Sandra Tellvick, 1947/48 Class Picture

My May 6th column in the Chinook Observer, “Nahcotta: Going, Going, Gone…” was a lament concerning the escalating disappearance of one of our oldest villages on the Long Beach Peninsula.  I think I got more reaction from it — phone calls, comments from people at local markets and shops, and even from attendees at a recent House Concert here in Oysterville — than all my other columns put together! Many of the remarks were from friends who live in Nahcotta but, surprisingly, even more were from folks from other parts of the Peninsula!  All of them were thank-yous for what I had written and each was its own lament.

Sandra Tellvik who grew up in Nahcotta even sent me a copy of a letter that had accompanied the first Nahcotta sign which she had donated in October 2015 to the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum!.  Sandra has had an interest in the history of the Peninsula for as long as I’ve known her — and that goes back almost 80 years when we were both in 7th grade at Ocean Park School!  I think it was about that time — in the mid-1940s that her father, Ray Stone, was considered the “Unofficial Mayor of Nahcotta.”

Nahcotta Sign (circa 1960) by Ray Stone. (Now at the Columbia River Heritage Museum.)

In her letter, Sandra wrote that her father lived in Nahcotta from 1941 until his death in 1980.  He was a man of many talents and had a number of hobbies, one of which was making wooden signs for people, places, and homes in the area.  The sign he carved for Nahcotta hung at the Nahcotta Store/Post Office but, eventually, when Carol and Jack Wiegardt purchased the store and the house next door, the sign came down and was stored in their attic.

In 2002, Carol offered the historic sign to Sandra and in 2015 Sandra donated it to the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum.  (I hasten to say that this is NOT the sign that I mentioned as “missing” when I wrote my column.  The missing sign is much more recent and was located on the east side of the three-way intersection at Sandridge Road and Bay Avenue.)

Ray Stone’s sign does list the population of Nahcotta — the memory of which prompted my search for the “modern” sign in the first place.  I had hoped that there was a current population figure since my online search revealed that “There is curretly no matching U.S. Census Place for this geographic area.”  Therefore, the folks who live there apparently aren’t counted.  Ray Stone’s old sign circa 1960  says:  “POP. 253  ELV. 14”.  I’m pretty sure the population has changed in the last 66 years; I’m not so certain that the elevation has.

From a Picture Postcard — Post Office Outside (right) ad Post Office Inside (left).

Sandra also mentioned that her father had made the wooden sign that hangs at the Oysterville Post Office.  There are actually two of them these days — an older, weathered sign in the lobby and a newer (but identical) sign outside.  I think that the store owners (who rent space to the USPS) probably replicated the old sign, relocating the original indoors to keep it from further deterioration.  It also seems to me that both signs were done a little later than Nahcotta’s since zip codes didn’t surface until 1963.  It seems hardly weathered at all and I can’t help but wonder if the Oysterville Store owners have “refurbished” it over the years. It’s a lovely reminder that our tiny post office is the oldest post office operating continuously and under the same name in Pacific County.  Thank you Ray Stone and daughter Sandra for helping us preserve the memories!