First came the Good Time Girls – “Annie Jo” and “Magnolia Pearl,” née Sara Holodnick and Marissa McGrath – who, in 2011, began leading folks on downtown Bellingham jaunts dubbed the “Sin and Gin Tour.”
A similar guided walking tour of historical Fairhaven followed, and then a stroll of a scarier sort, 2013’s Gore and Lore Tour.
Now Holodnick and McGrath are proprietors of the Bureau of Historical Investigation, which opened its doors in February of this year.
The charming Holly Street storefront is many things: a home to their seasonal tour business – downtown tours start and stop at its door – plus jewelry, hats, clothing, and much more.
The women have long partnered with Whatcom Museum to show historic photographs during their tours; now they carry and sell picture postcards and note cards, with a portion of the proceeds returning to the museum.
Holodnick and McGrath also have plans to open an old-time portrait studio at the back of the store, complete with historically accurate costumes.
“We’d both read a book called The Brothels of Bellingham and had been on tours elsewhere that were similar to what we ended up doing,” says Holodnick, describing the conception of the walking tours. “We thought it was weird that Bellingham didn’t have anything like that.”
She and McGrath – who met several years ago, while living in the same apartment building and serving in AmeriCorps – went into what Holodnick describes as “high brainstorming mode.”
“We though maybe we’d do costumes, that sort of thing,” she says, “and use The Brothels of Bellingham as a launching pad to perform more research. It was super grassroots, just Marissa and I – whatever it cost to put a corset together.”
With an attitude of: “Let’s do this – and if somebody shows up, cool,” the two began conducting tours as the Good Time Girls, walking folks through downtown Bellingham and Fairhaven and weaving an historical narrative focused, in part, on women and prostitution, mining, immigration and racial unrest.
The subject matter is quite serious, but don’t think the tours aren’t fun.
“It’s history, it’s information, it’s education,” says Holodnick, “but it’s also entertainment and comedy and a little bit of performance.”
Holodnick and McGrath keep tour-goers engaged through improvisation – and by reading their groups carefully.
“Depending on the mood we’re in and the mood of the group, the tour can change a little bit,” says Holodnick, starting to laugh. “We’ll ask ourselves, ‘Are they picking up on our vibe?’ or be like, ‘Oh that joke fell flat.’”
“We have a baseline route and basic information we cover on every tour,” she says, “and a narrative we build throughout the course of the tour, so there’s a clear beginning, middle and end.”
Walking tour participants learn bits and pieces here and there, which by the end string together into a clear understanding of larger issues.
The tour mostly focuses on the era between the 1850s through the 1910s.
“We give a little bit of context for Bellingham’s beginning, but we don’t stay there very long,” says Holodnick. “And we do dabble a little bit into World War II history, because there’s pertinent information with regard to prostitution here.”
“There’s a lot of social change happening in the early 1900s,” Holodnick says. “1910 is the year Washington State voted to give women the vote – well, for the second time, but that’s a whole other story.”
Bellingham also voted that year to partially enact prohibition.
“A lot of things start to shift and move,” says Holodnick of the time period. “Lots of big players, lots of politics and such.”
Private tours are available year-round, while the public tours take a break during the colder months. The venture has been so successful that Holodnick and McGrath have added three additional tour guides.
The Bureau of Historical Investigation shop is an extension of what Holodnick and McGrath have built with the tours. It’s also a unique, creative space that perfectly complements the downtown Bellingham arts district vibe.
The collection of items for sale is constantly growing. And the Bureau has partnered with Village Books to sell a collection of titles that are tied to the history covered in the tours.
“There are some books there that we dug into when we were researching,” says Holodnick. “And if they’d like to buy a copy of Brothels of Bellingham, after the tour, they can do that.”
Holodnick likes serving as a facilitator for history. “When you don’t really know what’s going on, historically, in a place like this, it feels really hidden,” she says. “We try to uncover that and make it feel easier and less intimidating to be a part of your own history.”
During a recent visit to the Bureau, an old upright piano was gently but firmly wrestled into the space. Local artist J. Paige Heinen made her way around the room, hanging her fantastic penciled portraits in preparation for Art Walk the next night, when local musician Sarah Goodin would put that piano to good use.
The shop buzzed with laughter, voices echoing off the tall walls and ceiling of the character-rich space, which was a barber and beauty supply store in the 1930s. A photo of the room from that time hangs framed behind the counter.
Wandering through the space, flipping through faded, antique stereoscope cards that are just one of a hundred fascinating finds scattered around the Bureau, it wasn’t difficult to imagine oneself in this same space, circa 1935, just steps away from what was once Bellingham’s Red Light District.
Wait. You didn’t know Bellingham once had its very own Red Light District? Get thee to a Bureau of Historical Investigations tour later this summer and discover that – and so much more – about the history of our City of Subdued Excitement. (Perhaps it has not always been quite so subdued.)
A documentary series, helmed by local director Dan Hammill, is currently in production about the Good Time Girls, their tours, and the Bureau of Historical Investigation.
