Metro Parks Tacoma has three design options for improving Browns Point Lighthouse Park involving adding parking spaces, outlining event spaces and designating open patches of grass. Some money would also help fund renovations and repairs of the historic property.
The $500,000 in earmarked work is part of the $84.3 million bond measure voters passed in 2005. The proposed changes fall into three design headlines. The Neighborhood Active design would have parking for 17 vehicles, outlined event and display spaces and a picnic pavilion as well as small boat collection areas. The Neighborhood Historic design would have 13 car spaces, open view areas, additional signs and restoration work of the historic ornamental garden, the lighthouse itself and repairs at the generator building. The Neighborhood Passive design would have a dozen parking spaces, restoration of a historic fence line and some shoreline restoration work. Bits of each design have been combined into a single plan following a public meeting Monday night.
It’s not what is in this “final plan” that has raised the most concern for some people in the historical community. It’s what isn’t mentioned that has their eyebrows raised.
The Points Northeast Historical Society has restored a single-room, 8-by-12 foot real estate office that Puyallup Tribal member and council member Jerry Meeker used to sell waterfront lots for $250 during the early 1900s. The office had been lost to history until it was discovered in 2009 in the backyard of a nearby home. It has since been restored and stocked with plat maps and period artifacts as a way to more fully tell the story of early Tacoma and Pierce County development. The office is stored three blocks from the lighthouse and moved on a trailer to the lighthouse property for display during special occasions, including salmon bakes, a regional event that Meeker started generations ago.
The historical society would like the park’s improvement plans to set aside a patch of land where the office could be located for permanent display. Talks have been ongoing for years, but nothing has come of them. But talks continue.
“People love it, and it is an important part of the history of the area,” said society president Jim Harnish. “They (Metro Parks officials) have just been dragging their feet for years. Maybe they don’t want to be responsible for another building, but the historical society is the one that takes care of all the buildings.”
But there are logical reasons for the foot dragging. Permitting a permanent location at the park for the restored real estate office requires a lot of signatures. The land is owned by the Coast Guard and managed by Metro Parks, which in turn has a lease with the historical society to operate the facility, provide tours and host events on the property. The site is on the national registry of historical sites, but not on the Pierce County Registry after the Puyallup Tribe raised concerns about the land being inside the tribal reservation area. The lack of a local historical designation dramatically limits preservation grants available for the property. The overlapping interests of federal, county, parks, the non-profit historical society and tribal interests therefore means any changes at the lighthouse park requires intricate talks.
Adding those talks would bog down the current parks improvement discussions, project manager Roger Stanton said.
“We don’t want to open that can of worms. It is a mess just for that one issue,” he said, noting that the park plans include space for the real estate office to be on “temporary exhibit. “Obviously, that leaves the door open as what ‘temporary’ is.”
The location overlooking Commencement Bay from the uphill slope of Northeast Tacoma has been home to a lighthouse since 1887, two years before Washington became a state. A simple white lantern on a post was preplaced by a formal lighthouse and keeper residence in 1901. The current lighthouse dates back to 1933.The area became a public park in 1964 when the station. The park is open during daylight hours and historical tours of the lighthouse, the keeper’s cottage, which is also rented out, and are available from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays during the summer.
Metro Parks is in the final stages of public talks about the proposed changes. The entire park improvement project is expected to be completed by next summer, just in time for the bi-annual fish fry.
Jerry MeekerJerry Meeker’s role in early Pierce County history, and that of the Puyallup Tribe, can’t be understated. Meeker seemingly did everything. He was a teacher, a businessman, an interpreter, a promoter and leader of his people for generations.
Meeker was the son of Sky-uch, who went by the name “Jim” and worked for legendary area promoter and “hops king” Ezra Meeker. His father admired Meeker so much that he adopted his last name. Jerry Meeker was born in 1862 and attended the Puyallup Indian School.
He helped organize an effort to shift the Northeast Tacoma area from King County to Pierce County jurisdiction in 1901.
Meeker joined a real estate partnership, the Bethel Investment Co., with Fremont Campbell, J.M. Campbell, George Taylor, and Frank Ross in 1904. They acquired much of Browns Point and platted out the Hyada Park development. Meeker gave the streets native names, including La-Hal-Da, his own native name.
Waterfront lots sold for $250 at the time, making Meeker a principal developer of the area. But he is most known for his salmon bakes in the 1930s. They started out as small gatherings but quickly grew to include regional events that drew thousands of people and countless dignitaries to the area. They continue to this day and are sponsored by the Browns Point Improvement Club.
Meeker died at the age of 93 in the 1950s. A neighborhood park and middle school bear his name. With the death of his granddaughter, his home has come under the ownership of the Puyallup Tribe. Tribal members have also preserved many of his possessions, including woven baskets and photographs that had been stolen and found their way to a local auction house in 2009.