Looking Back’s theme for 2025 featured Thurston County area photographers, artists, and their subjects. James Wickersham is remembered for his Alaskan career as an ethnographer, judge, and politician. In his earlier career he lived in Washington Territory and befriended members of the Squaxin Tribe in Mud Bay, advocating on their behalf for the legitimacy of the Indian Shaker religion. As an amateur photographer he documented images of tribal members and living conditions.
1905 political poster, courtesy of Washington State Historical Society, catalog 2007.0.377
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian 2025