SPOKANE, Wash. — Fans of Inland Northwest history should put a local video series called "The King's Guide" on their Radar.
Garrin Hertel, who has a degree in history from Gonzaga University, was drawn to the subject from an early age. Hertel also worked as an institutional researcher at Gonzaga and took over Nostalgia Magazine and its many responsibilities.
In order to promote Nostalgia, which specializes in local history, Hertel had an idea. He decided to put fellow historian Chuck King in front of the camera. From there, they created their series of short local history videos. Some of the topics included the sledding hill at Manito Park, the Skate Ribbon in downtown Spokane and the brothels in Wallace.
The pair produced 16 episodes between 2017 and 2019 and wracked up close to 250,000 views. Hertel eventually sold Nostalgia and, instead of abandoning the King's Guide, he decided to bring it back bigger and better than ever.
“When I sold Nostalgia, I reinvested some of that equipment in our initial equipment buy to really do the show in the way that we felt that it deserved, and then we added classic cars to the mix," Hertel said. “Now we have to figure out how do we rig up a car and how do we have quality audio, which we learned a lot about in the first episode.”
The new episode focuses on Spokane's historic cable car line, and traces the route around the city and across the Monroe Street Bridge. The route ends at the site of Natatorium Park, one of the Northwest's first amusement parks.
“It ended up being a lot bigger than we thought it would be because of the area it covered, the amount of history," King said.
Hertel and King are currently in talks to get the new season of the King’s Guide on a local TV network in the Inland Northwest. All episodes are currently available on YouTube.