PORT ANGELES — The controversial John Birch Society billboard along U.S. Highway 101 east of here could be coming down following the sale of the 120 acres underneath it.
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife bought the property and intends to use it as an open space buffer for Morse Creek.
A founder of the Peninsula John Birch Society chapter that displayed its message there for the last 30 years said Sunday he hadn’t heard about the sale and would wait to see what happens next.
Carroll Realty announced the sale of the 120 acres on Friday. The deal closed March 29.
Associate Broker Larry Williams said regarding the sign’s future, “That’s up to the fish and wildlife department.”
Fish and wildlife department officials couldn’t be reached over the weekend regarding their plans for the sign.
Birch Society members first erected the billboard along Highway 101 near Morse Creek in 1972.
Retired Sequim farmer R.W. Robinson is a founding member and leader of the Birch Society’s North Olympic Peninsula chapter.
He said that former property owner George Rains owned the billboard after Society members sold it to him for a dollar, but the group was allowed to continue using it.
The billboard generated numerous letters to the editor and attracted a few vandals over the years as it proclaimed messages such as “Politicians and diapers must be changed for the same reasons”; “Bring the troops home, Send Clinton”; and “Slavery offers full employment and health care.”
The latter message drove someone to demolish the sign in June 2001, one of several times the billboard was damaged or destroyed.
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