Photo of ‘Scoop’ missed at Everett’s Ivar’s

EVERETT — The refurbished Ivar’s Seafood Bar at 41st and Colby was packed.

At noon Wednesday, Geri Law, 76, of Edmonds, enjoyed some fish and chips while gazing up at a portrait of the late restaurateur Ivar Haglund with the old ferry Kalakala in the background.

The restaurant’s walls are lined with numerous historical photos, all having to do with the chain of restaurants started by Haglund in 1938 in Seattle.

Missing, however, is a picture especially dear to some Everett customers. A copy of the photo needs to be returned to the Everett Ivar’s restaurant, Law said.

In this posed black-and-white photo, the city’s favorite son and former presidential candidate, the late Sen. Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson, is in his office in the nation’s capital. It’s 1960. Jackson shows off sample postal stamps honoring America’s seafood industry. The stamps feature a clam from the waters of Washington state.

“Jackson was our best senator,” Law said. “He should be honored here.”

Also in the picture, Jackson’s Democratic colleague from the state, Sen. Warren G. Magnuson, is opening a bag of clams sent to Washington, D.C., by Haglund. With them is Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, a Maine Republican, who lobbied to have the Maine sardine printed on the seafood industry postal stamp.

Released by Jackson’s office, the photo came with a caption that read something like this: Any stamp honoring America’s seafood industry should depict the clam, not the sardine, Magnuson and Jackson, stoutly maintained today. They urged Smith to amend her “sardine bill” to one exhorting the nation to “keep clam” instead. The Washington senators forwarded to Sen. Smith a telegram received from constituent Ivar Haglund, described as “an outspoken supporter of Puget Sound clams.”

The original photo is in the Henry M. Jackson Collection, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections Division.

Ivar’s hopes to get another copy for the Everett restaurant, said company spokeswoman Jamie Hinz.

“It may potentially resurface back at the Everett Seafood Bar in the future,” Hinz said.

Law and other loyal Ivar’s customers sure hope so.

The Everett seafood bar has operated on 41st Street for many years. It was closed in October for a month-long makeover.

Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.