Last year, there was old Victorian home on Ninth Street that Andy Anderson, president of the Ezra Meeker Historical Society, would have put on the top of his list of worst kept properties in Puyallup.
Since then, the home has changed hands and has improved to the point where it would make his list of top three most improved properties in the city.
“That’s a heck of a jump and it means a lot to the neighborhood,” Anderson said.
That’s the kind of the effort the historical society and city wanted to recognize when they established the Historic Preservation Recognition Awards about eight years ago.
Currently, the Ezra Meeker Historical Society is accepting nominations for the award. The award isn’t meant to recognize properties that qualify for historical registries, but rather property owners that have made an effort to preserve buildings in Puyallup that are at least 50 years old.
A building like the Meeker Mansion would never be considered for the award because it is on the National Historical Registry, Anderson said. But there are many homes in Puyallup that would.
“The point is to encourage people to reinvest in those resources,” said Nancy Eklund, Senior Planner with the city.
The program is a purely local recognition, she said.
Since the award’s inception, four buildings have received recognition — the building that is now Fidelity Contract Services, the old chamber of commerce building, the old Pihl house and the Coldwell Banker Commercial Offenbecher building.
The award isn’t handed out every year because sometimes there isn’t a nomination or the historical society doesn’t find a nominee who has made enough of an effort to preserve a building.
“It’s for people doing good work and helping the community,” Anderson said.
It’s tough to identify a specific historical district in Puyallup outside of downtown, he said, because many of the old homes in the area were built on acreage that use to be filled with berry farms.
“When this was real berry country those several acres were planted in berries,” Anderson said. “As the berries went away people started to build several houses in there.”
As an example, he said, there are about 15 to 20 old homes on Pioneer Avenue. The rest are all new fill.
“Those older houses are what give this community its character,” Anderson said. “What strikes me as I drive through the community are not the new houses.”
Preservation isn’t just a matter of not tearing down old homes for new ones either, he said. In some cases, the older homes are a product of neglect.
There comes a point where the neglect is so bad, saving the house is near impossible.
Anderson said before the historic society took over Meeker Mansion it had been so neglected the bulldozers were in the yard ready to tear it down.
“That happens today routinely,” he said.
By making an effort to preserve historical buildings hopefully some of them can be saved, Anderson said.
“It’s important that people do it,” he said. “Once you lose those you’ve lost a lot.”
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