Community Program: “Lost Roadhouses of Seattle”

The Woodinville Heritage Society is offering a free community program on “Lost Roadhouses of Seattle” presented by local historians, Brad Holden and Peter Blecha.

Washington state prohibited alcohol in 1916, four years prior to a national ban. Prohibition resulted in a network of roadside inns, taverns and dance halls just outside Seattle’s city limits operating well into the 1950’s. Several roadhouses existed along two stretches of highway, Bothell Highway and Highway 99. Among these establishments providing illicit entertainment were the Green Mill, Jolly Roger and Parkers Bothell Highway Pavilion. Holden and Blecha will tell the story of these forbidden nightclubs.

Author, Historian, Finder of Old Things: when not out searching for local historical artifacts, Brad Holden enjoys writing about the more illicit side of Seattle’s past. He is a columnist for Seattle Magazine, is a contributing writer for HistoryLink.org (an online encyclopedia of Washington state history) and his work has also appeared in the Seattle Times. Holden has been profiled on KIRO and KOMO news, Seattle Refined, NPR, King 5 Evening! and various publications. His trilogy of books related to local Prohibition history – including his latest book, Lost Roadhouses – are available online and at bookstores everywhere. He lives in Edmonds, WA.

Peter Blecha is a Staff Historian with HistoryLink.org, the Director of the Northwest Music Archives, and an award-winning author. A member of the Pacific Northwest Historians Guild, and former longtime Senior Curator at Seattle’s EMP music museum, Blecha has been acknowledged as: “the premier expert in his chosen field of research” (Seattle Weekly, 1988); “Seattle’s best-known collector” (Scram Magazine, 2006); the “Indiana Jones of Rock ‘n’ Roll” (The Rocket, 2000); and a writer who “deserves a place in Northwest music history for his important role in preserving its history and promoting its legacy” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer).