Its walls are lined with reference books, video tapes and films, albums filled with photos Herrington has taken and journals he has written. He even has a decade's worth of calenders hanging from his kitchen door like so many geological layers on a nail.

Instead of a sofa, Herrington has a desk and chair in his living room. It's where he does his work, which has included transcribing all the local news out of the now-defunct Washingtonian, a Hoquiam newspaper, from 1891 to 1893. He has also gone through old papers to get the shipping news — old ships fascinate him — and has tracked and re-typed out — using the "hunt ‘n' peck" method — news following local pioneers and captains of industry.

Herrington has also taken pictures of anything that strikes his fancy — he reckons somewhere north of 30,000 — since he got his first camera (a Brownie) from his great-grandmother as a young boy in 1941. His pictures, often of buildings, bridges, ships and people, tell a story of a changing harbor.

Cecil has been quietly but intensely following his interest in local history for years, and has developed a depth of knowledge that belies his self-effacing ways. His research, and the typed and catalogued sheaves he binds himself, is a valuable resource for anyone interested in local history.

"Cecil is perhaps the best archivist of our community's history of anybody out there, and has done it without a lot of fanfare," said John Larson, museum director.

Larson said that the museum had resisted bestowing the honor on Herrington for years because Herrington has been a member of the museum's board of directors. But this year was different; Herrington may be a board member, but he has more than earned the honor. And, at 82 years of age, Larson said, Herrington deserved to be honored while he was still alive.

Herrington has also been involved with numerous other local museums as well as the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport, a handful of local car clubs and his church.

Herrington was born in Iowa, near the Missouri border. He went to a one-room schoolhouse for first and second grades. But in 1937, during the Great Depression, when he was young, his parents, great-grandparents and assorted aunts and uncles picked up and moved to the West Coast.

The family found its way to Hoquiam. Herrington got through his sophomore year in high school, but he left to work at the Grays Harbor Veneer Company, doing whatever jobs he was asked to until his retirement.

Herrington liked the work — really, he said, he liked the money — and was good with his hands. A natural mechanic, he shows a picture of him on his first bike, which he built from salvaged parts.

Herrington loves to bike, and rode a bike to work every day, even when he bought a car. He bought himself a bike from J.C. Penney's and he still rides it to this day to the grocery store and around town.

Herrington's mechanical skill has kept his bike road-worthy, and has even re-animated vintage cars. His first was a 1930 Chevrolet that he bought in 1944.

Herrington still owns two vintage cars, "Queenie," a 1924 Franklin, and "Geraldine," a 1930 Model A that was once a basic sedan, but which Herrington reshaped into a woody he can camp in. On rare occasions, Herrington can be seen out in his "ole Geraldine," and he has taken her out for the Loggers Playday parade. He likes to take her out of the garage and off his wood plank driveway to empty roads, where he can set the hand throttle (the 1930's version of cruise control, Larson said) and let her breeze at 37 miles per hour, her top speed without incurring too much wind resistance.

Herrington said he was drafted several times during World War II but never made the cut, possibly due to his diminutive stature in spite of his outsized energy. He was drafted in 1952, and Herrington volunteered for the Marines. He spent time in the South and Florida and was glad to be back to the cooler Grays Harbor.

Pictures of Herrington from that time inevitably show him next to a wall of pin-up girls. Outside of history, Herrington's other great love is the movies. He was the first person on the Harbor to own a VCR, way back in the 1970s, Larson said. He designed a tri-fold video organizing system, and the videos' titles and descriptions are referenced in a guide he devised.

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