PORT ANGELES — The Clallam County Historical Society will celebrate the grand opening of a new exhibit, “U.S. Coast Guard: An Era of History and Heroism,” at the Museum at the Carnegie, 207 S. Lincoln St., at 1 p.m. Saturday.
The exhibit created over the past year by a 15-year veteran of the Coast Guard now serving in Port Angeles will be celebrated on the steps of the museum with proclamations and an honor guard.
Port Angeles Mayor Dan Di Guilio and Clallam County Commissioner Jim McEntire will be on hand along with the American Legion Freedom Riders and the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors.
The master of ceremonies will be the volunteer who created the exhibit, Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class Mike Jenkins.
Jenkins, who works at the small-boat station at the Coast Guard station on Ediz Hook, “organized the whole thing, and he did it out of the goodness of his heart,” in his spare time and without remuneration, said Kathy Monds, executive director of the Clallam County Historical Society, which operates the museum.
Said Jenkins: “I was at the museum last year, and I thought it would be nice if there were some exhibit on the Coast Guard.
“When I realized this year would be the 80th anniversary of the Coast Guard in Port Angeles, I thought it would be a good time to do it.”
The exhibit consists of nine display cases and informational plaques and displays on the walls of one room of the museum, said Jenkins, who has been on duty in Port Angeles for the past four years after a stint in Sitka, Alaska.
On display are uniforms loaned by retired Coast Guard members, model ships, a plate from an old Revenue Service cutter, gauges from aircraft and books and an artifact recovered from the wreckage of Motor Lifeboat 44363.
The lifeboat rolled while crew members performed a rescue on the Quillayute River sandbar in February 1997, and three Coast Guard members lost their lives, Jenkins said.
Jenkins, who paid for most of the exhibit’s costs out of his own pocket, said he didn’t do it all alone. Retired Petty Officer Dennis Noble of Sequim, a Coast Guard historian, contributed cash and historical knowledge.
And Jenkins borrowed some items from a digital archive Virginia Thomas, a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, prepared in the winter of 2008-09 for the Port Angeles station.
Although the Port Angeles station is well-represented, information also abounds on the other two Coast Guard stations in Clallam County: Station Neah Bay and Station Quillayute River in LaPush.
“He made sure he covered all aspects of the Coast Guard presence in Clallam County,” Monds said.
All the items on display will be returned to their owners after the exhibit is dismantled in September, Jenkins said.
The Coast Guard and its precedents have kept watch over the waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca for more than 150 years.
The U.S. Coast Guard, which was created in 1915, was a merger of the Revenue Cutter Service, established in 1790 to guard against smuggling and assist with the collection of customs revenue, and the U.S. Life Saving Service, which was formed in 1871.
In 1862, a revenue cutter based in Port Townsend was patrolling the Strait.
In 1865, the revenue cutter Lincoln was the first to make Port Angeles a permanent home.
Jenkins hopes the effect of the exhibit will be that when people see a member of the Coast Guard, “it will mean something, that they will understand something about the people and the organization.”
For more information, phone the society’s office at 360-452-2662 or email artifact@olypen.com.
