7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2015
Port: Commission votes to give Knight a raise
Continued from Page 1A
Jim Paul, assistant director of the
state land department’s Common
School Fund Property Program,
said Warrenton Fiber’s application
is closed.
The Land Board voted in
October to initiate a review into
the college’s proposal. Paul said
the new round of due diligence
could last at least another nine to
12 months before a decision on
whether and how to sell the prop-
erty to the college.
In other news:
• The Port Commission vot-
ed to remove Raichl as chairman
and replace him with Commis-
sioner Robert Mushen. Raichl,
who abstained from the oth-
erwise unanimous vote, will
assume Mushen’s post on the
commission as assistant treasur-
er and secretary. Mushen said
the change was not to cast any
aspersions toward Raichl, who
he said has done a good job.
Raichl said there was a “poten-
tial for better harmony, having a
change.”
• The Port Commission voted
to raise Knight’s $150,000 salary
by 5.3 percent. The increase was
stipulated in Knight’s contract
with the Port, upon a satisfacto-
ry one-year evaluation. Knight
started in late October 2014, but
the Port Commission has not yet
completed his evaluation.
• Property Manager Shane
Jensen said he reviewed the
Port’s obligations surrounding
the Pier 3 parking lot and access
point to the Astoria Riverwalk.
He said the project was primar-
ily funded by the Astor West
Urban Renewal District and the
federal American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act, and that the
Port funded less than 2 percent
of the project. He said the Port
is required to keep access to the
Riverwalk open through at least
2025, but could move the parking
lot. The Port has closed access to
the lot at times because of safety
issues between pedestrians, mo-
torists and the Pier 3 log yard.
Robert
Mushen
Seaport: Some e[hibits pay tribute to America’s armed forces
Continued from Page 1A
¿nish each other’s sentences,
and keep up a steady stream
of good-natured banter —
Wallace likes to joke that “It’s
been a long 15 years.”
Asked if she had an of¿cial
title, she quickly responded,
“Pain in the neck!”
Darrah likes to call her the
“Chief Keeper.”
“That means she can be
more bossy than usual — and
get away with it!” he joked.
In the mid-1990s, Darrah
owned a similar, smaller mu-
seum in Gig Harbor, but his
wife wanted to relocate. When
a friend mentioned Raymond
was looking to open a muse-
um, he came to investigate,
and decided to move his col-
lection south.
Locals helped to prepare
the building, and one of the
¿rst e[hibits to go in was a
mural that students painted in
the front room. A collection of
brass plaques commemorates
the many people who have
volunteered and donated, in-
cluding a stranger who once
gave Darrah gas money when
he got stranded while moving
his family west to Washington.
An early taste for brass
At ¿rst, virtually every-
thing in the museum came
from Darrah, who developed
his passion for collecting
while growing up as a “mili-
tary brat”.
His father graduated from
West Point in 1930, and Dar-
rah spent much of his child-
hood on military bases.
Darrah remembers his ear-
ly days on Fort Worden in Port
Townsend as some of the hap-
piest in his life. He jokes that
his parents put him out “like
the dog” every day, and he
was free to roam the base on
his own.
“I got up and went to sleep
at bugle calls. I liked the pa-
rades, the fanfare, the salut-
ing,” Darrah recalled.
He also developed a deep
respect for the resourcefulness
of the men and women who
served between the two world
wars. Nowadays, Darrah said,
“when something gets dented,
the Army surpluses it,” but in
the 1930s, everything was re-
paired or repurposed.
“They’d ¿[ stuff up. They’d
Natalie St. John/EO Media Group
Debris from the Robert Bruce, for which Bruceport County Park is named.
sew tents up, hammer a mess
kit back into shape. They’d ¿[
uniforms.”
As a young boy, Darrah had
his own tiny army uniform that
someone cut down from a cast-
off adult uniform, and a little
gun of his own.
“I use to stand inspection
every Thursday morning! I
just loved it. I was a collector.
I started collecting stuff,” he
said, recalling how he and his
friends would hunt for used
ammunition cartridges, polish
them up with sand, and pack
slugs back inside them.
bayonets into them, discreetly
marking the bo[es so he could
sneak the items out later.
“I didn’t want my mom to
¿nd out!” he laughed. When
they arrived at their new home,
he’d hear his mother wonder-
ing how on earth her curtains
had gotten rust on them, or how
a plate had gotten cracked.
“Well, a loose cannon ball
was rolling around in there
with a life of his own. But
that’s how I managed to hold
on to all this stuff!” Darrah
laughed. “I never did tell my
folks about that, by the way.”
Hiding history in
moving boxes
A community collection
During World War II, his
military relatives sent items
from abroad that further ce-
mented his passion for collect-
ing — among them, a Japanese
bugle that his grandfather sent
for his birthday.
The impermanence of mili-
tary life taught Darrah to value
his possessions.
“Every time my dad moved,
which was often, he would
walk into my bailiwick there
and throw an Army footlocker
in, with the admonition, “What
you can get in that bo[, we’ll
haul out of here for you.’”
However, one bo[ was nev-
er enough to contain his prized
possessions. Darrah would
wait until his mother’s bo[es
were nearly full, then sneak
things like cannonballs and
In Raymond, visitors and
locals began to think of the
museum as a home for things
that were too precious to toss,
too impractical to keep.
The collection will espe-
cially appeal to military and
local history buffs. Included
in the e[hibits are displays of
antique logging and saw-¿l-
ing equipment, tools from the
early days of the oystering in-
dustry, baskets woven by the
Native American ancestors
of locals, and antique ¿shing
equipment donated by the
widow of a well-known local
¿sherman. There are also pho-
tographs that show how tugs
helped move enormous loads
of timber up and down the riv-
er, and of a camp east of Ray-
mond where military men cut
logs for the war effort.
Deadline:
January 8, 2016
Inserts:
January 22, 2016
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Even now, Wallace still
doesn’t think of herself as a
historian.
“Pete gives a long-winded
tour. He was a teacher — you
get the whole book, wheth-
er you like it or not. I give
one that’s a nonhistory one,”
Wallace said. But she speaks
A vailab le
on a
fo r an en ti ll 4 w eb sites
re year
IN CLU D IN
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ELECTR O PA G E-TU R N IN G
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ON
Copies of the
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Younger visitors will ap-
preciate the e[hibits that
show how people lived and
worked in days gone by. A
lovingly recreated ticket of-
¿ce gives visitors a sense of
what it was like to live in Pa-
ci¿c County when virtually
all travel happened by water.
Reluctant historian,
eager volunteer
FR EE
New this year!
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Recreating the past
knowledgeably, with evident
reverence for her subject mat-
ter.
She ¿rst began volunteer-
ing shortly after her husband,
Jerry Wallace, died. Darrah,
who was one of her husband’s
close friends, encouraged her
to start helping out.
“I am not a historian. I
questioned Pete’s sanity.”
Wallace recalled. “I told him
I really didn’t think I’d be a
¿t there.” Darrah told her to
bring her needlework and just
sit there, saying, “It doesn’t
matter — we just need volun-
teers to keep the doors open!’”
When she ¿nally agreed, she
was surprised by how quickly
she was drawn into Darrah’s
world of history and memora-
bilia.
“The third week, I decided
I better learn something, be-
cause sooner or later someone
was gonna ask a question!”
Wallace said. She started re-
searching the history behind
one display a week, beginning
with the shipbuilding e[hibit,
because it was one of the ¿rst
things visitors saw as they
walked through the door.
She was especially sur-
prised to learn that during
World War I, the town had
manufactured
enormous
wooden battleships.
“I was blown away,” Wal-
lace remembered. “Raymond
built huge ships for World
War I. I just could not believe
this.” The more she studied,
the more e[cited she got about
learning the story behind each
item.
“I could hardly wait to get
around the corner to see what
was in there,” Wallace said.
IN TER N
PR ES EN C E E T
Inserted into The Daily Astorian and Chinook
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1x5
$125
E[hibits that pay tribute to
America’s armed forces and
military campaigns include
vintage dress uniforms, sol-
diers’ personal items, paint-
ings, model battleships, spe-
cial-issue wartime coins from
Germany and France, shrapnel
from a Civil War battle, and
a document signed the fourth
president of the U.S., James
Madison.
A vintage medicine kit recalls
a time when “liver pills” were
a thing, the doctor arrived on
horseback, and syringes were
truly terrifying. A real, hand-
written receipt for the sale of
a slave, displayed in a corner
that is decorated to look like
the interior of a slave-ship,
acknowledges a time when
shipping brought shame, rath-
er than glory to the U.S.
Tucked into one tiny cor-
ner, Darrah has meticulously
recreated the sleeping quarters
from a World WarII-era Navy
ship. In addition to authenti-
cally cramped bunks, there are
a footlocker and a tiny desk
out¿tted with a metal “butt-
kit” and writing utensils. A
ukulele and pin-up girl maga-
zine hint at sailors’ limited en-
tertainment options.
“You wouldn’t believe
how hard it is to ¿nd things
like that,” Darrah said, gestur-
ing at the Navy-issue mono-
grammed wool blanket on
the lower bunk. Those kinds
of details reveal the lengths
to which he and his volun-
teers have gone — when he
couldn’t ¿nd an obsolete mil-
itary Àag, Wallace sewed one
by hand, embroidering the
emblem from nine skeins of
embroidery thread.
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