Victorian Festival Port Townsend

Details, details

In the good old days I always had this phrase on my resume: “detail-oriented.” This was a good thing for an administrator, making certain nothing fell through the cracks. I’m still working on it as a photographer. After all, there are details and then there are details. The buildings on the Insider’s Historic Building Tour in Port Townsend last Sunday were all terrific. But the details were my eye candy. Like the window pull, above, in the Cracker Factory. And it wasn’t until I pulled the shot up on my computer screen that I saw the tiny bubbles and imperfections in the original glass of the window. Cool!

These door hinges from the Cracker Factory were also in the Hastings Building, albeit less buffed. In the late 1800s I’d guess that a single foundry served the region and that choices were somewhat limited. By today’s standards these would be the “very fancy, extra-nice” option, at least in my opinion.

This door pull was in a third building we visited, one that’s now called the “Mount Baker Block,” but started out its life as the “Eisenbeis Block,” the same Eisenbeis as built the Cracker Factory which I showed you a couple of days ago. The work on this is splendid.

“What’s this?” you may ask. I’m not sure if it’s decoration or function, but it is on the under side of a stairway in the Mount Baker Block. I thought it was another “don’t see much like that anymore” detail.

Details, details: I find them interesting. Pretty. And a view onto a time when there was artistry, personal effort, and a lot of pride put into the little things. It still exists today, but is shown in different ways, in a vastly different world.

The Hastings Building

The Hastings Building was included on the Port Townsend Insider’s Historic Building Tour. Since the upper floors are unoccupied and closed the tour was worth taking just to have an opportunity to look around. Built in 1889 it sports the kind of Victorian decoration and detail that you typically only see on a wedding cake these days.

The interior has a 38-foot inside court which soars to a skylight that once spanned the length of the building. It was quite a novelty in its day and its engineering didn’t keep pace with the stress of a snowload which caused a portion of it to collapse. The building had many tenants over the years, from banks and professional offices to tailors and contractors. Businesses closed during the Great Depression and we were told it was used by the U.S. Army for housing during “the war.”

The upstairs of the Hastings Building has been unoccupied for decades and seem frozen in time with period wallpaper and fixtures. The building is the only one in Port Townsend that has remained in the family of the original owners and heirs are working to restore it. There has been a lot of deferred maintenance; much work needs to be done. But as a building with promise it’s gorgeous. Just bring a fat checkbook.

This vintage piece was owned by Lucinda Hastings, the widowed matriarch who commissioned the building. A portion of the wall is exposed behind it, opened when the building structure was examined for its soundness. Steel beams were discovered running the length of the building and the construction itself was found to be very stout and stable.

The Eisenbeis Cracker Factory

The historic Eisenbeis Cracker Factory was part of the downtown walking tour offered by the Port Townsend Victorian Heritage Festival on Sunday. It was built by Prussian baker Charles Eisenbeis, the city’s first mayor, in 1888. The factory specialized in provisions for ocean-bound shipping: hardtack, ship’s bread, and biscuits.

The present day Cracker Factory has come a long way since its industrial beginnings. Presently for sale, it is described as “newly envisioned” by its artist and contractor owners. The steel oven from the factory remains but the building has been extensively remodeled. The white walls they found inside the building turned out to be not painted but coated with flour from its years as a bakery.

Charles Eisenbeis was quite a successful businessman. He built a number of buildings in Port Townsend and one of his descendents, Fred Eisenbeis, operated a grocery store in what later became known as the Elks Building. It’s not as clear as the First National Bank portion of the ghost signs above but you can see reference to both the Cracker Factory and the Grocery Store in the top ghost sign.

Victorian Festival, Port Townsend

Last weekend was the annual Victorian Festival in Port Townsend which celebrates Port Townsend’s heyday of the 1890s. There is a focus on Victorian era clothing – many residents don period-appropriate threads – and a variety of events. This year there was a bare-knuckle fight exhibition and a gattling gun demonstration. This funeral carriage was on display Saturday and a costumed passerby volunteered to honor its history. On Sunday we took a tour of a number of historic downtown buildings. I’ll show you some of what we saw in the next few days.