DELIVERING NEWS TO MID-COLUMBIA SENIORS SINCE 1982
JULY 2022
Vol. 10 | Issue 7
Wanted: new owner for old-fashioned Kennewick store By Wendy Culverwell editor@tcjournal.biz
Basin Department Store, Kennewick’s source of work and safety equipment for nearly seven decades, is for sale. Stuart Logg has worked for the family business started by his father, Don, for 60 of its 69 years and says he’s ready to enjoy a relaxed retirement. The asking price of $1.95 million includes the building, parking lot and business, including its inventory of boots, Carhartt gear and apparel, at 111 W. First Ave. in downtown Kennewick. Logg’s earliest memories are of packaging socks at age 4. His father, Don, bought them in bulk. Young Stuart ran a simple metal device that moistened adhesive labels used to bind loose socks into pairs. Once the socks were bundled, he’d slap on a price tag: 79 cents. Logg was born and raised in Kennewick and attended Kamiakin High
Photo by Wendy Culverwell Stuart Logg is selling Basin Department Store, the family-owned business in downtown Kennewick after working there for 60 of the store’s 69 years.
School as a member of the Class of 1974. He didn’t graduate, falling a credit shy of a diploma. It made no difference. He said he seldom went to
school anyway. Basin Department Store would be his on- and off-again professional home for six decades.
Recalling Kennewick’s wild and woolly early days, he said his father was an unyielding boss who gave him no quarter. He left on numerous occasions and once spent two years building swimming pools in North Carolina, where he met his first wife and mother of his two daughters. The store would pull him back from his adventures, eventually. “I always knew I was going to do that. It is the only thing I am good at,” he said. When his father died in 1991, his mother, Lorraine, discovered he’d been paying their son only $15,000 a year for a job that went well beyond full time. She doubled his salary. He bought Basin Department Store from his mother in 1993 and has been the sole owner ever since. For decades, he worked seven days a week, all day. In his 60s, he’s eased up and is mindful of health issues. uBASIN DEPT. STORE, Page 6
$2 million building to house Hanford history, anchor STEM tourism By Wendy Culverwell editor@tcjournal.biz
A new building in north Richland will bring the region’s atomic history under one roof and, officials hope, welcome tourists drawn by the community’s accomplishments in science, technology, engineering and math. The Port of Benton secured a permit to build a $2 million home for the Hanford History Project, which is operated by and housed at Washington State University Tri-Cities. It is the first of several buildings that will celebrate science and history at 3251 Port of Benton Blvd. in north Richland.
Future phases will add museum-like spaces and a potential new home for the Manhattan Project National Historical Park and display material related to the USS Triton nuclear submarine as well as the new LIGO Hanford Exploratory Center. Port officials intended to build the complex as a single development but chose to develop in phases while they wait for grant funding, said Miles Thomas, the port’s economic development director. Last year, it refinanced its debt, freeing up about $4 million to support its vision of a STEM center to welcome visitors and support the history project.
The center will make it easy for tourists to learn more about Hanford and the other science initiatives in the Tri-Cities, said Kim Shugart, senior vice president for Visit Tri-Cities, which regards STEM as a competitive advantage when it comes to attracting visitors. “There are very few communities that have such a diversity of STEM assets,” she said. While the port seeks additional financing for the full project, the Hanford History Project needs space for its growing collection of equipment and documents associated with the nuclear site. WSU Tri-Cities will lease the build-
ing to give the project’s archivist, curator and other staff private offices as well as space to evaluate materials. Thomas said that means more material will be available for public exhibits. For example, if the Reach Museum in Richland wanted to mount an exhibit of what the Hanford site looked like in the 1960s, curators don’t have enough space to work in their current quarters but could in the future. The Hanford History Project collects stories as well as documents and equipment related to the Manhattan Project and Hanford’s subsequent mission to uHANFORD HISTORY, Page 2
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Famous baseball family spent a year as Kennewick residents
Page 7
MONTHLY QUIZ
Kennewick men, women honored for 2020 and 2021 Page 13
Kamiakin High School is named for Chief Kamiakin of the Yakama tribe. What other school bears his name? ANSWER, PAGE 9
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