The North Olympic History Center’s next session of History Tales features an informative afternoon with three individuals involved in the book “Strait Press: A History of News Media on the North Olympic Peninsula.”

The event is set for 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 1, at First United Methodist Church, 110 E. Seventh St., Port Angeles.

Featured speakers include: author Bill Lindstrom; Brown Maloney, long-time Peninsula media owner who commissioned Lindstrom to write the book, and John Brewer, president of the History Center and retired publisher of the Peninsula Daily News.

Following introductory comments from Maloney, Lindstrom and Brewer will join in for a question-and-answer period on the book that launched Jan. 4, 2019.

Copies of the book will be available for sale and a book-signing will held at the event.

Lindstrom’s “Strait Press” encompasses nearly 100 media sources on the North Olympic Peninsula, including 82 newspapers dating back to 1860.

Family ownership plays a significant role on the peninsula’s major newspapers, Lindstrom said, as each publication wrestled with controversial issues such as: a three-decade struggle to establish Olympic National Park; the proposed Northern Tier Pipeline; the promise of a railroad; the sinking of the western portion of the Hood Canal bridge and numerous elections.

“Strait Press” is not only is about newspapers, but radio and television. Readers learn the significance that 25 water heaters played in establishing the peninsula’s first radio station, which broadcaster was still on the air on his 90th birthday and another still broadcasting in 2020 in his 85th year.

Lindstrom is a veteran journalist for more than a half-century, including a two-year stint at the Peninsula Daily News. Among others, he has worked for the Daily Olympian in Olympia and the Daily World in Aberdeen. In 2015, he was commissioned by Maloney to write “Strait Press.” In 2014, he authored his first book “John Tornow: Villain or Victim?”, a non-fiction account of a man alleged to have killed his two nephews in 1911.

”Strait Press” is a “fascinating excavation of underappreciated events and individuals … historian-sleuth Bill Lindstrom and his painstaking research and his yield of captivating, rescued-from-obscurity stories takes us on an educational, thoroughly enjoyable journey,” Brewer said.

Among the nuggets uncovered include two writers nominated for a Pulitzer prize; one receives the award, one does not; one newspaper owner is part of a quad-marriage ceremony; one building has been home to the same paper for 102 years; two writers were known, respectively as “The Rare-bitter” and “Wandering Scribe” and what soon-to-be well-known author spent a night in peninsula jail.

“Strait Press: A History of News Media on the North Olympic Peninsula” is self-published by iUniverse, Bloomington, Ind. It is available in hardcover and softcover through the publisher and at retail outlets. It also is available in e-book format through Kindle and Nook.

For more information, contact the author at bill.lindstrom114@gmail.com or 360-581-9451; or Maloney at brown.m.maloney@gmail.com or 360-457-1450.