Last new scan added: August 9, 2018.
Total WCL issues now available: 155, plus 4 Everett Chess Letter (ECL) issues.

This project was initiated in the fall of 2009 by Russell ("Rusty") Miller, Mark Turner, IM John Donaldson and NWC Business Manager Eric Holcomb. Eventually complete scans of all WCL magazines (and later all NWC magazines) will be available on this website. All scans have been optimized and converted to Adobe PDF format. Some scans have also been "cleaned up" to remove stray marks and/or make "blacker blacks" and "whiter whites."

To the extent allowed by applicable laws, the Washington Chess Federation retains copyright on all issues of the Washington Chess Letter. Permission is given for private, non-commercial use, including chess club use. For other uses including republication in any form, please contact the WCF secretary.

Scans by Mark Turner and Rusty Miller, edited and compiled by Eric Holcomb.
Scans marked in green have been "cleaned up" (at least partially) as described above.
A "C" after the year indicates that the scans include color covers.
More scans will be posted as they become available. For the most recent available issues of Northwest Chess, see the magazine back issues page.

Also see Puget Sound Chess News, Sep. 1946 to Feb. 1947 (PDF file of scans).

Note: Aug.-Oct. 1947 are Everett Chess Letter scans supplied by Kelly Brown, head of the John G. White collection at the Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, Ohio. The ECL is a prequel to the Washington Chess Letter - the same contributors and format. it ended in October and the WCL started the very next month. Despite the name, the ECL covered chess throughout the state of Washington. The Nov. 1947 WCL scan was also supplied by the Cleveland Public Library, and we thank the library for its contribution. The July 1947 ECL (added 8/2018) was supplied by Gary Dorfner and John Donaldson. We don't know if there were any issues of ECL before that.

Update (11/2014): The previously posted Nov. 1947 scan was only a limited reprint of 5 pages, published later in 1950. See that file here. (The new Nov. 1947 scan is a full 8 pages and much better quality.)