Peninsula Daily News news sources

TACOMA — As the venerable art deco ferry Kalakala enters the final stages of its dismantling in a dry dock ironically called a graving yard, the company scrapping the vessel is being besieged with requests for souvenirs of the Depression-era symbol of Northwest spirit.

The office phone at Rhine Demolition Inc. has been ringing nonstop with calls from people seeking such souvenirs as bolts, brass window trim and even parts from an engine that hasn’t operated since Lyndon B. Johnson was president.

“They just want a piece of the Kalakala,” said Mike Lano Sr., who’s running the demolition crew.

“Everybody wants a little trinket.”

PA mural subject

The ferry that once hosted big-band parties on Puget Sound and later plied the Port Angeles-Victoria route — inspiring a building-sized mural in downtown Port Angeles that will outlive the vessel — already looks as though a hurricane has hit it on the left side as it sits in the dry dock leaning to the same side.

The company doesn’t know when it’ll be ready to sell souvenirs, but the office is compiling a list of people who are interested, Lano said.

He said demolition crews expect to finish scrapping the rusted boat no later than Feb. 8.

Powering through

They’ve been methodically working their way through, seeing what they can salvage.

“The propeller is long gone,” Lano said, “but we’ll probably save the rudder for posterity.”

They’ll work to save the distinctive rounded pilot house on top of the vessel.

And workers are trying to preserve some art deco railing and portholes, though the original brass from those has been gone for years.

Brass windows

Lano’s crew used torches to cut out the brass windows that are left, arched ones that run along both sides of the superstructure. Most of the glass was broken out long ago.

It’s possible some relics might end up on public display.

“We’re thinking that we like to keep a good image with the public, so if some museum or the Port of Tacoma or somebody is interested, we’ll be happy to work something out with them,” Lano said.

“Demolition is a treasure hunt,” he said. “That’s just the nature of it.”

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Alexis Krell of McClatchy News Service contributed to this report.