PORT ANGELES — Don Perry, a former Port Angeles deputy mayor and historian credited with saving the Port Angeles Underground and its history, has died.
Perry’s family believes he died of a heart attack Monday, his wife, Judy Perry, said Tuesday. He was 71.
“He really loved Port Angeles and its people,” she said, adding he always helped the community in any way he could.
Served on council
He served on the Port Angeles City Council from 2007-11, was involved with civic organizations such as the Lions Club, previously ran the Port Angeles Speedway and founded the Port Angeles Underground and Heritage Tour in 2000.
He fought tooth and nail with the city to save the Port Angeles Underground after learning of the city’s $200,000 water main project that would have closed the last section of the underground under Laurel Street, his wife said.
Perry took the City Council on a tour of the dark and chilly vault under downtown in 2003 and convinced them to save not only the Underground but a piece of Port Angeles history.
1914 solution
The Underground was created in 1914 to solve a problem: Much of the downtown was on mud flats, and businesses built on piers and docks had privies over Port Angeles Harbor. When the tide was out, all was well. When it came in, it was a mess.
In January 1914, the Port Angeles City Council — faced with raw sewage on the beaches and a downtown that flooded with every rainstorm and high tide — voted to raise the downtown street level by more than 10 feet to lift it above the tidal flats.
The process left some buildings with a new front door one level above the old one and created the Port Angeles Underground, a series of tunnels underneath the oldest part of downtown Port Angeles.
“He loved Port Angeles, and when he found out about the history of how they raised the underground, he thought it was amazing, considering they did all that in 1914,” Judy Perry said. “He just loved that and wanted to share that with everyone else.”
When Perry led tours downtown, he made history come alive, said John Brewer, a former Peninsula Daily News publisher who also hosted tours of the underground.
“He was a real walking history book about Port Angeles,” said Brewer, who is also president of the Port Angeles Business Association. “He learned from the historical society, people who toured with him, or he’d get real curious and do some research.”
Brewer had helped Perry early on by providing tours when cruise ships stopped in Port Angeles. When he heard Perry give a talk at a Port Angeles Downtown Association meeting last year, Brewer was amazed at how much more Perry knew about the town.
“The city owes him a great debt of gratitude for saving its history,” Brewer said. “He really made it for tourists and for locals.”
Perry sold the underground tour to Black Ball Ferry Line in April but continued working on the underground.
Earlier this month, Perry and Bill Huizinga installed a cedar sidewalk just in time for the haunted underground tours.
Huizinga, a former Sequim council member, said Tuesday he was glad he and Perry had the chance to install that sidewalk.
“He always wanted to get that area with a board sidewalk as it had been prior,” Huizinga said. “Don was passionate about preserving the underground and fought hard and diligently to preserve it.”
While Perry was building up the tours, he also operated the Port Angeles Speedway with Huizinga and Fred Minker.
When the previous owners offered to lease the business to the three of them, it seemed like a good idea at the time, Huizinga said.
They quickly learned they were wrong.
“That was the worst decision we ever made,” he said. “None of us liked it at all.”
What they enjoyed was racing. Huizinga recalled racing go-carts with Perry — and Perry was very competitive.
“We’d usually bump into each other and he’d turn my cart right over,” Huizinga said. “When we decided to race cars in the same class, people were a little bit afraid of what was going to happen.”
While there was plenty of bumping with the go-carts, the two kept it clean on the racetrack, Huizinga said, adding that Perry was a really good driver and they had plenty of fun.
Huizinga said Perry will be remembered for his dedication to Port Angeles, his passion for helping people and for the pride he took in his family.
“He was so proud of his girls and his wife,” he said. “That’s something I totally respected him for.”
Deputy Mayor Cherie Kidd and Perry were elected to the City Council at the same time, in 2007.
Kidd said both were part of the Underground Foundation, which joined other community members, including Jackson Smart, whom Kidd said introduced Perry to the Underground, in preserving the landmark.
His heritage tours were a tourist magnet, Kidd added.
“People from all over the world took his tours,” she said.
“He was a visionary.
“He was on the cutting edge of tourism for our downtown.”
Perry also was someone who was there if you needed him, Kidd added.
She recalled that after her mother had a stroke, Perry and the Lions Club showed up, ready to build a wheelchair ramp to her front door.
“Don just did so much,” Kidd said.
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Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsuladailynews.com.
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb contributed to this report.
Don Perry, who conducts heritage tours of Port Angeles, describes the experiences of paranormal investigators in a portion of the underground beneath the shops and sidewalks in the downtown area in 2015. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
