WSGS Conference & Port Angeles

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Just back from Port Angeles and the Washington State Genealogical Society Conference. Charles Hansen, Jacque Lane and Marie Wallick were the only other attendees from EWGS. The highlight of the event (to me) was the pre-conference tour of Port Angeles......... the Underground of Port Angeles. 

Port Angeles was a deep harbor (second only to San Francisco) and so it was desirable to have a port and shipping facilities right on the water and not 800 feet up the bluff. So engineers and residents in 1914 devised a way to build concrete-lined roadways and sluice down mud from the bluffs to fill these future-road-channels and this left the first story of many of the buildings underground. Don Perry, our guide, said that 40% of PA's downtown buildings still have empty spaces underneath them. Such interesting history.

The Red Goose Shoes store was built in 1890 and is the only original building still standing. The sign was painted over at some point and exposed in 1923 with remodeling and is the only building sign allowed in downtown due to its age (PA downtown has beautiful murals, not signs). It still is a working shoe store but Red Goose Shoes is a long-defunct company.

The Clallam County Genealogical Society did a great job of organizing and the food/lunch was great. Kudos to them for sure. Next year's WSGS conference will be in Yakima, 28-29 June 2013, if you care to mark your calendar this early :-)

Can you guess what this is?  First one to correctly identify it will win a prize from me!