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Different stump, same memories

A-1 Timber owner Tom Loushin, right, prepares to cut a slice of wood off the top of the new 7-foot McKinley Stump Thursday at the Lewis County Historical Museum in Chehalis, Wash., with the help of A-1 Timber workers Dan Ward, center, and Vance Steen. Associated Press (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Associated Press The Spokesman-Review
A-1 Timber owner Tom Loushin, right, prepares to cut a slice of wood off the top of the new 7-foot McKinley Stump Thursday at the Lewis County Historical Museum in Chehalis, Wash., with the help of A-1 Timber workers Dan Ward, center, and Vance Steen. Associated Press (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

CHEHALIS, Wash. – A replacement for the McKinley Stump, on which one U.S. president and a secretary of war once delivered speeches, has arrived at the Lewis County Historical Museum.

The new stump, like the old one about 6 feet high, was donated by Weyerhaeuser Co. from land near Tenino and was cut and delivered Thursday by A-1 Timber. Without counting the rings, A-1 owner Tom Loushin estimated the tree was 500 to 750 years old.

A pagoda that surrounded and covered the old stump for more than 100 years will be added to the replica display later this year after undergoing repairs, Lewis County Historical Society board member Bob McDole said.

A 12- to 14-inch slab cut from the top will also be placed on display, McDole said, adding, “It’s a great piece of wood.”

The McKinley Stump, intended for a speech by President William McKinley but never used by him, was removed from Recreation Park in October because it was rotting and full of ants.

The stump had been badly damaged in the late 1940s or early ‘50s, when vandals lit the back side of it on fire. Concrete was applied to the burned portion to keep the stump intact, and it was subsequently moved to the park.

The only president to speak from the stump was Theodore Roosevelt. William H. Taft spoke from the stump when he was secretary of war in 1907, a year before he was elected the 27th U.S. president.