Hey, all you ‘old’ Community Historians!

Pacific County Community Historians – “One Wednesday Morning”

Quite a few of our Pacific County Community Historians over the past seven or eight years have stewed and stammered about a “project” to do.  I have one for anyone interested:  Correcting some of the mis-information that shows up on Wikipedia (constantly!) about our fair county.

Take for instance the name of Bruceport, a once-upon-a-time settlement on the east side of Shoalwater Bay.  Says Wikipedia:  The community was named after Robert the Bruce, King of the Scots.

Historic Marker – “Bruceville – Bruceport”

NOT!  It was named for the Robert Bruce, the 82-foot, two-masted schooner of one hundred and twenty-nine tons that burned to water level shortly after anchoring in Shoalwater Bay in 1851.  The stranded crew settled on the nearby shore and started Bruceport… and, of course, the rest is history, as they say.  But not necessarily well-researched by whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry.

There are so many more examples.  Oysterville, for instance was NOT settled by John Douglas who was NOT married to Katie Kettle Gale, a Coast Salish woman.

And about Ocean Park, Wikipedia wrongly informs us that One of the oldest buildings in Pacific County is the Taylor Hotel building, built in 1887, currently in use as Adelaide’s cafe and bookstore named after Adelaide Taylor the wife of the original hotel owner.  (There are at least three errors in that sentence — can you spot them?)

Adelaide’s at the
Taylor Hotel, by Jean Stamper

I’d be happy to assist anyone interested in taking on this project.  I’d like to do it myself, but am currently maxed out time-wise with too many irons in my own fire.

If you’d like to delve into this, please contact me and we’ll “talk.”  Maybe several people could work as a group…   I think it would be a righteous use of sheltering time.  And Community Historian wannabes could certainly weigh in, too!

P.S.  This idea is not officially sanctioned, as in I did not run it by Betsy or Donella at the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum, so if you decide to  jump in and want CH credit, you might make your idea an actual proposal.  Or… you could just do it because it’s the right thing to do!

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