Camas police tradition of signing wall stretches back decadesSubscriber Exclusive

The Camas Police Department has moved buildings, updated equipment and modernized its workspace over the decades, but one thing has remained constant inside the agency: a tradition that officers who finish probation sign their names on a wall.

Sgts. Dave Chaney and Chuck Nadgwick said the wall has served as a quiet marker of belonging for generations of officers.

Officers add their names after completing probation, marking the point at which they formally join the department’s ranks. Some signatures are small and tucked into corners. Others stretch boldly across sections of the wall. Together, they form an informal timeline of everyone who has served in the department since the mid-20th century.

Chief Tina Jones, who came to the department in 2022 from the Portland Police Bureau, added her name to the wall on July 3, 2023. Her signature sits near the doorway at the bottom right.

The tradition predates the department’s move into its current facility on Northeast Third Avenue.

“There are some names going back to the ’60s,” Chaney said. “This building was built in 1998, and so a lot of these cops never worked in this building. But when the building opened, we sent a letter to all the former officers and invited them to come take a tour, and when they got here, we got some of their signatures.”

Before, the police department operated out of the old City Hall and library building downtown. The 1940 structure housed City Hall, the library, the police and fire departments, and the city jail. Remnants of the former holding area still exist, and staff occasionally point them out on tours, Chaney and Nadgwick said.

“What you see (on the wall) is the officer’s name, their signature, their personnel ID and when they were hired,” Chaney said. “The funny thing we like to joke about is if you look at the hire dates, you can kind of tell when the public school system stopped teaching cursive.”

Chaney and Nadgwick joined the department in 1995 and 1996, respectively. Chaney originally planned to become a science teacher and baseball coach before shifting degree paths and pursuing law enforcement.

“My dad was an officer, too,” Chaney said. “He was a chief at one point. That’s what he retired as. Chuck and I grew up in Camas together. And I just thought I’d try it for a few years, and I’ve been here ever since.”

Nadgwick said he hadn’t considered a career in law enforcement until his junior year at Washington State University, when he began taking criminal justice courses.

“Well, I was unemployed and looking for a good job with benefits,” Nadgwick said with a chuckle. “I knew I wanted to be in the Southwest Washington area and started testing. (Chaney) was already working here. In fact, I remember sleeping on (Chaney’s) couch before my interview.”

Neither sergeant knows who first signed the wall. Chaney joked that the idea may have been borrowed from the Boston Red Sox. Players have made it a rite of passage to sign the Green Monster, the iconic outfield wall at Fenway Park.

Camas’ modern station displays other bits of history — old photographs of former chiefs, the remains of an old jail cell showing rust and decay, badges, and arrest logs dating back to the 1930s. The logs — handwritten, yellowed and torn with age — sit along the entryway atop an antique safe and just below a glass display case of an old firearm and police-issued jacket, offering a timeline of how police work in Camas has changed.

Chaney said his favorite piece of history around the building is the old jail cell bars from the basement of the library.

“In the basement of the library, before their last remodel, which was just a couple of years ago, there were still etchings in the wall of prisoners that had been there a while,” Chaney said. “They’d carve their names in the wall. I think they finally painted over it. You know those tally marks of how many days they’d been there.”

“They used to have a little courtroom at the very top of the library, too,” Nadgwick added.

For decades, many city functions operated out of shared spaces until separate facilities were built. When the police department moved into the 15,000-square-foot station in 1998, the department gained a dedicated training and community room, secure evidence storage, and updated holding cells.

But the signing tradition carried over.