By Greg Farrar
Rich Crispo, Newcastle councilman, stands next to a display case with Milt Swanson’s coal miner helmet and an information poster honoring the late 95-year-old Newcastle native’s contributions to preserving the city’s history. The Renton History Museum’s Newcastle retrospective exhibit is on display until Feb. 7.

The first thing visitors see upon walking into the Renton History Museum’s Newcastle exhibit is, appropriately, a tribute to a man that means so much to the city’s history.

Milt Swanson’s mining helmet emblazoned with his name along the side greets museumgoers while sitting in a clear display case.

It’s appropriate because Swanson, the Newcastle pioneer born and raised in the community, spending 90 of his 95 years living in the same company house that still stands at the edge of town near the Cougar Mountain trailhead, cared immensely about Newcastle’s history, and made it his mission to preserve it.

Swanson passed away in January, but his memory and coal-mining history are preserved in the new exhibit, featuring many of his own artifacts.

“Milt would’ve been really, really happy,” Newcastle City Councilman Rich Crispo said of the exhibit. “It really honors not only his memory, but the memory of the city. I think it’s just great.”

“Newcastle: Little Giant of the Eastside” debuted Sept. 9 and is set to run at the Renton History Museum until Feb. 7. It features pictures, maps and objects, most on loan courtesy of the Newcastle Historical Society, from Newcastle’s coal-mining past.

It’s the first time the museum has collaborated with another historical organization, collections manager Sarah Samson said.

“Mostly, what we were trying to convey is what it was like to live in Newcastle during that time period,” she said. “It was pretty much strictly a mining town, so a large part of the exhibit focuses on the mine and life in a mining town.”

There are features about the still-standing Baima House and the Newcastle Cemetery, as well as a wall-sized present-day map pinpointing several historical locations.

“People can figure out, my house is here, but this is what used to be here,” Samson said.

The artifacts range from mining tools to wine-making devices, because, as Samson noted, “there were a lot of Italians” in Newcastle. But it’s not the exhibit objects that stand out, Crispo said, it’s the history behind them.

“The artifacts themselves are not as important to me as the stories that they tell,” he said. “The best part about all of this for me, is that if somebody were to say, ‘Tell me a little bit about this picture,’ I can tell them a story. I learned so many stories from Milt that I’m able to do that with just about everything that’s in here.”

It made sense to do an exhibit about Renton’s Newcastle neighbor, because there is so much shared history among the cities, Samson said.

“The exhibit is a really good comprehensive introduction to Newcastle history,” she said. “Personally, I am a history person, but I think it’s really important to understand the history of where you’re living.”

Newcastle’s coal-mining history dates back to the mid 1800s, when the city was second only to Seattle in population.

The Newcastle mining site operated for about 100 years, until the mid-1900s. Workers extracted nearly 11 million tons of coal during that period.

Vestiges of that history remain scattered across the city in the form of landmarks such as the Baima House, a century-old company house that used to house miners and their families, and the Newcastle Cemetery, the final resting place for a number of Newcastle pioneers.

The stories and the history of the people that set the foundation to make Newcastle what it is today are now on display in a special Renton History Museum exhibit, “Newcastle: Little Giant of the Eastside.”

In it you will see the faces of the men, women and children who called Newcastle home during its coal-mining heyday; the tools that workers used to extract the coal; and a special tribute to the late Milt Swanson, the Newcastle pioneer who deservedly gets much of the credit for championing the preservation of the city’s history.

Every resident that calls Newcastle home should make an effort to see this exhibit. It should be mandatory viewing for every single person working at City Hall. Anyone that has a stake in Newcastle’s future needs to make it down to the Renton History Museum.

As the saying goes, “You have to know where you’ve been, to know where you’re going.”

We once used this space to decry the lack of attention paid to preservation of the city’s history. It is now so thrilling to see Newcastle’s story not only being shared, but also celebrated in both this exhibit and display cases of artifacts at City Hall.

The Renton History Museum spared no detail in bringing Newcastle’s history to life, but the exhibit is only temporary. At some point, the artifacts Swanson so graciously donated to the Newcastle Historical Society will need to find a permanent home.

Our hope is that one day, the city can fund its own museum to house the treasures of its past.