PORT ANGELES — Some North Olympic Peninsula residents are urging the Port of Port Angeles to preserve the 175-foot smokestack that rises over downtown Port Angeles even after the plywood mill that fed it is torn down.
The stack will be toppled with explosives later this year as part of the port’s $1.6 million Peninsula Plywood site demolition project.
“Some people have said, ‘Why can’t we save that stack? It’s an iconic symbol of what our community used to do,” Port Commission President Jim Hallett said during a project update at a Monday commissioners meeting.
“They are looking at that as a symbol,” said Hallett, who earlier was named the board’s 2013 president by outgoing president and Commissioner John Calhoun and Commissioner Paul McHugh.
“There’s some sentimentality,” Hallett said of the cylindrical structure, which is being swathed in scaffolding as Rhine Demolition of Tacoma prepares to tear down the stack by March 25.
Calhoun said the stack is on navigation charts that will have to be revised after it no longer pierces the skyline.
