Nothing quite says Washington state like:

A. The Space Needle.

B. A refrigerator-sized bottle of Rainier Beer with human legs.

C. Ezra Meeker’s covered wagon.

D. Mount Rainier.

E. Almond Roca.

To David Nicandri, executive director of the Washington State History Museum, the answer is: All of the above – and much, much more.

An exhibit opening at the museum Nov. 11 rounds up more than 65 obvious and not so obvious symbols of the Evergreen State deemed most representative of the state’s history by Nicandri. The wide-ranging “Icons of Washington History” features artifacts, commercial products, memorable moments and famous people that make the state distinct.

It’s the first exhibit Nicandri has curated since becoming the museum’s director in 1987, and includes many of his favorite pieces from the museum.

“I’ve always wanted to do this show,” Nicandri said. “These are the real gems, the real icons of Washington history.”

Nicandri selected the pieces using this working definition of an icon: something generally recognizable as a symbol of a place or a time or both, and something that tells a story.

History buffs will salivate over the rare display of a bound set of engraving proofs from George Vancouver’s “Voyage of Discovery” in the late 1790s. They can see the journals of Wenatchee resident Harold Cundy, who recorded 10,000 years of Indian rock art before it was flooded by Columbia River hydroelectric projects. Original illustrations from Gov. Isaac Stevens’ Treaty Tour of 1854-55 may compel visitors to learn more about the historic gatherings that laid the groundwork for contemporary relations between tribes and the state.

“Icons” is a rare opportunity to see some of the museum’s most historically valuable holdings, Redmond Barnett, the museum’s head of exhibits, stressed.

Exhibition takes a toll on many items, especially papers or books that must be opened and exposed to light. “These are very fragile things that will not be shown again for a long time, and certainly not all together,” Barnett said. “We want to preserve them for the future.”

While some pieces are symbolic in themselves, others incorporate iconic images.

Since dismantling and moving the Space Needle would have irritated folks in that city to the north, the internationally recognized landmark appears in a 1962 World’s Fair poster and a needle-shaped lamp.

A “Wild Rainier” beer bottle costume made famous in a 1974 ad campaign will coax smiles from visitors – or raise eyebrows. Beer as icon?

Nicandri invites visitors to disagree with his selections.

After all, what makes an icon is in the eye of the beholder.

“It’s personal, it’s subjective and it’s contestable. What we’re trying to do is to spur exactly that kind of dialogue,” Nicandri said.

“This is simply my view. It’s no more or less authoritative than that. But many of the things in the exhibit would be viewed as iconic by most people in their form or the content of the story they tell.”

The exhibit icons we’ve pictured on the SoundLife cover:

1. Dale Chihuly: The state’s best known artist, the Tacoma-born Chihuly made his artistic breakthrough with the “Basket Series,” glass objects inspired by the misshapen Native baskets in the Historical Society’s old museum. He’s famous for the “Seaforms,” pictured here, on the ceiling of Tacoma’s Bridge of Glass.

2. Orca: The famed denizen of Puget Sound and the straits of Juan de Fuca.

3. George Vancouver’s “Voyage of Discovery”: In the early 1790s, Vancouver led the greatest exploratory survey in Northwest history. Vancouver and his team of artists and mapmakers recorded coastlines, inlets, and headlands from San Diego to Alaska, including the first full delineation of Puget Sound, and drew sketches of the landscape and Native peoples. This leather bound compilation of charts and engraving proofs is one of only five created in the 1790s.

4. Lewis & Clark inkwell: Archaeologists recovered this thimble-sized vessel for ink at Station Camp, the Pacific County spot where Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are believed to have camped in November 1805. Nicandri speculates it might have belonged to Clark, who wrote the extensive journals detailing the Corps of Discovery expedition.

5. Space Needle: Nicandri calls it the most recognizable shape and form of any built object in Washington, in the same league with the Eiffel Tower and the Brandenburg Gate. At 605 feet, it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi when it was built in 1962 for the World’s Fair in Seattle.

6. Rainier Beer: A popular Northwest brand of beer founded in 1884 in Seattle, but no longer brewed in the Emerald City. The exhibit includes a huge Rainier Beer bottle costume worn in a 1974 ad campaign featuring “Wild Rainier” creatures foraging in the forest.

7. Chief Seattle: Quick – name another large American city named after an American Indian. The James Wehn sculpture commemorates Seattle, a renowned speaker and leader of the Suquamish and Duwamish people in the 1800s.

8. Boeing: The aerospace company native to Washington was for decades the emblematic corporate enterprise.

9. Mount Rainier: Without question, Nicandri writes, Washington’s most iconic form is Mount Rainier, or Mount Tahoma as native peoples called it. Its image graces countless objects, from the U.S. Mint’s Washington state quarter to The News Tribune masthead.

10. State Capitol in Olympia: Washington state’s governance takes place in a group of buildings, not a single legislative building, a design that has become the most important architectural ensemble in Washington.

11. Almond Roca: Harry Brown created the recipe for the crunchy log-shaped candy in Tacoma in 1923, according to www.brown-haley.com. Four years later, it became the world’s first candy to be packed in a sealed tin and was later shipped to troops overseas in World War II. It’s delighted the sweet tooth of Japan’s royal family and of Sir Edmund Hillary while attempting many of his Himalayan ascents.

Most of the descriptions in this list and the accompanying list are from David Nicandri. Other sources include: University of Washington Library, National Park Service, www.spaceneedle.com, Washington State Department of Transportation, Brown & Haley, Pabst Brewing Co.

Debby Abe: 253-597-8694

debby.abe@thenewstribune.com

Here are a few more of the iconic places, people, moments and things in the Icons of Washington History exhibit.

Ken Griffey Jr. Photograph of Griffey grinning under a pile of teammates after scoring the winning run in an American League division series playoff series against the Yankees in 1995.

Salmon. The bellwether species on the health of ecosystems and cultural icon for American Indians.

A brick from Nunez Gaona fort at Neah Bay. Spanish explorers used Mexican laborers to build the first non-native building in the state in 1790.

Starbucks. The only liquid better known is rain, Nicandri writes.

A concrete core sample from Grand Coulee Dam. This public works project epitomized the “can-do” ethos of America in the middle of the 20th century.

Concrete remnant from original Tacoma Narrows Bridge: The bridge linking Tacoma and the Gig Harbor Peninsula opened July 1, 1940, only to fail four months later in a dramatic wind-induced collapse that was caught on film and influenced bridge construction for decades. The remnant from “Galloping Gertie” speaks to the most famous failure in state history.

Rain. This ubiquitous element of nature in western Washington is the ultimate source of our nickname: The Evergreen State.

Aplets & Cotlets. The fruity candy made at Liberty Orchards factory in Cashmere.

Microsoft. The software giant based in Redmond.

Jimi Hendrix. The electric guitar rock star from Renton.

Wines, wheat and fruit. The agricultural plenty from Central and Eastern Washington is known nationwide.

Crosscut saw. Emblematic of the state’s lumber industry.

Asahel Curtis. Photographed Washington over the pivotal period from the Klondike Gold Rush to World War II.

Clovis Points: Exceptionally large projectile “points,” or arrowheads, believed to have been made more than 11,000 years ago. Recovered near East Wenatchee, the points are the oldest known antiquities ever found in Washington.

Ezra Meeker’s covered wagon: Meeker and his wife, Eliza Jane, crossed the Oregon Trail starting in 1852, eventually settling in Puyallup. Late in his life, he conducted a series of cross-country re-enactments of the journey, in a replica wagon, to rekindle interest in the pioneer trail.

Debby Abe: 253-597-8694

debby.abe@thenewstribune.com

What: Icons of Washington History

When: Nov. 11 through July 3, 2010, Wednesdays through Sundays

Where: Washington State History Museum, 1911 Pacific Ave., Tacoma

Cost: Adults, $8; seniors, 60 and older, $7; students 6 to 17 and military, $6; kids 5 and younger, free; family (two adults and up to four children), $25.

Free on third Thursdays from 2 to 8 p.m.

More information: washingtonhistory.org or call 1-888-238-4373