Seattle Schooner Meets its End
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Mar. 9, 2009
Wawona in 2007
Credit: Joe Mabel
Last Wednesday a crowd gathered at a Seattle dock to witness the end of the Wawona, the first ship added to the National Register of Historic Places. The 165-foot schooner was dragged to drydock, where she will be destroyed.
Launched in 1897, the hauler was decommissioned in 1964, and added to the register in 1970. She has not been restored since.
The city removed the ship's three 110-foot masts in 2006, citing safety concerns. Workers salvaged paneling from the Wawona's captain's cabin and other pieces of the schooner, which will be displayed in the new Museum of History and Industry at South Lake Union Park.
In an interview in June 2006, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels told the Seattle Channel that the city intended to demolish the ship as part of its development of South Lake Union Park, where the Wawona had been docked for more than 25 years.
"The Wawona, which is a historic ship, unfortunately, is not beautiful. And it's not safe," Nickels said. The Northwest Seaport Maritime Heritage Center, owners of the ship since the 1960s, estimated that she needed $15 million in repairs. "[They] worked very hard to restore it," Nickels said. "But they haven't been able to raise anything near the kind of money to be able to keep it safe."
Many locals lamented the loss of the once-grand vessel, built to transport lumber and later used as a fishing boat and, during World War II, a military barge.
"I feel like I'm losing a close friend," says Seattle writer Joe Follansbee, author of a 2006 book about the Wawona. "Saving ships is one of the hardest tasks in preservation, and the volunteers who tried to save Wawona over the years should be praised, even though they ultimately failed."
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