Cafe Owner Pushing For Millwood Historic District

The past isn’t going anywhere, but Bobbie Beese’s daughter is.

So Beese, leader of an effort to form an historic district in Millwood, put the project on hold for several months recently so she could help her daughter, who just graduated from high school, shop for a college.

“It’s been a busy time,” Beese said this week.

Now, with college choosing out of the way, the co-owner of The Corner Door cafe in Millwood plans to refocus her energy on the historic district, a project she and her husband began last year.

Beese and Millwood town leaders proposed creating a national historic district last summer as a way to build community spirit, preserve some of the town’s past and attract tourists.

The proposed historic district would encompass about eight blocks between Argonne and Sargent roads, Liberty and Euclid avenues.

It would consist of nearly 25 buildings, mostly homes built in the early part of the century to house workers and executives of the nearby paper mill, from which the town got its name.

Beese recently again took up the task of compiling information on all the buildings in the district, as well as preparing maps and photographs.

It’s a time-consuming process, she said.

“The entire district has to be described in architectural terms,” Beese said. “I’ve learned a lot more about architecture than I ever thought I would.”

She will submit her finished research to the Washington State Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

That board, which will meet in either Pullman or Spokane in September, will evaluate the proposal and decide if it should be forwarded to a national panel for consideration.

Beese said she thinks she can have everything ready by then. “I’ve got about a third of the work finished,” she said.

Lauren McCroskey of the state Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation said this week she was concerned that Beese had given up on the effort.

Proponents of the Millwood district had hinted last year that they would bring their proposal to the state board in May, McCroskey said. But she never heard from them.

“I’ve really been concerned because I thought it was a good little proposal,” said McCroskey, who last year worked with the Millwood group. “I haven’t heard anything in months.”

Not to worry, Beese said, it was just a temporary hiatus.

“We’re starting to get excited about it again,” she said.

, DataTimes