Holiday high-lights
The Lincoln County Historical Society is helping to brighten the holiday season with one-day and season-long events at its historically significant and visually stunning properties.
Burrows House
A lighting ceremony for the Christmas lights on the Victorian-style Burrows House will take place on Saturday, Nov. 19. Take part in a cookie decorating activity, sponsored by My Petite Sweet, and enjoy some hot cocoa in the adjacent Carriage House when the switch is thrown for the first time. Lights will be on each evening through Jan. 1.
“A long time ago they used to hang lights on the Burrows House and we thought it would be nice to spread a little joy and bring that back,” Executive Director Susan Tissot said. “Though it’s not in pristine condition, it has a lot of cool architectural features that we want to highlight — it's a beautiful building and we’re hoping the lights will remind people of that.”
Closed until next year for maintenance, the Burrows House was built in 1895 and has had a few different incarnations.
“It was a boarding house and then a funeral home,” Tissot said. “It was sold in 1976 to the Bank of Newport, but they didn’t want the building, they wanted the land. So, the bank donated the building to us and it was moved to the present location and opened as a museum in 1978.”
Pacific Maritime Heritage Center
Enjoy free admission to the center and shop for gifts at the Holiday Open House and Artisans Market on Saturday, Dec. 3. The day will also include crafting activities for kids and live music in the Doerfler Family Theater, featuring Bethlyn Brandt playing the center’s Steinway piano. Other musicians will include mandolin player Dennis Comfort, clarinetist Lisa Lipton and the Coastal Aires Chorus.
“We will also be having a sale in the museum store,” Tissot said. “We’re going to have blowout prices on our sweatshirts.”
Ongoing at the center will soon be a moving image show shown through the windows of the Doerfler theater.
“In the evenings the public will be able to see a five- or 10-minute artistic production from the sidewalk near Port Dock 5,” Tissot said. “Newport artist Carol Shenk is creating it using historic images from our archives. We hope to start the show in mid-December and will run it in the evening hours after dark which will be a fun thing to see and also cool if you're heading to dinner on the Bayfront.”
The show is also meant to give people a glimpse of the very large collection of historical photos the society has collected since beginning its work in 1948.
“Someday the goal is to digitize the whole collection,” Tissot said. “The tricky part is the meta data, that’s where archivists come in. People need to be able to do keyword searches because most of the time they don’t have a specific image in mind and need to be able to find something using a lot of different topic words.”
Meet the Director
Susan Tissot stepped into the position as executive director in May.
“This is actually a return to Newport for my husband and me,” she said. “I worked on exhibits at Hatfield a while back. One of the things I’m proud of is creating a raised image and braille guide there. That was right before the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. We left the area and worked in four Western states and then came back. Newport was a place that I never wanted to leave but we left to pursue our careers. I cried as we left and now I am so happy to be back.”
Looking forward, Tissot takes very seriously her role in helping to tell stories of the past as a way to improve the future while also highlighting contemporary issues.
An upcoming exhibit will tackle the tragedy of missing and murdered indigenous women. American Indian and Alaskan native women are roughly 10 times more likely to be murdered than any other race, while receiving far less attention and resources dedicated to solving these crimes.
“It’s not our job to tell people how to think,” Tissot said. “But if we get people thinking, we’ve done our job. The Indigenous community is here, is thriving and is a significant contributor in this community.”
As important as the exhibits are to her, Tissot also recognizes the value of the buildings that the historical society oversees, especially the Maritime Center.
“The historical society spent 18 years renovating this building,” she said. “It’s been a labor of love with a lot of community support. Money but also elbow grease. If the community doesn’t feel ownership of these buildings, what’s the point?”
People can also support the society with tax-deductible end-of-year giving.
“We will have a holiday tree in the Maritime Center that will function as an angel tree and will have some of the things we need like a laptop, paper and other basic office supplies. Some people like to know where their money is going, so they can help us with very specific gifts of different values. The tree will be up until the end of the year.”
By hosting free community events, the society hopes to get more community members enjoying their local assets.
“The biggest gift people can give us is to visit us and enjoy our displays,” Tissot said.
The Saturday, Nov. 19, lighting ceremony will be from 4 to 6 pm at the Burrows House, located at 545 SW 9th Street in Newport. The Saturday, Dec. 3, open house and sale will be from 10 am to 3 pm at the Pacific Maritime Heritage Center, located at 333 SE Bay Blvd. in Newport. For more information, go to oregoncoasthistory.org or call 541-265-7509.