ASTORIA – For years, people looked at the old railroad depot at the Columbia River Maritime Museum here and envisioned a restaurant, a bank or some other commercial venture. Others envisioned nothing at all – at least nothing befitting a historic building designed by a noted architect.

Then, along came boat builder Sam Johnson and what did he see? Why, a boat building shop, of course.

"For some reason no one ever thought of using it for boat building," said Johnson executive director of the Museum since 2009. "It was surprising because the gillnet boat on display in the museum was built there. After that it was used for storage."

Barbey Maritime Center

What:

Dedication of the Barbey Maritime Center for Research and Industry

When:

Friday, 4 to 6 p.m.

Where:

2042 Marine Drive, Astoria

Projected museum hours:

9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily

More information:

503-325-2323

No more.

On Friday, the Maritime Museum will dedicate The Barbey Maritime Center for Research and Industry, a living history museum that will offer all sorts of classes and demonstrations – including boat building. It's named for the Barbey Family, "pioneers and leaders" in the salmon packing industry on the Columbia River.

The dedication comes six months ahead of time and under budget, with construction efforts nearly trouble free and fundraising the necessary $2.6 million easier than anyone dared dream.

"I think people feel so strongly about this building," Johnson said. " Everyone in this town who has been here for any length of time has a great fondness for it."

Donations included two individual gifts of $250,000 and hundreds of smaller gifts –

and not all money.

"One of our volunteers told his wife before he died that he wanted us to have all his tools," Johnson said. "There's a multitude of small tools that it takes years to accumulate and we got them. It's truly a nice gift."

The "Prairie School" style depot was designed by architect Thomas D. McMahon and built in 1925 by the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railroad. It once served up to eight trains a day. After 1952, the depot was used only for freight handling, and in 1987, the Burlington Northern Railroad gave the depot to the museum.

And there it sat – save for a short time in 1989 when it was used as a shop to build the replica gillnet boat – a storage room, slowly crumbling to ruin.

"The choice was clear: fix it up or let it die," said Johnson.

The Astoria Railroad Station was built in 1925 and by 1952, served as many as eight passenger trains a day. It had fallen into disrepair until recently but will now be home to the Barbey Maritime Center, which opens today.

Repairs on earthquake damage sustained in the 2001 Nisqually earthquake began in 2011 and in 2012 serious renovation work got under way.

This spring will bring the first round of classes that Johnson hopes will not only preserve the local historical maritime culture, but the artifacts themselves.

"We've already scheduled 30 different classes and workshops starting in May," Johnson said. "We're also having substantial chunk relating to Northwest Indian Culture. One of the Warm Springs Indian Tribe will teach a class in making dip nets. There will be a class on Northwest Indian decorative carving and canoe making. We also have somebody coming into teach how to make water decoys. It's a wide variety ... all things related to the Pacific Northwest maritime culture."

Johnson is also hoping to find someone to teach the art of making halibut hooks and fish floats, which he describes as "absolutely beautiful, functional works of art" that very few people know how to make.

They will also be making copper boat nails on site, and already a handful of boat makers have inquired about buying them. The nails are apparently made only one other place in the world, England, and rumor has it, that manufacture may not stay in the business much longer, Johnson said.

The nails will sell for about $35 a pound, and so far interested boat makers have indicated they will need 60 to 100 pounds each. Volunteers and staff will also be making small boats, nets, belaying pins, canvas ditty bags, mast hoops, among other maritime miscellany. The work will be done in demonstrations for guests and sold on line and in the museum store.

And still to come, the gillnet or "Butterfly Fleet."

"I want to make sure the shops are fully outfitted and working well before we start the gillnet fleet project," Johnson said.

He's aiming for a fleet of at least six and hoping to use the boats for demonstrations of gillnetting techniques.

"We have the potential to have one of the best boat building programs in the country. We have more space than almost any other boat building program run in a museum in the U.S. There's no question about that."

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