March 23, 1967: The Cocoon Breaks, The Helix Emerges

Seattle has a long history of alternative newspapers, some better than others, all vital in the collective process of stirring the complex pot of a healthy local media scene. Most, if not all, of the past four decades worth of such endeavors--including and especially the paper you're now reading--owe a great debt to Helix, the groundbreaking chronicler of Seattle's counterculture whose debut issue was published on the date in focus here.

Helix was conceived in late 1966 during discussions at the Free University of Seattle, an alternative college located in the University District. These discussions were inspired by the recent flowering of underground newspapers in other counterculturally rich cities, such as the Berkeley Barb, San Francisco's Oracle, and New York's East Village Other. Helix's prime instigators included Paul Dorpat, a wayward University of Washington grad student, and Paul Sawyer, a Unitarian minister. This circle quickly grew to include future famous novelist Tom Robbins, Seattle P-I cartoonist Ray Collins, and Jon Gallant, co-founder of Seattle's legendary underground radio station KRAB-FM (predecessor of today's KEXP).

Serendipitously named after Watson and Crick's description of DNA during a particularly productive session of beer-drinking and brainstorming at the Blue Moon Tavern in February 1967, Helix emerged from its fertile countercultural cocoon to immediate success. The first 1,500 copies of the 12-page, multi-colored tabloid were quickly snapped up off the streets of the U District. During its three-year reign of weekly publication, Helix would sponsor a number of important countercultural events in the Puget Sound region before finally folding in June 1970. It also launched the career of Walt Crowley (1947-2007), the much-revered local writer, historian and rabble-rouser, who joined the paper's staff, first as an illustrator and later as an editor, in May 1967.

Today, Dorpat has also made a name for himself as a celebrated Pacific Northwest historian. Meanwhile, Helix's heady brew of radical politics and groundbreaking graphic design has rarely, if ever, been surpassed locally, its closest competition arguably being The Rocket (1979-2000), Seattle's greatest music-centric monthly to date. Selected issues of Helix can be viewed online in PDF form at the UW Libraries Special Collections website. Take this, sisters and brothers, may it serve you well.

Source: Walt Crowley, "Rites of Passage" (University of Washington Press, 1995).