Follow the paper trail of Camas’ rich history with First Friday events

CAMAS — When Anna Fry started working at this town’s signature business 29 years ago, she was a papermaker on the factory floor.

Fry has moved up in the world since then — she’s an operations support specialist at what’s now the Georgia-Pacific paper mill — but she still works with big wads of paper: Antique photographs, lists of former employees, obsolete operations manuals, vintage products from yesteryear that aren’t manufactured here or don’t exist at all anymore — like rolls of pink-colored toilet paper.

All that priceless paper mill history keeps turning up in unexpected spots, from obscure corners and basements of the Camas complex itself, to private homes of the many retired papermakers who never stop feeling deep loyalty and keen interest in the place, Fry said.

Those retirees have always wondered: Why doesn’t this place have its own museum?

“We get so many calls and questions,” Fry said. “There’s so much interest, we knew it would be a good idea to open this up.”

Fry started amassing her own paper mill history files years ago, she said; then, in October 2015, heavy rain flooded the rather anonymous company lobby at 401 N.E. Adams St. Renovations were needed. It was Fry’s big chance, and management liked her vision.

One year later, in October 2016, the new room was unveiled: a visitors center featuring a floor-to-ceiling historical timeline; fun and enlightening photographs; historical equipment, schematic diagrams and vintage products (tiny bags for candy, medium bags for sugar, big bags for potatoes); a short documentary film featuring Camas historian Virginia Warren; and even a low-key, old-fashioned, kitchen-table “meeting room” where managers and clients still do business sometimes.

Even though the visitors center is still new, and only opens its doors to the general public monthly, it’s already become quite popular — and additional donations to it keep finding Fry. She predicts lots more evolution and expansion for this miniature in-house museum.

“I’m loving all of it,” Fry said. “Word is out that Anna likes old stuff.”

Strolls and rolls

You can check out the display April 7, as the Downtown Camas Association goes back in time for “Spring into History,” this month’s First Friday celebration. (Don’t miss the vintage marketing photo featuring a woman entirely decked out in paper products — with the whole mill itself perched atop her oh-so-chic paper hat!)

The event runs from 5-8 p.m., all over downtown Camas. Start at Journey Church, 304 N.E. Fourth Ave., to take in an art show and auction, and to pick up your activity list. From there you can stroll all around downtown, playing a “Guess About Camas” history game (unless you don’t have to guess because you know); collect all the facts to be entered in a prize drawing. Enjoy shopping and dining specials while you’re at it.

The Two Rivers Heritage Museum in next-door Washougal will show off its own historical artifacts, as well as souvenirs and even handmade rugs woven out of Pendleton wool on an 1890s traveling loom. All local art galleries are hosting exhibits and receptions — including the Camas Public Library’s Second Story Gallery, which will show “Our Point of View,” a collection of works by the Advanced Photography students at Camas High School.

You’ll be able to meet Vancouver author Diane Green-Hartley, whose family memoir “Lillie’s Jasper: The 1930 Pilgrimage of a Gold Star Mother” is a collection of correspondence, diary entries and other writings by Green-Hartley’s great-grandmother, who lost her son in World War I and eventually went to Europe to visit his grave.

Finally, don’t miss a profound local tradition that ties all this local history back to the paper mill: the grand toilet paper toss.