Puyallup Tribe News & Research
A community news platform, family tree application, and historical research archive for the Puyallup Tribe of Indians. Built from scratch over a few months of evenings and weekends — no CMS, no theme, no plugins.
What it does
- News site with custom admin — create, edit, and publish posts
- Interactive family tree app with private & public modes
- 1929 Puyallup Census Roll fully transcribed (279 entries)
- 48 historical photographs (1884–1951) with attribution
- Election coverage with candidate profiles and source citations
- Source-backed claims throughout — every fact links to its origin
The site runs on a single small VPS with Caddy handling TLS automatically. SQLite for the database, FastAPI for the app, and a thin custom admin UI for posting — no WordPress, no Webflow subscription, no monthly hosting bill from a marketing platform.
This is also a demonstration of what AI-assisted coding can produce in the hands of someone who actually understands the problem domain. The code is clean enough to maintain, fast enough to feel instant, and small enough that one person owns the whole stack.