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Washington's Diamond Jubilee on the Inland Sea

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Description

A painted cover shows a green-and-white Washington State Ferry nosing into dock against snow-capped peaks; inside, Governor Albert Rosellini's facsimile signature welcomes readers to Washington State's Diamond Jubilee — seventy-five years of statehood, **1889 to 1964**.

Washington State Ferries took over Puget Sound's routes from the private Black Ball Line in 1951, paying $5 million for sixteen boats and twenty terminals. By 1964 it ran the largest ferry fleet in the country. This brochure — subtitled "Scenic Guide and Map of Land of Enchantment" — treats the boats as a vacation in themselves, pitched squarely at the family car-trip market.

The first interior section covers Hood Canal, the narrow fjord-like arm running sixty-seven miles along the Olympic Peninsula's eastern shore. Its centerpiece is the Hood Canal Floating Bridge — a pontoon bridge whose roadway sits on concrete floats rather than spanning the water on towers — which had opened in August 1961, barely three years before printing. The text invites visitors to loop from Seattle to Bremerton by ferry, south along the Kitsap Peninsula by road, and back across the bridge through rhododendron country.

The back panel reaches farther: up to the San Juan Islands and across the border to Sidney, British Columbia, gateway to Victoria. The Anacortes–Sidney ferry link had run continuously since 1922; by 1964 it was over forty years old, now state-operated. A full-figure illustration of an RCMP officer and a vignette of Victoria's Parliament Buildings make the Canadian day-trip hard to miss.

Albert Rosellini — Washington's 15th governor, the first Italian-American and Catholic to hold that office west of the Mississippi — had been in power since 1957. He lost the November 1964 election to Republican Daniel J. Evans, making this brochure a document of his final months in office. His facsimile signature on the welcome page is an unintentional keepsake of that transition.

Researched with claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 on May 25, 2026. AI-assisted — verify before citing.

Details

Year◇ AI
1964
Publisher◇ AI
Washington State Ferries
Coverage◇ AI
Puget Sound and Pacific Northwest, Washington State and southern British Columbia
Paper◇ AI
coated brochure stock
Print medium◇ AI
offset lithograph
Color◇ AI
full-color

FeaturesAI

  • tri-fold pamphlet
  • illustrated painted cover
  • governor's signature facsimile
  • regional overview map inset
  • numbered touring sections

Condition notesAI

  • edge wear on cover, top and bottom
  • horizontal fold creases from brochure format

Tags

ferrypuget-soundwashington-statepromotionaltourist-guidemid-centuryscenic-guidetravel-brochuretourismpacific-northwestdiamond-jubilee1960shood-canalsan-juan-islands

Highlights

  • The cover art is flat-color commercial illustration rather than photography — hard-edged forms, stylized water, and idealized peaks characteristic of American travel promotion in the early 1960s.p.1
  • "Puget Sound" is set in large red letters, echoing the red, green, and white livery the Washington State Ferry fleet actually wore at the time.p.1
  • A medallion graphic pairing 1889 and 1964 anchors the brochure to Washington State's Diamond Jubilee, the official celebration of its 75th year of statehood.p.2
  • Governor Rosellini's facsimile signature closes the welcome message; he lost the November 1964 general election to Dan Evans, making this brochure a document of his final months in office.p.2
  • A small regional locator map in the upper-left panel places Puget Sound within the wider Pacific Northwest, showing Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia as a single vacation circuit.p.3
  • A full-figure illustration of an RCMP officer in red serge occupies the center of the panel, advertising the international crossing to Sidney, B.C. and the onward road to Victoria.p.3

Further reading