A truck decked out for the Crab Festival parade, 1948

The sixth annual Crab Krack to raise funds for renovations at the Pacific Maritime & Heritage Center of the Lincoln County Historical Society will be held at 4 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 19 at the Best Western Agate Beach Inn in Newport.

Local Dungeness crab will be provided by Newport’s seafood processing plants, fishermen and Pacific Shrimp. Dinner will include a whole crab, various side dishes and an array of desserts, along with a no-host bar.

“Past Forward” will be playing nostalgic jazz from the 1920s through the 1960s, and there will be a silent and oral auction for stay-cation trips, furniture, quilts, artwork, tools, gift baskets and much much more.

Revelers at last year’s Crab Krack

Ticket sales for the Crab Krack are in full swing and going fast; tickets can be purchased at the Burrows House and Pacific Maritime & Heritage Museums. Cost for members is $40 per person, for non-members $45. Memberships start as low as $20 a year. For more information, to purchase tickets, or reserve your table for 8, call the Lincoln County Historical Society at 541-265-7509.

Newport has a long love affair with the Dungeness crab. In 1938, with an abundance of crab and a need for tourists, the town started a Crab Festival, giving away the delicacies by the thousands. During the first Crab Festival, 25,000 people visited Newport for the free lunch. The festival ended in 1951 with a big bang: 38 cases of crabs were shipped to soldiers in Korea.