Come meet Author Ira Wesley Kitmacher with his latest book!

Join us here at Barnes & Noble University District (inside the University Book Store) for a spooky evening with author Ira Wesley Kitmacher.

This pre-Halloween event will help set the mood for the season. Ira is renowed for his story telling about the Pacific NW. Some of his books include Haunted Puget Sound, Pacific Northwest Legends & Lore, Spirits Along the Columbia River, and Haunted Graveyard of the Pacific.

Ira Wesley Kitmacher is a historian and the author of books on American and European history and folklore. After more than 36 years as a senior U.S. government executive, he now serves on the Thurston County Historic Commission. He is an experienced public speaker and has shared his expertise of the region through magazines, documentaries, radio, and podcasts. He has a longstanding passion for history, folklore, and the stories people tell to understand their world.

About Dark Tales of Oregon and Washington Territories

Murder, Myth, and Memory in Cascadia.

Before the states of Oregon and Washington, the Pacific Northwest already had a reputation as a place with a dark and sometimes mysterious history.

Whispers of strange noises, oddities, and sightings of the unnatural become part of the area's folklore, hoping to find meaning for the suffering of those who came before. More than two thousand ships have been lost off the coast, along with an untold number of lives, and the suffering of those on the Oregon Trail has been well recounted. The Columbia River, meandering through the heart of the territory, has been the site of countless disappearances and deaths.

From the decimation of Native tribes to racist settlement laws and anti-Chinese sentiment, the Pacific Northwest has long struggled to reconcile the present with the past.

Join author and historian Ira Wesley Kitmacher as he explores the dark history of Oregon and Washington and the stories that reverberate through time.