On Saturday morning Tacomans will gather to celebrate the return of the Dickman Mill head saw to the Ruston Way waterfront. The massive historic artifact underwent major restoration to serve as the centerpiece for a park expansion that commemorates an era when Tacoma was acclaimed as the Lumber Capital of America.
The head saw, a Registered Historic Artifact, was removed from the site nearly 20-years ago to protect it for restoration purposes after years of exposure to shoreline weather and salt air had taken a toll. As part of the park improvements, it was transported to a steel fabricator in Spokane for restoration. The park expansion includes a new plaza where the head saw is displayed adjacent to Ghost Log, an interpretive public art piece designed to convey the significance of the cedar tree to not only the lumber industry, but also to help convey its sacred value to the Puyallup Tribe.
The park expansion was made possible through a generous $2.9 million gift provided by Cambia Health Solutions, parent company to Regence BlueShield whose operations began in service to Tacoma’s millworkers. Today, Regence BlueShield is one of Tacoma’s oldest and largest employers with 600 staff. As Cambia celebrated its centennial in 2017, the company wanted to commemorate its 100-year legacy in a meaningful way. After considering many options, they decided the perfect fit for the company whose roots began on Tacoma’s waterfront would be an investment completing the long-desired expansion of Dickman Mill Park as a community gathering space with the restoration of the iconic head saw as its centerpiece.
In support of the park’s restoration, volunteers with Metro Parks Tacoma’s CHIP-in! (Community Helping Improve Parks) program have invested more than 300 hours helping remove invasives from the native plantings that were added to help restore the shoreline ecosystem when Metro Parks acquired the property and began site rehabilitation in in the 1990s.
Featured speakers will include:
- Commissioner Andrea Smith, Metro Parks Tacoma Board of Park Commissioners
- Mayor Victoria Woodards, Tacoma
- Claire Verity, President Regence BlueShield
- Claire Keller-Scholz, Metro Parks Tacoma Historian
Wow! what a waste! they spent that much on something birds will just poop on instead of using the money to fix all the pothole filled streets a long with the raggedy job they did on the roads where the train tracks are.. prioritizing junk before safety is not productive. no stars Tacoma 0.
Parks are gathering places for our communities people and a way to honor our past. This is part of our culture.
Repairing potholes is maintaining the infrastructure of our community. This is part of bureaucracy.
No need to compare the two. We can improve both.
For many of us that live in the Northern part of Tacoma, all the lumber that was available came from this mill and many other’s along the Ruston way waterfront. As a kid and young adult I do remember the sound of that saw when it was cooking through log’s making lumber, all the tug boat’s that had log booms in tow and the rafting up of log booms along the mill. I always marveled at the guy’s in there spiked cork boots that could walk, jump and hop around these log boom’s to shift the logs around to process them for the mill, I couldn’t do that, one bad mistake and down you go between two or more logs and crushed the life out of you. It was a special time to watch, learn and appreciate what those men could do with the tools they had to work with, it was hard dangerous work, from the logger’s who cut the tree’s down to the trucker’s who transported logs to the mill, and the tug boat crew’s who towed the log boom’s from Olympia to Tacoma and back and forth. I’m very happy to see this saw was saved!!
Regence Blue Shield has money to waste . Shouldn’t they be paying medical bills with those Millions ? Can’t enjoy the waterfront with the constant threat of shootings. City of Tacoma repeals helmet laws when the lime scooters arrived instead of protecting riders.
Guess that hard working people overpaid 3 Million in premiums to pay for this. What a waste of resources. I guess I can walk a few miles to it while there is no parking while being put off on my needed surgery they won’t cover ! WLM