The America 250 initiative sponsored by the State suggested listing 5 things from the collection & letting the community decide what will be displayed in our town.  The race was tight for a while with a collage of old logging equipment, but the 3D tree union button tree pulled out a resounding win. So the work began in ernest to bring the tree tot he public before the 4th of July.

There was a lot of cleaning since this tree was made around 1962. (Thank you Skooter Scherieble). There were a number of missing buttons but the key ones were half of the letter U which made it hard to read.  Grays Harbor Stamp Works made the original buttons.  They came through with those needed to fill out the U.  Wow – can you imagine a filing system that let them pull out the buttons needed?

Then the pieces needed to be joined in a way that would allow a secure display.  AFL-CIO funded the wood needed.  Volunteers went to work.

Thanks particularly to Fred Goheen, Les Bolton, Jim Minkler and Ed Burdsall.  When the framing and support was complete, it was transported to the History98520 office.  It was set up for the July 3rd first Friday event.  It does look beautiful.

    Mighty results from a Little Seed where the seed is a large button saying “Union Goods & Services”.  The buttons include 158 union organizations from WA, OR, ID, CA, MO, WY, HI & AK.  All the buttons were created by Grays Harbor Stamp Works of Aberdeen from the late 50’s to 1962.  There are 3 other button mosaics in the collection.  Research continues but it is believed they were built for a convention display.  If you know anything about this event please call 360-533-1976.