Knappton Cove celebrates 2008 as year of the rat

The U.S. quarantine station at Knappton Cove Heritage Center will hold an open house on May 24 from 1-4 p.m.

Visitors are invited to celebrate National Historic Preservation Month by visiting the Pesthouse Museum at Knappton Cove and seeing the new roof, gutters and downspouts –made possible by the Kinsman Foundation, the Wahkiakum Community Foundation, the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation and individual donors.

The open house will include information about future historic preservation plans at the station, and will commemorate 2008 as the Chinese ‘year of the rat.’ In 1900, there was a serious resurgence of the plague in Honolulu and Hong Kong which was a major health concern with ships arriving from those ports. Ironically 1900, when the station had just opened, was also the ‘year of the rat.’ Ship captains were urged to “clean up your ship and rid the vessel of rats.”

Shopping at a porch sale and gift shop raises fundsto help further preservation efforts needed to restore the ‘pesthouse.’

Knappton Cove is located on Hwy 401, three miles upriver (east) from the Washington side of the Astoria/Megler bridge.

Email: Thecove@theore-gonshore.com for more information.