Wenatchee’s Most Famous “Shed”?
These days, every day on the calendar has some sort of "day" attached to it.
From seasonal holidays we're all familiar with like Halloween and Christmas, to 24-hour cycles of awareness for various causes like fighting hunger and disease, to days celebrating foods like soft pretzels and red velvet cake, no day in our 365-day year (366 on leap years ;-) are without a good-sized list of various things which have been commemorated for the sake of keeping in mind and appreciating.
But some days of the year feature occasions which are far more unique than others. And today - May 5th - features one of the more unusual inclusions among these hundreds and hundreds of entries.
Today is Hug A Shed And Take A Selfie Day, and in case you were wondering just what in the hell they mean by shed (just like I, did by the way), they're referring to those little outbuildings we find in yards and alongside any number of structures - both big and small - from commercial, residential, and even industrial. And the day is set aside to say a collective thanks for the shed and all of the many items it has helped us to store over the years.
In case you didn't know, it turns out that the shed has quite a colorful and storied history.
The Ancient Egyptians built underground silos lined with reeds to store grain that are actually considered the earliest known form of the modern shed. While Europeans of the same time period used mammoth skins and tusks for sheds to shelter their important items, and Native Americans built igloos from blocks of ice and snow to perform the same function.
Today of course, there are all kinds of sheds. From pre-fabricated plastic ones to ragtag old wooden ones. But one that has always really stood out to me which is right here in the Wenatchee Valley can be found at Walla Walla Point Park.
Now this might be a bit of a stretch in dubbing as a shed, since it was actually originally a barn, but I think for the purposes of Hug A Shed And Take A Selfie Day it works perfectly...since these days, it's referred to as "the boathouse"; which is used to store various articles related to personal aquatic conveyances by the Wenatchee Row & Paddle Club.
The club was founded in 1989 by Larry Tobiska, Elliot Scull, and Bob Derry, and the barn that became the club's boathouse was actually what predicated the genesis of the entire group, since the trio were looking for a place to store their implements for rowing that was near to the Columbia River.
The barn, which was known as the Lindston barn, was situated at the foot of Ninth Street at the time, and the Chelan County Public Utility District (PUD) was considering its demolition as it constructed what would eventually become Walla Walla Point Park.
But Tobiska, Scull, and Derry convinced the PUD to spare the barn and they went to work on preserving it to use as their much needed storage facility...and the club was born!
The group, which was originally called the Wenatchee Rowing Club and featured a dozen members, soon took off and became an umbrella for the sport of paddling as well.
Decades later, the Wenatchee Row & Paddle Club has two storage buildings which house over a hundred boats, both club- and privately-owned.
So it seems our old buddy the shed can do more than just house the important tangibilities of life, since it also helped bring hundreds of enthusiasts with a similar interest right here in the Wenatchee Valley together...and has helped to keep them together and going strong for over 30 years now!
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