Feliks Banel: Feuding families and overnight campers vie for Sumner’s historic tiles

Nick Biermann of Sumner, Wash. is not happy with his hometown.

Biermann contacted KIRO Newsradio earlier this week about an unusual event scheduled to take place at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 9 at Sumner City Hall.

Anyone who shows up at that hour, Biermann says, can take one of 35 tile-like plaques that were originally created in the 1990s to honor historic families in Sumner who donated to help pay for a fountain at Knoblauch Park. The fountain was demolished a few years ago, and the plaques – after being kept in storage for some period of time – were officially surplused by the city last month.

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Biermann, an active member of the Sumner Historical Society and the preservation group Save Ryan House, is horrified that the City of Sumner isn’t making more of an effort to get the plaques to the respective families whose donation they honor.

“It doesn’t matter if you have any family ties to the area or if your family – your ancestors – donated to have that tile put up in the first place,” Biermann told KIRO Newsradio on Tuesday. “They just want to give it away for free. Anyone can come get one, and you don’t have to show any documentation or anything like that.”

“This is their solution to disposing of the tiles without them having to do any work to reunite them to the proper families,” Biermann said.

The tiles are roughly 6-inches high and 12-inches wide and are made from a slate-like material. Each is engraved with the name of a family who, in 1995, had been in Sumner for more than 70 years, and who donated $200 in support of fountain. The tiles were displayed around the fountain for nearly 30 years before they were quietly taken down, Biermann says. Eventually, new tiles will be installed at Knoblauch Park to honor the 1990s donors.

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Not surprisingly, the upcoming give-away of the original tiles has rubbed some people in Sumner the wrong way.

“I know a lot of people who are angry about this, they feel like the city doesn’t care about the history of the community,” Biermann said. “This is another example of how the city is treating the history and the long-term family members who’ve lived here for decades,” he continued, referencing the ongoing battle with the city over the future of historic Ryan House.

Another Sumner family shared the same sentiments about the tiles with KIRO Newsradio Tuesday, and similar comments were made Tuesday night at the regular meeting of the Sumner City Council. One man who spoke said he might even park his motorhome at City Hall Sunday night so that he can be first in line Monday morning in order to get the tile with his family’s name.

Nick Biermann says that none of this is necessary. He says the Sumner Historical Society even offered to help the city with the process – to make sure the tiles go to the right families – as a volunteer project, at no cost to the city.

City of Sumner spokesperson Carmen Palmer told KIRO Newsradio that the City Council turned down the offer of help.

“The problem with that is we brought that through the council, and the council really preferred that we make this an open public process, so no one gets missed,” Palmer explained Tuesday afternoon.

“You know how families go, especially after a few years,” she continued, describing that the ownership of some tiles is not crystal clear, and possibly even contentious. “We’ve had at least three people claim they are the rightful owners of one of the plaques. We’re sure that’s going to happen with multiple families, where different cousins or longtime friends are going to say ‘No, that was really special to me’” and vie with others for possession of the tile.

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The City of Sumner’s plan to deal with these kinds of complications?

“The council asked us to keep it public and open, and accessible and transparent, and fair to everybody,” Palmer said.

Nick Biermann and the Sumner Historical Society want the city to hit the pause button and not proceed with the give-away on Monday. He says his group wants each family to get its own tile, and not some random person with potentially no connection to the people or to the community.

If the city charges ahead, the Sumner Historical Society may send a group of people to Sumner City Hall on Monday to “rescue” whatever plaques they can, and then take the time and make the effort necessary to find each one’s proper home.

That’s not the group’s only plan.

“Another idea is to keep track of who takes which plaque and where they end up, because right now, the city is not going to keep track of where they end up,” Biermann said. “So if a particular plaque for certain family ends up in the hands of a salvage (person) or a garage-saler, we’re not going to be able to track that unless somebody is there recording it.”

“The city won’t be doing that work,” Biermann said.

As for feuding families possibly showing up and causing a ruckus or otherwise peaceable individuals parking their RVs out front of City Hall Sunday night, Carmen Palmer of the City of Sumner says they’re hoping for all would-be tile-seekers to be on their best behavior.

“The purpose . . . was to make it open and fair, not to have to camp out or anything,” Palmer said. “But I can’t predict people’s emotions toward this.”

You can hear Feliks Banel every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien. Read more from Feliks here and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks. You can also follow Feliks on X.

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