Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Port Townsend
    Port Townsend
    Port Townsend
    Ebook184 pages54 minutes

    Port Townsend

    By Jefferson County Historical Society

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    On Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, at the entrance to Puget Sound, the Port Townsend of the 1850s was perfectly situated for sailing vessels. By 1880, thousands of ships from all over the world were passing through. Optimistic investors sought fortunes in shipping, logging, lumber mills, and land speculation. While commerce flourished at sea level, citizens built fine homes, churches, schools, clubs, a respectable shopping district, and parks uptown on the bluff. The settlers of this lovely seaport enjoyed rich cultural and social lives. Port Townsend went bust after the anticipated railroad failed to arrive. It remained largely frozen in time without economic motivation to tear down and replace its fine Victorian architecture. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the beautiful setting and buildings were discovered by artists, hippies, preservationists, and, later, tourists and retirees. The town is now a thriving arts and cultural community, still beautiful, still small and remote.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439635995
    Port Townsend
    Author

    Jefferson County Historical Society

    The Jefferson County Historical Society was founded in 1879 and incorporated in 1951 with a mission �to actively discover, collect, preserve, and promote the heritage of Jefferson County in the State of Washington.� The images selected for this volume come from the society�s collection of over 20,000 historic photographs.

    Related to Port Townsend

    Related ebooks

    United States History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Art Of N.c. Wyeth

      Jul 1, 2019

      The year was 1902, and a 20-year-old art student named Newell Convers “N.C.” Wyeth decided to take a chance and submit a proposal for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. The whole idea was outlandish. Many older, more experienced professionals ha

      4 min read

    • Article

      When Science Was the Best Show in America

      Nov 18, 2020

      On May 29, 1810, Katherine Fritsch, a sister in the Moravian Church, boarded a coach in Lititz, Pennsylvania, along with a group of her friends and began the 75-mile trek to Philadelphia. Fritsch noted in her diary the one city site she most wished t

      9 min read

    • Article

      Union Bay Historical Society

      Sep 3, 2019

      Union Bay Historical Society
      3 min read

    • Article

      In Whom We Trust

      Jan 2, 2020

      ON January 12, 1895, The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest and Natural Beauty was registered with the Board of Trade. It was constituted to ‘promote the permanent preservation for the benefit of the Nation of lands and tenements (includi

      2 min read

    • Article

      PASSION, SKILLS & FUN

      Nov 20, 2019

      PASSION, SKILLS & FUN
      6 min read

    • Article

      Front Words

      Sep 15, 2023

      Happy 90th anniversary to City of Vancouver Archives. Its collection captures the city’s story through 7.2 million photographs, 6,800 maps, 2,800 audio recordings, documents measured in kilometres and terabytes of digital material. How did it begin?

      4 min read

    • Article

      Edwin Drake’s Well

      May 16, 2023

      Edwin Drake’s Well
      2 min read

    • Article

      What's Brewing In Kent?

      Jul 11, 2019

      What's Brewing In Kent?
      8 min read

    • Article

      Looking Back 200 Years

      Mar 16, 2020

      Looking Back 200 Years
      4 min read

    • Article

      Coromandel Gold

      Jun 27, 2021

      Coromandel Gold
      6 min read

    • Article

      Lowcountry Idyll

      Mar 16, 2021

      Lowcountry Idyll
      4 min read

    • Article

      Affectionately Known As Victor

      Aug 30, 2018

      Affectionately Known As Victor
      4 min read

    • Article

      Great Notes of the Great Plains

      Oct 5, 2021

      For this month, we’ll travel to the Midwest and visit a couple of towns in the plains of western Kansas. I had visited these locations some years ago and am finally putting together some information on them and their banks. We’ll start in Sherman Cou

      4 min read

    • Article

      Preserving One’s Modesty

      Jul 5, 2023

      Preserving One’s Modesty
      7 min read

    • Article

      Canal-boat Families

      Sep 21, 2021

      Canal-boat Families
      4 min read

    • Article

      Waverley Cemetery

      Apr 12, 2023

      Waverley Cemetery
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Port Townsend

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Port Townsend - Jefferson County Historical Society

      skills.

      INTRODUCTION

      Early Settlers found a S’Klallam Indian community well established on the protected shores of Port Townsend Bay. The chief of the Port Townsend band of S’Klallams, known as Chetzemoka, was friendly to the growing community of newcomers and helped maintain peace between his people and the settlers.

      Port Townsend was the first permanent American settlement on the Olympic Peninsula, founded on April 24, 1851, when Alfred A. Plummer selected a homestead and registered a claim with the surveyor general’s office in Olympia. Puget Sound’s protected bays were far friendlier to commerce than the northern Pacific Ocean and the entire region was covered in forest, right down to the water’s edge. The California Gold Rush assured a booming market for lumber. Sawmills sprang up throughout the Puget Sound region. Fledgling communities farther into the sound (including Seattle) were a long, slow voyage in sailing vessels. They were often towed in and out by tugs from Port Townsend.

      Port Townsend’s designation in 1854 as a U.S. Customs Port assured its status as a seaport. At a time when the transportation of nearly all people and goods in the Pacific Northwest depended upon sea travel, Port Townsend was at the hub. Maritime-related enterprises fueled a booming economy, providing ready wealth and shaping the character of the ambitious town.

      Like many young communities in the Puget Sound, Port Townsend aspired to greatness. Calling itself the Key City and the New York of the West, Port Townsend quickly became a bustling seaport as the gateway to the Pacific Northwest. Wood-frame buildings came to be replaced with fine brick and stone structures. In 1880, a thousand ships from all over the world passed through Port Townsend. There were consulates from as far away as Germany, Peru, and the Sandwich Islands. County and city governments built grand municipal structures designed for a population of 20,000. In 1892, the U.S. Customs and Post Office, city hall, and county courthouse buildings were completed.

      While sin and commerce flourished at sea level, the money from the bars and bordellos on the waterfront helped build fine homes, churches, schools, clubs, a shopping district, and parks uptown on the bluff. There were tennis and bicycle clubs. Fraternal organizations, such as the Odd Fellows, Masons, Red Men, and Good Templars, built large meeting halls that were used by the community for theatricals and dances.

      Port Townsend went bust after the anticipated railroad failed to arrive and as steamships replaced wind-powered craft, eliminating its geographic advantage. Fortunes were reversed in the mid-1890s, and the town’s population fell from 7,000 to 2,000 almost overnight, leaving its grand buildings empty and, in many cases, unfinished.

      After tough years of belt-tightening following the collapse of the railroad bubble, the discovery of gold in 1897 along the Klondike River gave Port Townsend a flurry of prosperity. Prospective miners swarmed through the town as they hurried north. Steamships publicized weekly sailings from Union Dock. Soldiers and their families boosted the population when Fort Worden was completed in 1902 as one of the Triangle of Fire defenses to the entrance to Puget Sound.

      No longer a viable seaport, the federal government moved the customs house to Seattle in 1911. The shine had worn off the grand buildings from the boom years. The people who remained logged, fished, farmed, or worked in canneries. No one could afford to maintain, let alone replace, the old structures. There was little economic incentive for new construction. Some original buildings were adapted for reuse, others remained vacant; most fell into disrepair. Only Fort Worden and the welcome construction of a $7 million Crown Zellerbach paper mill in 1928 kept Port Townsend from becoming a ghost town.

      The first settlers of Port Townsend had a strong sense of community pride and history-in-the-making when they organized the Jefferson County Historical Society of Washington Territory on May 3, 1879. The mission of the society today is virtually unchanged: . . . to actively discover, collect, preserve, and promote the heritage of Jefferson County in the State of Washington.

      In 1932, the mission of the Jefferson County Historical Society was reaffirmed, emphasizing the importance of collecting and preserving papers, documents, photographs, pictures, and other objects . . . and the suitable arrangement and housing of such collections. Space was secured in the basement of the Carnegie Library to house the collections and conduct society business.

      In the early 1950s, the society undertook its first effort in historic preservation when it mounted a campaign to raise $1,500 and organize volunteers to repair and repaint the historic Fire Bell Tower on the bluff—a proud symbol of Port Townsend’s history. This project inspired the community and reinvigorated the society. In 1951, the year of Port Townsend’s centennial, the Jefferson County Historical Society opened a museum in the old courtroom of the historic city hall. Membership in the society grew, collections expanded, and individuals began to restore the old Victorian buildings in the town. A research library was established in 1960 as part of the museum.

      In 1971, the Fire Bell Tower was again in need of repair. This time, JCHS raised more than $9,500 to pay for the restoration effort. In gratitude, the community gave the Jefferson County Historical Society a 99-year lease for part of the old city hall for a museum and archive. Port Townsend’s special historical landscape and efforts at preservation and restoration began to receive outside recognition.

      In 1975, the National Trust for Historic Preservation undertook an architectural survey and inventory of the central business district, and the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation was established, with headquarters operating out of the Jefferson County Historical Society. Although the Washington Trust moved on to a permanent location in Olympia, Port Townsend and adjacent Fort Worden gained status as National Historic Landmark Districts, and

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1