When it was Cool to Burn Ships on Puget Sound..

As the maritime industry moved away from wood and more into steel hulls, the older boats were discarded, grounded or burned.  

On Puget Sound, it became a common practice to burn the old ships from the 1920's to the 1950's.  At low tides, scrap metal would be recovered. 

Families would come out and set up a picnic while watching ships burn along the shore at Richmond Beach and other spots along the Sound.  

Assuming this was before the environmental movement.  

Here's one from Richmond Beach titled by MOHAI as "Burning hull of the steam tug "Daniel Kern," April 1939". Read more about the Kern here

 

Read more about the Richmond Beach burning events at this link, called the Ronald Blog - Click Here

Here's a Google Maps view of the beach north of Picnic Point where a few were burned or grounded. 

The SS Bering, a former reindeer ship was bought by the Tregoning Boat Company in Ballard (Seattle) and was beached at what is now called Secret Beach.  

In 1964 it was burned to make way for shore development such as the Ballard Elks Lodge.  I wrote about the SS Bering in this blog post from 2000.  

Older Elks members told me they played on the ship as kids, one jumping off of it into the water.    At low tide you can still find burned pieces of wood with bolts and nails on the beach there. 

Current View at a -1 tide...

More tall ships...but this time in Port Angeles Harbor

The photo above was posted to a Facebook group I've joined, called Historic Olympic Peninsula, without attribution or credit.  But it was so striking that I decided to re-post it here...if any viewers know where this one is from please let me know.  The poster dated it to roughly 1895, and its a view of downtown Port Angeles, taken from about here and looking north.  Two things jumped out at me.  First, the tall ships in the harbor reminded me of my last post, which focused on tall ships anchored off of Port Townsend in 1891.  Second, this photo pre-dates, but about two decades, the filling of downtown Port Angeles, which is a focus of a few of my previous posts.  This view really provides a nice perspective on Port Angeles as a built-on-the-beach town.  Here is the modern view (February 2022):