia, and ended up getting a night job at CBS and ran into Edward R. Murrow.鈥�

Along with 鈥淪kid Road鈥� and 鈥淧uget鈥檚 Sound,鈥� there have been plenty of books written about Northwest history over the past 100 plus years. But Sullivan says there鈥檚 something about Morgan鈥檚 writing that continues to set his books apart from most of the others.

鈥淥ne of the things that makes Murray’s style of history or his voice seem so contemporary today, is he almost has a cinematic way of looking at the events of the past,鈥� Sullivan said. 鈥淗e had just a natural sense of fascination with human nature and ethics and the behaviors of people from another time, and had a gift for being able to translate that into modern terms.鈥�

As far as that 鈥渃inematic way鈥� goes, Sullivan shared an anecdote about the days back in the 1990s when Morgan would come and speak to Sullivan鈥檚 students at UW Tacoma. Sullivan says that the class was held in the Perkins Building in Tacoma, which overlooked the site of a notorious clash between laborers and the National Guard in Tacoma back in the 1930s.

Sullivan says that when Morgan told the story, the students were transfixed.

鈥淢urray just went right down through the building telling layers of stories like you were riding in a historical elevator,鈥� Sullivan said. 鈥淎nd by the time we got down to the ground floor, he started describing the labor struggles that day and the workers coming over the bridge, and the National Guardsmen and all that stuff, with bayonets fixed, confronting [the laborers] right in the middle of the street between the federal building and the newspaper offices.鈥�

And then, says Sullivan, came the surprise ending.

鈥淗e ended the story by going, 鈥榊eah, I remember my eyes still stinging from that [teargas],鈥欌�� Sullivan said. 鈥淸So] when he got to the end of the story, you realized he had been standing there up the hill as a young kid. He would鈥檝e been 18 or so, and had actually witnessed it himself, so it was quite an amazing thing.鈥�

鈥淭alk about bringing history right into the room,鈥� Sullivan said. 鈥淗e had that gift.鈥�

Out from Seattle’s shadow

Nearly 20 years after Morgan passed away at age 84, Sullivan believes that the Tacoma-born and UW-educated historian and author鈥檚 influence goes far beyond college students or even local history enthusiasts. In fact, Sullivan says, he sees it where he lives and works.

鈥淚 look at Tacoma and the way that, [through] historic preservation . . . the city has its character and the buildings,鈥� Sullivan said. 鈥淭he urban design of the city seems to have a certain ingrained respect for history that, I think, [in] Portland, Seattle [and] other cities . . . it’s being lost in the shuffle a little bit. And I think, in part, [it鈥檚] because of Murray and that sense of history that鈥檚 so widely understood in Tacoma.鈥�

鈥淚 mean, everybody鈥檚 read Murray鈥檚 books,鈥� Sullivan said. 鈥淸He鈥檚] influencing the character and the shape and the appearance and the culture of Tacoma, even today.鈥�