The 'dean of Seattle historians' and a self-described 'enchanted tourist' in his own city, Paul Dorpat died in his sleep on May 27, 2026, at the age of 87. A co-founder of HistoryLink.org and the long-time author of the 'Seattle Now & Then' column, Dorpat was the primary chronicler of the Pacific Northwest’s transformation for over half a century.

Seattle in the late 1960s was a place of seismic shifts, a city where the fog of the Pacific Northwest met the fire of a burgeoning counterculture. In the middle of this transformation stood a man who acted as a bridge between the radical energy of the streets and the quiet dignity of the archives. Paul Dorpat was the resonant basso voice at the Sky River Rock Festival and the figure known as the benevolent sheriff at The Helix, the city's landmark underground newspaper. Before he was an institution, he was a witness. Without his presence, the story of Seattle's transition from a timber town to a modern metropolis would lack its most colorful and dedicated narrator.

Born in Grand Forks, North Dakota, as the son of a Lutheran minister, Dorpat moved to Spokane as a child when his father took a pastorate at First Lutheran Church. He carried a scholarship for his deep voice to Whitworth College and later pursued graduate studies in philosophy at Claremont College and the University of Washington. However, the pull of the city's emerging culture proved stronger than the pursuit of a doctorate. He chose to observe the phenomenon of his own time, eventually co-founding The Helix in 1967. As noted on pauldorpat.com, novelist Tom Robbins observed that even in the sixties, Dorpat had the perspective of a historian, more interested in reporting the phenomenon than merely participating in it.

His early years were marked by loud, experimental moments that defined an era. He was a key figure in the 1968 Piano Drop, where a piano was plummeted from a helicopter near Duvall, and he helped produce the Sky River Rock Festival and Lighter Than Air Fair, a spiritual precursor to Woodstock. On January 17, 1982, he launched the Seattle Now & Then column in The Seattle Times. This project, which ran for 37 years and spanned over 1,800 installments, became his signature contribution to the city's soul. His method was meditative and precise: he would align a 19th-century negative with a modern street corner, a process of re-photography that allowed him to float in and out of time. Marie McCaffrey, his co-founder at HistoryLink.org, remarked that his presence had a way of actively slowing one's metabolism.

Dorpat eventually transitioned from a radical outsider to a cherished institutional treasure. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Historians Guild in 2001, the same year he was honored with the Golden Umbrella Award at the Bumbershoot arts festival. He viewed history not as a dry obligation, but as a source of delight. He often said that history is the truth if done right, and that the language of joy was more appropriate to his work than the language of responsibility. The massive, quiet legacy he left behind stands in contrast to the loud events of his youth. He donated a staggering collection of over 309,000 historical photos, negatives, and videos to the Seattle Public Library, ensuring the city's visual memory would remain intact.

He believed that without a story, history was a recluse that refused to invite the public in. By turning the city into a narrative, he made sure Seattle was never a stranger to itself. He turned every street corner into a conversation between the past and the present, proving that the truth is always progressive. He is survived by his wife, Genevieve McCoy.