Clyde Duke on the roof
Earlier this week, when the sun shone, Clyde Duke and his roofing crew were hard at work, helping out the Historical Society to put on a new roof, replacing old shakes with new.
After a pause for today’s showers, Duke expects to finish the project by the weekend.
The Orcas Island Historical Society’s first museum consisted of artifacts displayed on the front porch of a pioneer family’s home. Property for a permanent museum site was eventually obtained in the village of Eastsound, a location the facility continues to occupy today.
In the 1950s and 1960s, various island families donated six original homestead cabins built during the 1870s and the 1890s to the Society. Volunteers disassembled the structures at their original sites, then moved, reconstructed and linked the structures together to create the main museum facility.
These cabins are now over a hundred years old, and not only house the collections, but are considered important historical artifacts in themselves. Each cabin serves as a space for interpreting specific aspects of island history as told through the life stories and material culture of the First Peoples and early European-American settlers of this area. (From the museum website: www.orcasmuseum.org)
The old shakes are being cleaned of nails and sold for $5 a five-gallon bucket. For more information, call the museum at 376-4849.
