Cool, Green, Great: Five Roads to Rainier

The Washington Territory turned 100 in 1953 — President Millard Fillmore had signed the bill creating it on March 2, 1853 — and state tourism officials folded the centennial into their pitch for motor travel. The cover photograph already had some age on it: the sedan parked at the lake's edge has the rounded fenders, chrome-trimmed grille, and running-board silhouette of a late-1930s American car, the kind of image that would have been shot for an earlier edition and repurposed here. The slogan "It's COOL, It's GREEN, It's GREAT" appears at lower right in white block letters, confirmed across multiple surviving 1950s Washington tourism pieces.

Inside, the "Historical Background" column names the explorers whose routes the five highways roughly retrace:

• Captain Robert Gray entered the Columbia River on May 11, 1792, the claim that later anchored American title to the Oregon Country
• Captain George Vancouver named Deception Pass, Bellingham Bay, and Hood Canal during the same survey voyage
• Dr. John McLoughlin established Fort Vancouver for the Hudson's Bay Company as the regional fur-trade headquarters
• Marcus Whitman and Sacagawea close the list; Whitman's bronze statue had just been unveiled in the U.S. Capitol in May 1953, one of the centennial's marquee events

The third spread is a mint-green pictorial map of Washington — the mid-century convention where small drawn figures of skiers, anglers, and swimmers mark recreational areas rather than contour lines. Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia anchor the west; Spokane, Walla Walla, and Pullman the east; numbered highways converge on Mount Rainier at the state's geographic heart. Below the map runs a columnar directory of state and national parks with elevations and facilities noted in small type. Inquiries were directed to the Commission at the Transportation Building in Olympia.