Direct democracy has entered the world of Federal preservation grant funding. One of my employers, Northwest Seaport, is in competition with two dozen other historic preservation groups for a National Trust for Historic Preservation grant to complete much-needed maintenance on the 1889 tugboat Arthur Foss. The money will be given out to those projects which receive the most online votes from the public, so your vote counts! Anyone can vote, and you can vote once a day. It’s Chicago-style: vote early and vote often. To cast your vote, visit the link here.

A few words about the worthy Arthur Foss: Originally named Wallowa, she was built as a steam tug in 1889 to haul sailing ships into Astoria, Oregon accross the notorious Columbia River Bar. Still under steam, Wallowa helped to bring supplies and miners to Alaska during the Yukon Gold Rush in 1898. Wallowa was acquired and renamed in 1929 by the Foss Launch & Tug Company and converted to diesel power. Her massive six-cylinder Washington Iron Works diesel engine (18 X 24, 700 hp) is comfortable at 170 rpm and is now maintained by Old Tacoma Marine. 

Arthur Foss was loaned to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1934 and starred in the film Tugboat Annie as the Narcissus, which is said to have been the model for Steamboat Willy’s tug in the first cartoon to feature the character who would become Mickey Mouse. She served in the Hawaiian Islands in the early ’40s and was the last vessel to make it out of Wake Island before the Japanese invasion of 1942, a feat which she accomplished with some well-timed coats of gray paint.

Foss donated the Arthur to Northwest Seaport in 1970, and since then she has been a regular feature at historic ship and tug events from Puget sound to Alaska. She is moored at the Historic Ship’s Wharf at South Lake Union in downtown Seattle, and has been a National Historic Landmark since 1989. 

For more on the Arthur Foss and the survey project which this grant will hopefully fund, see here. And vote now! One last note: if this grant comes through, it will put myself and many other shipwrights in the Seattle area to work in a difficult economy for our craft. Put your tax dollars to work on wooden ships!