Orcas Pioneers: Coast Guard Barracks Olga

 By Tom Welch

A phone call out of the blue a few weeks ago led to some surprising information about our local history here in Olga. A man who said his name was Ed Cappa called from the Boston area, looking for information about the Coast Guard station his father was assigned to during World War Two.

He told me a retired Coast Guard captain in Seattle had researched the historical records at the Coast Guard Museum, and had assured him there had been no such station on Orcas Island. But Ed’s father’s military records indicated there had been. I had never heard of a Coast Guard station or barracks here in Olga, and people I knew in the community agreed that this fellow’s information had to be wrong, that there never had been a military base of any sort at Olga. Still, I wondered if it was possible that Ed’s father, Joe Cappa, had been stationed here during the war.

Old newspapers are wonderful things. I knew that our library has copies of the “Orcas Islander” bound in large cloth binders stored on shelves in the back room, and I thought this little mystery could be easily solved by simply reading the paper. About half an hour after I sat down to look through those cumbersome old binders of newspapers from more than half a century ago, I spotted an article about a jeep accident on Flaherty’s Hill.

The article didn’t say how the accident occurred, but it did mention that the jeep was a new one assigned to the Coast Guard at Camp Moran. It also mentioned that the jeep had crashed through an OPALCO power pole, causing the power to go out for several hours island-wide. And, finally, the article noted the driver’s name: Bosun’s Mate Joe Cappa, United State Coast Guard, Olga Barracks.

To say that I was surprised would be an understatement. I wondered how it could be that the Coast Guard Museum (1519 Airport Way South, Seattle, Wa 98134) in Seattle had no knowledge of this station? What purpose was served by basing a barracks of Coast Guard men at Moran State Park? So I went back to the old newspapers, and learned a bit more about the Coast Guard Barracks at Olga, Washington.

Coast Guard Station Olga was actually located at the old C.C.C. barracks in Moran State Park. The Olga designation was simply due to the fact that Olga was the nearest Post Office. Prior to the location of a Coast Guard unit at Camp Moran, there had been plans to station up to 300 Navy personnel there. For some reason, the Navy plans were not carried out, but the place was found to be useful to the Coast Guard. Men in the early months of their enlistment were sent here for training, which included anti-submarine patrols at night among the islands and out on the Straits of Juan de Fuca.

Orcas Island has long been known for its friendly, welcoming population, and never more so than during the war years of the 1940’s. The island resorts were quiet in those years of gas rationing and a war economy, and many of the island men had gone into the service. Island businesses struggled to get along, so the stationing of even a small detachment of Coast Guard men here was undoubtedly welcome. And I have no doubt that the Coast Guard men of the Olga detachment enjoyed it here, particularly since there were many, many more dangerous places to be during the war.

Joe Cappa passed away February 7, 1982. He visited Orcas Island, by himself, one last time in the late 1970’s. Ed Cappa is coming here with his family on August 11th to see the remote little island his father had told him about so many times. I look forward to meeting him, and hope I get a chance to show him around….but we won’t be driving a jeep.