I was part of Clamoring's 3-person team when we treated ourselves to a tour of the inside of the building. The next day, a friend and I went back to the site the next day to get some daylight pics of the outside of the building to round out the photorecord that Clamoring started.

While we were out in front of the building [outside the fence], the guard came over and talked to us. He started with a stern, "Can I help you?", and I explained, honestly, that we were simply interested in the old building and were taking a few pictures. Once he saw we weren't doing anything terrible, he immediately became very nice. He said that he had to ask us to leave the "private drive", but he was a bit apologetic about this, e.g. he actually said, "They make me tell people that." He said he didn't mind at all if we simply stepped back onto the railroad tracks, which were not part of what he was responsible for. We said no problem and that we'd promptly leave, but I chatted with him for a minute or two longer and asked him a few questions. He told us a bit of the story that we already know about from reading this site's entry in the UER database; the building had been used to make fuel bricks out of lamp-black. When he mentioned he'd seen inside it a few times, I asked him what was inside. At first he said "nothing", but changed to "a lot of broken stuff and bird droppings", just like we had seen the evening prior. He also mentioned asbestos, like mentioned in the UER database entry. I asked if he often had to chase people off from the building and he said that he did. He also explained that the building was owned by Northwest Oil, the same company that owned the active complex he was guarding. So, it turns out that that guard post is responsible for the abandoned building, as well as the active complex. He actually seemed quite fond of the old place. If anyone had seen or noticed us the previous evening and reported it, he gave no indication of it. Finally we bid each other good evening and he wandered back to his booth, and my friend and I stepped onto the railroad tracks and took a few more pictures. The guard reminded me a bit of the Skipper from Gilligan's Island, and I've dubbed him Barney [from Half Life: Opposing Force].


Oh, and I have an interesting side-story about a minor misadventure while we were there. When we came back to the building the next day, I decided to park in the logistics warehouse parking lot. This seemed like a good choice since we only planned to be there for a few minutes, the gate appeared to always be open, and it was partially filled with what appeared to be just a bunch of normal civilian vehicles. Imagine my surprise when we came back to leave and found the automatic, razor-wired covered gate was closed and locked, with my Jeep on the inside! Someone had arrived while we were taking pictures and had closed the gate behind him. Fortunately he was just going into one of the buildings, and I hailed him. After a few awkward moments of explaining to him what was going on and that my Jeep was now locked in [once again just the simple truth], he turned out to be very friendly and opened the gate for us so we could leave. Apparently it is supposed to be closed at all times when not in use, and that it had been open the previous evening and that day was just a fluke. He also knew a bit of history about the building, and told us how they used to dump lamp black into the river [which we all already knew of course]. He also mentioned there is a plant in Seattle that also dumps lamp black [I assume he meant "used to"] into the Sound, but he didn't know the name or whereabouts of the place. Anyway, he opened up the gate and let us out, and we wished him a good evening and were on our way.