H-3253.1  _______________________________________________

                     HOUSE JOINT MEMORIAL 4024

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State of Washington      55th Legislature     1997 Regular Session

By Representatives Fisher and Lantz

Read first time 4/16/97.  Referred to Committee on Rules.

Renaming the Eleventh Street Bridge on State Route No. 509 "The Murray Morgan Bridge."

    TO THE HONORABLE SID MORRISON, SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION, AND TO THE WASHINGTON STATE TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION, AND TO THE WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, AND TO THE MAYOR OF THE CITY OF TACOMA, AND TO THE MEMBERS OF THE TACOMA CITY COUNCIL, AND TO MR. MURRAY MORGAN:

    We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and petition as follows:

    WHEREAS, On February 2, 1916, during a snowstorm that toppled buildings, Murray Morgan was born in the second floor bedroom of a Universalist New Thought minister's house at 3316 North 31st Street in Tacoma; and

    WHEREAS, Murray Morgan, since his student days at the University of Washington as Editor of the University of Washington Daily, has demonstrated a passion for research and brilliant command of the written and spoken word; and

    WHEREAS, Over the course of his illustrious career as a journalist, Murray Morgan worked for the august institutions of Time magazine, the Columbia Broadcasting Company, The New York Herald Tribune, the Hoquiam Washingtonian, and the Tacoma News Tribune; and

    WHEREAS, Murray Morgan's penchant for meandering around the Puget Sound region, the Northwest, and the world on a shoestring and at the drop of a hat, and often with his wife of fifty plus years, Rosa, has given rise to his historical tomes on Tacoma, Seattle, the Olympic Peninsula, the Columbia River, Grand Coulee Dam, the St. Paul and Tacoma Lumber Company, the Alaska gold rush, the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, and his most favorite topic, the Aleutian Islands; and

    WHEREAS, By conveying his many interests and adventures through written and verbal mediums, Murray Morgan has brought the world closer to Tacoma, and Tacoma and the Pacific Northwest closer to the rest of the world; and

    WHEREAS, Murray Morgan in the early 1950's, while serving as a bridge tender on the Eleventh Street Bridge on State Route No. 509 in Tacoma, Washington, wrote much of his famed Skid Road;

    NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memoralists respectfully pray that the Washington State Transportation Commission commence proceedings to name the Eleventh Street Bridge on State Route No. 509 "The Murray Morgan Bridge," and that a ceremony to name the bridge take place as soon as is practicable.

    BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the Honorable Sid Morrison, Secretary of Transportation, the Washington State Transportation Commission, the Washington State Department of Transportation, the Mayor of the City of Tacoma, the members of the Tacoma City Council, and to Mr. Murray Morgan.

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