Continued from Page 14
After Pacific County Fire District #1
requested records about historic fires,
museum curator Betsy Millard realized there
were enough photos and artifacts to create a
unique display. Before and after image col-
lections highlighted a central purpose Mil-
lard had for the exhibit, to illustrate “the
idea of how fire changes our landscape and
changes not just landscape, but towns, and
views.”
The downstairs exhibit room is com-
pletely encircled by a series of images
arranged in simple black frames, accom-
panied by interpretive placards. Just inside
the door, one can start with the largest and
most notorious fire of all, which consumed
the entirety of downtown Nahcotta in Janu-
ary 1915. So complete was the damage that
the business district was never rebuilt, and
only a few old pilings in Willapa Bay mark
its location.
More photos show the devastation fire
brought to Ilwaco and Nahcotta schools,
Knappton Mill, the Bloomer Cranberry
Warehouse and more recent losses like the
Sore Thumb Tavern, Seaside Inn and the
Ilwaco Fire Department that burned in 2006.
The exhibit also highlights those who
worked to protect residents, their homes
and businesses. Historic pictures of the
Long Beach Volunteer Fire Department, the
Ocean Park Fire Department and Ilwaco
Hook & Ladder Co. No. 1 show these peo-
ple often standing by the trucks that helped
them answer emergencies.
Physical artifacts, carefully displayed
under plexiglass covers, are the most poi-
gnant items. China dishware pulled from the
burnt remains of the Breakers Hotel hint at
the luxurious setting that was lost forever,
while a pile of coins fused together by heat
attest to the ferocity of the flames that con-
sumed the Trondsen-Peterson store (now
Jack’s Country Store) in Ocean Park. In the
opposite corner, a pedestal holds the half-
melted handset of an old yellow telephone.
Contractor Joe Gisler used this phone to
call for help when Sid’s Market in Seaview
caught fire in May 1969. Millard talked
about how owner Sid Snyder, who also
worked and later served in the Washington
state Legislature, kept the phone “in the din-
ing room buffet, and he’d haul it out and tell
the story,” she said. “I love the idea these
objects are what hold the story. Photos obvi-
ously do, but the actual phone, and to see it
all burned up like that.”
At the center of the exhibit is a tribute to
recently retired Ilwaco Fire Chief Tom Wil-
liams, whose tenure with the department
spanned nearly half a century from the time
he first volunteered in high school. The dis-
play includes his remarks about how much
firefighters’ gear and other supplies have
Columbia Pacific heritage Museum
A photo of the burned Sid’s Market after the fire.
rebecca Lexa
A burned telephone from the fire at Sid’s
Market in 1969.
rebecca Lexa
Part of the exhibit details fires at schools.
improved over the years, how little they had
to work with when he first started and the
advocacy needed to make improvements.
One of his helmets accompanies his photo in
the case.
Missing are images and artifacts of house
and dune fires. While high profile disasters
are the focus of the exhibit, Millard pointed
out that they don’t negate the impact of
smaller fires then or now. In fact, the initial
records request included pictures of dune
fires to help compare conditions several
decades ago when today’s fire laws were
passed, versus today when there are more
people with beach fires and fireworks, and
larger swaths of invasive — and flammable
— beach grass.
But people are less likely to take pho-
tos of these smaller fires, and museums are
reliant on what the community offers them.
“People give us photos for our collection;
if we don’t have photographs (of a partic-
ular fire), it’s harder to tell the story,” Mil-
lard said. “The fact that people saved these
images and gave them to us has been won-
derful and allows us to talk about this.”
Thursday, February 3, 2022 // 15