Attorney recalls county's march into 21st century

Over 500 people came - the largest crowd ever assembled in Wahkiakum county - to honor one man. The courtroom filled with people, hundreds more lined the streets unable to hear the words of tribute pronounced by the speakers inside.

Thus was the funeral of George Henry “Hank” Hanigan reported in the Columbia River Sun in 1947.

“Hey maybe you can write my epitaph” said George Hanigan (Hank’s son) sitting at a table in PJ’s Restaurant recently.

“I’ll write it for free,” I said, "but let’s get through the interview first.”

It wasn’t just me he teased: A few seconds later, waitress Christina arrived and asked George if he’d like something to drink.

“How about some of that black stuff,” he said with a mischievous glance toward her.

“Black stuff? Oh, you mean coffee?” she said with a little smile at George’s playfulness.

“Regular or decaf,” George asked with a straight face.

“Would you like milk with your decaf?” Christina said, getting into the spirit of the attorney’s playful interrogation.

George answered with silence.

“I’ll take that as ‘No’ milk with the decaf,” she said and turned toward the kitchen.

At 71, former Wahkiakum Prosecuting Attorney George F. Hanigan is a feisty man with a long, long list of credits and services to Wahkiakum County.

The Hanigan family history goes way back and is so entwined with Wahkiakum’s that the two are almost inseparable, and the scampish senior Hanigan’s mercurial story telling doesn’t help.

George said his grandfather arrived in Wahkiakum in the late 1860’s from the state of Michigan.

“Before that he had clear-cut the Sahara Forest and now they call it the Sahara Desert, and that’s how it got that way,” said George.

George continued the tall-tale saying his great grandfather had logged the Sahara Desert all by himself and then settled down in the Elochoman Valley to marry and raise six kids. “One of the kids, my grandfather, George Hanigan, whom I’m named after, became the county assessor, then clerk, then county prosecutor.”

Not only do the Hanigans know the law, they also know the land. “Our title company was originally an abstract company formed in 1890,” said George. The company would compile all the legal deeds, mortgages and debt satisfactions related to a piece of property and then hire a lawyer to interpret the documents.

George said the abstract company became a title company in 1941. He said his father had died in the 1930’s and his mother ran the company until her death in 1958 when Julia Butler Hansen took over and ran it until 1962.

Like the Hanigan family itself, today the title company is a treasure trove of historical records that date back to the 1840s, when Washington State was still a territory. In those days the company collected a lot of personal information, and George said that in today’s “information age,” the personal information is no longer appropriate to include in title searches.

“We’re probably one of the oldest title companies in the state and we are slowly sorting through the old files because, for example, there would be a letter from my mother to somebody in Seattle discussing business but also talking about how her son George had made the baseball team.”

In addition to being the Cathlamet city attorney, George was also the PUD attorney, and the Port 1 and Port 2 attorney as well as the county’s voluntary juvenile probation officer. He said he enjoyed helping the kids that came through the court system because he could relate to them.

“I enjoyed sitting down with the kids and working with them,” he said.

The times have changed, however, and so have the problems and the kids.

“The kids I counseled were pretty low-keyed compared to today's.” George said. “You might see a kid that got caught with a beer, or borrowed a car without someone’s permission, but most kids weren’t felonious.”

George said that the problems kids have today are different from yesteryear's. And he worries that modern kids seem unable to find a middle ground, “They are either completely free of problems or completely deep in them,” he said.

Changing gears, George said there are a few things in county government he’s disappointed about. He said he set up Wahkiakum County’s reserve fund which took seven years because he couldn’t get the commissioners to buy into the idea.

The way state law handles county timber revenues is to give back 90 percent of the timber revenues if the county falls into a certain category, and its current expense fund is in debt.

“Well I worked with the county auditor to make sure the current expense fund was always in debt by at least a dollar,” said George.

George said his strategy worked and by the time he retired in the 1980’s the county had built up a $20 million reserve fund. The money was to be used as a financial safety net for the county.

However, over time, county commissioners began using the fund for all kinds of projects.

“It was really lousy,” said George, “they spent those reserves and then when they needed them they didn’t have it!”

George said of all the things he’s done for the county he is most proud of helping establish County Line Park and Vista Park and the marina.

“It was funny,” said George, “when we (the Port 1 commissioners) were putting the marina plan together, the town of Cathlamet was against it.”

George said that where the marina is today was all dry land before Port 1 began building the marina. “Cathlamet wanted us to swap the marina site for where the sewage pond is today,” he said.

George said Port 1 commissioners told Cathlamet council that beneath the sewage site was solid rock and the site wouldn’t work for a marina.

“If we’d taken the deal, we would have had to dynamite the whole place to get a boat in there at low tide,” he said.

So, what about that little fire engine red Volvo hardtop-convertible sports car George drives around town?

“That’s my toy,” he says with a grin. “I like it.”

Never able to pass up a good deal, George said the real reason he bought the car was because Volvo Manufacturing flew him to Sweden to pick it out.

“It seems it was cheaper for them to fly me over and sell it to me there than for them to sell it to me here. Doesn’t matter, I got a free trip out of the deal,” he said with that charming sparkle in his eyes.