Walking tours in step with Vancouver history

If You Go

• What: Walking tours of historical Vancouver, hosted by the Clark County Historical Museum.

■ When: Fridays at noon; Saturdays at 9 a.m., now through Aug. 22.

■ Special Sunday tour: Garden walking tour of the Arnada neighborhood, 1 p.m. Sunday.

■ Where: Meet at Arnada Park, East 25th and G streets.

■ Reservations: Strongly encouraged.

■ Cost: $5 for museum members and $7 for non-members.

■ Call: 360-993-5679 to purchase a ticket; or visit the website, below.

■ On the web: http://www.cchmuseum.org/category/walking-tours/

The closer you look, the more you learn.

That’s what Brad Richardson and the Clark County Historical Society are emphasizing in this summer’s series of neighborhood walking tours, which illuminate the history and evolution of Vancouver through street-level exploration and explanation.

This is the fifth year of these tours, each of which used to range over a whole lot of ground, but this time Richardson has sliced them up pretty finely — because there’s so much to notice and so many tales to tell about the nooks and crannies of historical Vancouver, he said. There are business-oriented tours, church-oriented tours, high-society tours and entertainment-district tours, just to name a few. Take a look at the whole schedule at http://www.cchmuseum.org/category/walking-tours. All tours are lead by Richardson, whose title at the county historical museum is “experience coordinator.”

“It’s always amazing to me to see how much there is to see and how much I keep learning,” Richardson said on Saturday morning, as he led a group of about 20 through the streets of far-flung Vancouver suburbia: the north side of the Shumway neighborhood.

Yes, this used to be where up-and-coming Vancouver professionals — educators, businessmen, doctors, lawyers — and their employees would retreat from the hustle and bustle of city life and build their dream homes. You can see the way money and imagination was pouring into the area, Richardson said, in some of the grand structures and eccentric elements that are visible from the sidewalk — if you only stop to notice them.

Check out, for example, the swooping roofs on some of the smaller ranches, the meticulously patterned Hidden brick in the walls, the curving metal ribs in the sidewalks. Those ribs are actually tracks for horse-drawn carriages, Richardson said, which would have chewed up the concrete if not for these clever curving protectors.

And check out the truly odd duck on the southwest corner of 31st and H, with its weirdly curved surfaces and the onion-dome-ish roof that reaches skyward to a sharp point. Not to mention the huge red saltbox at 31st and I — an elegant, luxurious home in any era — that unhappily faces the I-5 freeway and the endless onslaught of traffic noise. That’s because the house was built long before the freeway cut the developing city in half, Richardson said. Now, the house’s front door and porch stare down a street that’s really a back alley and a sound wall that may or may not live up to its name.

“There is nothing cookie-cutter about this neighborhood,” said tour participant Alan Mitchell, who rarely misses one of these outings. “You get so intrigued by all this.” (After Richardson pointed out all the beautiful brick in the neighborhood, Mitchell said it wouldn’t take much of an earthquake to bring it all down.)

The roots of the neighborhood, Richardson said, are in land now occupied by the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics. The big triangle bounded by Main, Fourth Plain and F Streets used to be a race track that predated the better-documented Bagley Downs, he said. In the 1890s and early 1900s, he said, what was called the Vancouver Driving Association must have held dozens and dozens of races here — until the land was purchased by the Hidden family and the races went elsewhere.

According to historical maps he’s studied, Richardson said, the track was almost precisely where the school is today. That school, of course, was Shumway Junior High before it became today’s VSAA, and it was christened in 1929 in honor of Superintendent Charles Shumway, who lived in the neighborhood and made a name for himself building new schools all over town. Two sweet facts are known about Charles Shumway, Richardson said: He was so inspired by his students and gratified by the school named for him that it brought tears to his eyes — and he had a pet squirrel that he was photographed feeding.

You can find that impossibly cute image, and thousands more, in the electronic archives of the Clark County Historical Society — which are online and open to everyone, Richardson said.

“Our mission is to preserve the history of Clark County,” he said, and that means sharing it too. Keeping it locked up inside the museum is not the point. The point is telling the world what a fascinating place Clark County is, and generating some well-earned community pride, Richardson said.

He added that these tours — of properties which are generally not on any historical register — frequently bump into private homeowners who offer additional insider knowledge. Those interactions keep him eager to keep exploring, he said.

“This is the roots and history of Vancouver,” said Elizabeth Rose, who lived in Vancouver, moved away for work and then retired back here again. “People need to know where they live.”