Thomas Teakle

Born in Iowa in 1878, Thomas Teakle became an educator whose career eventually took him to Spokane, Washington, where he taught history at Lewis and Clark High School for many years. He was deeply interested in regional and frontier history, and that interest shaped both his teaching and his writing.

He is best known for The Spirit Lake Massacre, published in 1918 by the State Historical Society of Iowa. The book helped preserve one of the best-known frontier episodes in Iowa history for later readers, and it remains the work most closely associated with his name.

Teakle's historical interests stretched well beyond a single book. Archival records show that he collected correspondence, teaching materials, pioneer reminiscences, and other research related to Pacific Northwest history, and Spokane Public Library notes that he also donated photographs to its Northwest Room collections. He died in 1969, leaving behind the record of a teacher-scholar who cared deeply about documenting the past.