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PHS Commissioned Corps Officers Commemorate Historical Event
 
The long history of the “Ellis Island of the Columbia River” was celebrated on 21 May 2005 at the Knappton Cove Heritage Center, Knappton, OR. The event, part of National Historic Preservation Month, commemorated a visit to the center in 1905 by U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) Surgeon General Walter Wyman, and the role of the PHS in early 20th century immigration into the Pacific Northwest.
 
PHS Commissioned Corps officers, CAPT Jeffrey Carolla, a dental officer at the Warm Springs Confederated Tribes in Warm Springs, CDR Andy Hunt, a clinical social worker with the Indian Health Service (IHS) in Portland, and LT Joseph Baczkowski, a computer science specialist with IHS in Portland, joined the center’s owner, Ms. Nancy Bell Anderson, in presenting an overview of the work done today, and in the past, by the service. The center served as a PHS Quarantine Station from 1899 to 1938 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. It received non-profit status this year.
 
Ms. Anderson said, “Surgeon General Wyman’s visit 100 years ago coincided with the Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland. Wyman came by train to Astoria where he enjoyed red-carpet treatment, then traveled across the river by boat to inspect the station. Surgeon General Wyman targeted poverty and urban blight with the goal of improving the health of the Nation.”
 
Please note: An article titled, “U.S. Public Health Service Officers Visit the ‘Ellis Island of the Columbia River’” appeared in the May 25, 2005 issue of the Chinook Observer.
 
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