COUPEVILLE — The Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve depends on its volunteers. And now with a $64,000 grant, the reserve has money to continue its preservation efforts.
The fourth annual Ebey’s Reserve Field School begins Monday with volunteers set to use the grant to reconstruct the front porch and repair the chimney at the 155-year-old Ferry House on Ebey’s Prairie near Coupeville.
The grant is from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express, through the Seattle-based Partners in Preservation group. In April, the group launched a contest in which people voted online for their favorite historic places from a slate of 25 candidates around the region.
The Ferry House, which had also served as an inn, a tavern and a post office, is set to get seismic and structural improvements as well.
The Ebey’s Reserve Field School gives volunteers a hands-on chance to work on preservation efforts on the ferry-landing house and on the Kineth Watertower, which is about 115 years old and needs siding, gutter and window repairs.
Preservation crew work shifts are 8 a.m. to noon or 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays until Aug. 11. The school is offered through a partnership with the National Park Service, the local Trust Board of the national historical reserve, preservation crew volunteers and the Coupeville Lions Club.
The Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve is the nation’s first historical reserve, created in 1978 to protect a rural working landscape and community on central Whidbey Island. The reserve includes 17,500 acres, farms, historical structures, prairies, state parks, miles of shoreline and trails and Coupeville, the second oldest town in Washington.
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.
Learn more
For more information about Ebey’s Landing, go to www.nps.gov/ebla. To sign up to participate in the preservation field school and volunteer to help out, call Allen Edwards at 360-678-4645 or send an email to volunteerebeys@gmail.com.
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