Introduction

The Holden Village Portal Museum and associated archives have a ton of material on the history of Holden. However, that does not help someone describe how Holden came into being! In this era of the internet, the natural inclination is to look it up and read all about it on the computer. This section of the Holden Village web site is intended to fill that gap in our internet presence. Hopefully when this section of the web site is complete everyone will be able to share Holden’s history with great ease and speed.

The history has been divided into several segments. When complete, one will find a bit of prehistory describing how this beautiful “hanging valley” came into existence, some information about the Native American presence in the general area, the copper mining era and finally a summary of the Holden Village era of today.

Several individuals have helped in the assembly and presentation of this material. Credits are given in each section for this work and their major sources of data are also identified. For those who would like to know additional history, the Portal Museum at Holden Village has a considerable archive and has listings of material stored in other archives. These will eventually be digitized and available for general reference.

This section of the web site is complimented by the extensive audio archives of Holden which include several decades of recorded programs, personal stories, etc. To expedite the search of these extensive archives for strictly “historical” material, this section will include links to relevant digitized tapes

So much for the vision. Enjoy the material already developed and look for the inclusion of the “in work” sections as the next few months go by. The sections of the material are listed below for your reference along with their current status. The actual text follows after the outline below.

Larry Howard, Portal Museum Curator and Village Archivist
September, 2011

Prehistory – in work, Larry Howard

Native American Presence – in work, Tom Perry

The Mining Era – We would like to give credit to Nigel Adams, Ph.D., who researched and wrote an extensive account of the development of the Holden Mine (The Holden Mine: Discovery to Production 1896-1938) as part of his work toward a doctoral degree in history at the University of Washington. Nigel grew up in Holden and was a major force in organizing “Miner Reunions” after the mine closed. Special thanks also to former Holden residents Patty (Haddon) Tappan, who has given us permission to use content from her Web site, and Bill Phillips, who provided the photographs and text about Holden Mining History.

The Village Era – We would like to give credit to Paul Hinderlie for researching and writing this text, as well as thank Larry Howard for the compilation of photos used alongside the articles.

Good Courage : Holden Reflections

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