A tiny office building that has had various uses in Port Haney for most of the past century has found itself the target of taggers.
“They’re picking on this little building that has such a nice long story,” said Val Patenaude, executive director of the Maple Ridge Museum community archives.
The 11x13-foot building can be seen in early photographs on 224th Street. It was build in about 1935 by George Shewfelt and served a real estate and insurance office near St. Anne’s Street.
It was moved to the wharf and used an office for Beckstrom’s Towing tugboat company in the 1950s. In historic photos of the 1958 visit by Princess Margaret by float plane, the little building can be seen. It was later moved off the wharf, where it served as a wharfinger’s office.
In 1992, when the Heritage River Walk was being created for Port Haney, the Maple Ridge Historical Society rescued the small building from the bank of the river, restored it, and installed it on the Port Haney wharf.
“It’s cute. It looks good on the wharf,” said Patenaude.
But a determined campaign by a tagger or taggers has resulted in fresh graffiti each time it is repainted – four times in the past two weeks.
It has also been broken into, and people found staying in it, and the contents the society had stored there apparently dumped into the Fraser River.
The Maple Ridge Historical Society does not have deep pockets, and the cost of dealing with vandals may ultimately mean the building gets demolished.
Moving it would cost tens of thousands of dollars, said Patenaude.
“We don’t want to let a few heartless vandals cause the demolition and removal of the building, but that will ultimately be our only other choice.”
She would like witnesses or people who recognize the graffiti to assist in identifying the culprits, or at least getting them to stop.
“For all these years this building has survived the elements, but it may be done in by vandals,” said Patenaude.