George Hutton barely shifted gears as he went from a regular work career to a leader in senior citizen activities not long after World War II.
Hutton, a former commissioner of finance and accounting for the city of Vancouver, turned his own home on West 23rd Street in Vancouver into an art gallery and community center in the later years.
Hutton was born in Portland in 1892, and got degrees from the University of Washington and Yale University. He worked for the Forest Service, then joined the Army in World War I.
After that war, Hutton worked with Herbert Hoover’s Food Relief Commission in Rumania.
In the late 1920s Hutton was manager of the Central Planning Mill, across Main Street from what is now Clark County Historical Museum. He also served on the first board of directors of Clark General Hospital, predecessor of Vancouver Memorial Hospital.
Hutton worked during the 1930s as a field deputy for the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, and for a while was a supervising inspector for wages, hours and safety laws in San Francisco.
Among his later activities were work on the Discovery Trail in the Vancouver area and the Save the Fort Committee, for which he aided Bob Hidden and others in trying, unsuccessfully, to retain the old Vancouver High School auditorium. Hutton turned his yard into a garden to raise vegetables for senior citizens, and aided programs for older residents in various other ways.
His wife died in 1969, and Hutton died in 1985 at age 92. Ellen Welsh has compiled a monograph on Hutton titled, “Reflections on the Life and Times of George Hutton,” available at Fort Vancouver Regional Library.