The dean of Seattle local historians, Paul Dorpat, has died. Below is the obituary on his own site, written by longtime collaborators Jean Sherrard and Clay Eals.
I had the good fortune to make his acquaintance back when I was the “Seattle History Examiner,” sitting on the steering committee of the University District Museum Without Walls, and working on the first edition of my book. He encouraged my love of writing about local history, and I will forever be grateful.
May his memory be for a blessing.
Born and raised in Seattle, Benjamin Donguk Lukoff had his interest in local history kindled at the age of six, when his father bought him settler granddaughter Sophie Frye Bass’s Pig-Tail Days in Old Seattle at the gift shop of the Museum of History and Industry. He studied English, Russian, and linguistics at the University of Washington, and went on to earn his master’s in English linguistics from University College London. His book of rephotography, Seattle Then and Now, was published in 2010. An updated version came out in 2015.