Kitsap Through Time

Kitsap’s oldest rocks began as lava, much of it erupted on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Over millions of years, the slow movement of the earth’s crust pushed that seafloor against North America and raised it into hills and mountains. The Olympic Mountains, shown here rising beyond Port Orchard in 1958, are rimmed by that same ocean-floor basalt. Then came the ice. Again and again during the Ice Age, glaciers thousands of feet thick flowed south from Canada and buried the whole peninsula. The ice and its meltwater carved long troughs, hills and lake basins, and when the ice retreated, seawater filled the troughs to make Hood Canal and Puget Sound.

1. About 50 million years ago

   Volcanic eruptions, many of them on the seafloor, lay down the dark basalt of the Crescent Formation. It is the foundation of Green and Gold Mountains and the oldest rock in the county.

2. About 30 million years ago

   Sand, mud and volcanic debris pile up in an ocean basin and harden into rock. These layers can still be seen along Rich Passage and at the south end of Bainbridge Island.

3. The Ice Age

   Mammoths and mastodons roam a cold, open landscape. Mammoth teeth have turned up in eroding bluffs along Hood Canal, much like the East Bremerton sandbank pictured below.

4. End of the Ice Age

   The great ice sheet melts back quickly. Rushing meltwater reshapes valleys such as Big Valley, between Lofall and Poulsbo.

5. About 1,100 years ago

   A major earthquake on the Seattle Fault lifts the shore at Restoration Point on Bainbridge Island, pictured below, about 20 feet in a single moment. The raised beach is still there.

Beyond our museumPuget Sound geology (Washington DNR) ↗ (opens in a new tab)

Indigenous peoples have lived in the Puget Sound region for more than 12,000 years, and this land has always been home to Coast Salish peoples. Suquamish villages lined Agate Passage, Port Madison, Bainbridge Island and the inlets to the south. S’Klallam people lived at the northern tip of the peninsula, and Twana (Skokomish) people lived along Hood Canal. Salmon, clams and other shellfish, berries, and roots such as camas fed families through the seasons. Cedar gave wood for longhouses and canoes, and bark for clothing and baskets. The water connected everyone. Weaving is still a living art. According to our collection records, the small Suquamish basket shown here was woven by Cecelia Jackson (1887–1985), who at her death was the oldest living member of the Suquamish Tribe.

These nations are still here. The Suquamish, whose name comes from the Lushootseed words for “clear salt water,” and the Port Gamble S’Klallam, the “Strong People,” have reservations in Kitsap County. The Skokomish, the “big river people,” have their reservation at the south end of Hood Canal, and Twana homelands take in the whole Hood Canal watershed.

“The Suquamish and their ancestors have inhabited the Puget Sound area for thousands of years. Before European contact, the region was one of the most populated centers north of what is now Mexico City.”

The Suquamish Tribe, History & Culture

“The Port Gamble S’Klallams are the ‘Strong People’—a name well-earned over generations of grit and resilience used to protect the people and places they have always held dear.”

Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, History & Culture

1. About 1786

   Si’ahl, later known as Chief Seattle, is born to a Suquamish father and a Duwamish mother. He grows up to lead both peoples.

2. 1800s

   Old Man House, a great Suquamish longhouse of cedar posts and planks, stands on Agate Passage. It stretched hundreds of feet along the beach, one of the largest ever built on the Northwest Coast.

3. Early 1800s

   Kitsap, a respected Suquamish leader, is known throughout the Sound. The county will later be named for him.

Beyond our museumSuquamish Museum ↗ (opens in a new tab)Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe: History & Culture ↗ (opens in a new tab)Skokomish Tribe: Culture & History ↗ (opens in a new tab)

In May 1792, British Captain George Vancouver sailed into Puget Sound aboard HMS Discovery and anchored off the southeast tip of Bainbridge Island. His officers explored and charted the waters around them and gave them English names that are still on our maps. Fifty years later, an American expedition mapped the area again in more detail and added names of its own. Its 1841 chart, shown here, calls the whole Kitsap Peninsula the “Indian or Great Peninsula” and traces Hood’s Canal, Bainbridge Island and the inlets around today’s Bremerton. But these were already Indigenous homelands, with long-established place names and deep knowledge of the waterways.

“The various groups of Indians on Puget Sound treated the strangers in equal manner, trading them fresh venison, fish, native berries and roots for beads, cloth and iron.”

The Suquamish Tribe, on Vancouver’s visit in 1792

“I venture nothing in saying, there is no country in the world that possesses waters equal to these.”

Lt. Charles Wilkes, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1841

1. May 1792

   Vancouver anchors off a point he names Restoration Point. His crew meets Suquamish people at a village nearby, and Lt. Peter Puget sets out in small boats to explore the southern Sound.

2. 1792

   Ship’s clerk H. M. Orchard finds the way into the waters off today’s Bremerton, which Vancouver names Port Orchard. He also names Hood’s Channel, now Hood Canal.

3. 1841

   Lt. Charles Wilkes and the U.S. Exploring Expedition chart Kitsap’s waters. They name Bainbridge Island, Port Madison, Agate Passage (for expedition artist Alfred Agate), and Sinclair and Dyes Inlets.

The California Gold Rush created a huge demand for lumber, and Kitsap’s giant trees grew right down to the water. Logs could be cut and floated straight to a mill, so sawmills came quickly to Port Gamble, Port Madison, Port Blakely and Seabeck. The lithograph shown here pictures the Puget Mill Company’s mills at Teekalet, today’s Port Gamble, with sailing ships and canoes in the harbor. Ships carried the lumber to San Francisco and ports around the Pacific. At the same time, the United States moved to take the land. In 1855, tribal leaders signed treaties that ceded most of their homelands. The tribes reserved land for reservations and the right to fish at their usual and accustomed places and to hunt and gather on open lands. The talks were held in great haste, and the misunderstandings they created persist to this day.

“The talks were ill-conceived from the start: they were conducted not in each tribe’s native tongue, but in Chinook Jargon, a pidgin trade language with just a few hundred words.”

Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, History & Culture

1. 1853

   Pope & Talbot’s Puget Mill Company builds a sawmill at Port Gamble, where a S’Klallam village already stands. S’Klallam families are later pushed across the bay to Point Julia, today’s Little Boston, pictured below. The mill runs for 142 years, until 1995.

2. 1854

   George Meigs moves a sawmill to Port Madison on Bainbridge Island. Port Madison grows into an important mill town.

3. January 22, 1855

   At Point Elliott (Mukilteo), Si’ahl and other Suquamish and Duwamish leaders sign the Treaty of Point Elliott. The Port Madison Reservation is set aside for the Suquamish.

4. January 26, 1855

   S’Klallam, Twana (Skokomish) and Chimakum leaders sign the Treaty of Point No Point at the northern tip of the Kitsap Peninsula. Both treaties reserve the tribes’ right to fish at their “usual and accustomed grounds and stations.”

5. 1857

   On January 16 the territorial legislature creates Slaughter County, named for an Army officer killed in the Puget Sound War. On July 13 voters rename it Kitsap County, after the Suquamish leader. Port Madison is the county seat.

6. 1864

   William Renton opens a mill at Port Blakely on Bainbridge Island. It grows into one of the largest sawmills in the world.

7. June 7, 1866

   Si’ahl (Chief Seattle) dies at Suquamish and is buried there, above Agate Passage.

8. 1870

   The U.S. government orders Old Man House burned, to break up Suquamish communal living and push families into separate houses.

Explore moreWatch: Treaty Rights & Shared Responsibilities (History UnCorked)

Beyond our museumSuquamish Museum ↗ (opens in a new tab)Bainbridge History Museum ↗ (opens in a new tab)

By the 1880s, Kitsap’s sawmills were among the biggest on the Pacific Coast, and Port Blakely’s was at one time called the largest in the world. Mill work drew people from New England and the Midwest, Norway, Finland and the British Isles, Hawai‘i, China, Japan and the Philippines. As the forests were cut, families took up homesteads among the giant stumps the loggers left behind, like the ones around the Sidney schoolchildren shown here in 1889. These “stump farms” usually had a cow, a few chickens and a garden. Chickens didn’t need cleared land, and chicken ranching grew into one of Kitsap’s big industries.

1. Late 1860s

   Mosquito Fleet The steamer Phantom begins regular runs between Port Madison and Seattle, an early start for the Mosquito Fleet.

2. 1883

   A Port Blakely mill worker listed as “Manilla” is the first Filipino known to have lived in Washington Territory.

3. 1883

   Norwegian immigrant Jørgen Eliason settles at the head of Dogfish Bay, today’s Liberty Bay. Poulsbo grows into a Scandinavian fishing and farming town.

4. 1885

   Mosquito Fleet The little steamer Helen begins one of the first scheduled runs between Seattle and Sidney, carrying passengers, freight and mail. Soon dozens of little steamers link every dock on the peninsula to Seattle and Tacoma. Explore the Mosquito Fleet →

5. 1886

   Sidney, today’s Port Orchard, is laid out. The same year, fire destroys the Seabeck mill, and the mill is never rebuilt.

6. November 11, 1889

   Washington becomes the 42nd state.

Explore moreKitsap’s Mosquito FleetHistory of the Mosquito FleetOral Histories: stump farmers and steamboat captains

Beyond our museumPoulsbo Historical Society ↗ (opens in a new tab)Bainbridge History Museum ↗ (opens in a new tab)

In 1891 the Navy chose Point Turner, on Sinclair Inlet, for a new naval station. Lt. Ambrose B. Wyckoff bought about 190 acres from William Bremer and his neighbors, at $50 an acre. Bremer laid out a town next door, and Bremerton grew up around the shipyard gate. The crew shown here, photographed in 1892, did the first work on Dry Dock No. 1. From then on, the Navy Yard shaped Kitsap’s growth more than anything else.

1. September 16, 1891

   Naval Station Puget Sound is established, with Wyckoff as its first commandant. In December, William Bremer files the plat for Bremerton.

2. 1893

   After the Port Madison mill closes and a vote in 1892, the county seat moves to Sidney (Port Orchard), where it remains.

3. 1897

   The battleship USS Oregon becomes the first battleship to use the station’s new dry dock.

4. 1901

   Bremerton becomes a city, and the station becomes Navy Yard Puget Sound.

5. 1903 – 1923

   Mosquito Fleet Two steamship lines battle for Kitsap’s passengers: the Black Ball Line and the Kitsap County Transportation Company, the “White Collar Line.” In 1909 the fast, luxurious H.B. Kennedy starts the Port Orchard Route, making the Bremerton–Seattle run in 45 minutes. Read about the H.B. Kennedy →

6. 1914

   The Navy takes land at Keyport, through condemnation, for a torpedo station. Today it is the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Keyport.

7. 1917 – 1918

   During World War I, the Yard builds ships while East Coast yards handle repairs. Women join the Navy as Yeomen (F), “Yeomanettes,” with the same pay as men of the same rank. Bremerton’s population nearly triples between 1910 and 1920.

8. 1917

   John Henry “Dick” Turpin, a Navy veteran of the Spanish-American War, becomes one of the Navy’s first African American Chief Petty Officers. He later makes his home in Bremerton. His portrait is below. Watch his Kitsap Story →

9. 1920s

   Silverdale’s farmers’ co-op ships about 50,000 cases of eggs a year.

10. 1921

    The Filipino Club of Bremerton is founded. Today’s Filipino American Association of Kitsap County is the oldest Filipino American community group in the state.

11. 1927

    Bremerton and its neighbor Charleston combine under the name Bremerton.

Explore moreCharleston RememberedBlack Trailblazers of KitsapFilipino American Pioneers

Beyond our museumPuget Sound Navy Museum ↗ (opens in a new tab)Naval Undersea Museum, Keyport ↗ (opens in a new tab)

Strawberries grew so well in Kitsap’s soil and climate that berry farms spread from Olalla to Poulsbo, and Bainbridge Island had its own cannery. Pickers like these on S.J. Ives’s farm in Bethel, shown here in 1928, spent long days bent over the rows. For much of the 20th century, Japanese American and Filipino American farmers grew most of the county’s strawberries. Meanwhile, automobiles changed how people got around. Car ferries replaced many of the old steamers, and new roads and bridges tied communities together. The Great Depression brought hard times, but work at the Navy Yard helped carry many families through.

1. 1928

   Yasuji and Mitsuo Suyematsu buy 40 acres on Day Road on Bainbridge Island and clear it for strawberries. Families like theirs make Bainbridge the strawberry capital of the Pacific Northwest.

2. June 21, 1930

   The Manette Bridge opens, linking Manette and East Bremerton with downtown.

3. 1933

   The Navy Yard’s 250-ton hammerhead crane is built. It still marks the Bremerton skyline.

4. 1935

   Mosquito Fleet The streamlined ferry Kalakala, from the Chinook Jargon word for “bird,” begins service between Seattle and Bremerton. That fall a 33-day strike stops most ferry service on the Sound. Afterward the Black Ball Line buys out its rival, and by 1936 it runs nearly every route. Read about the Kalakala →

5. 1938

   After decades of waiting, the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe receives a reservation on its own homeland at Little Boston.

6. 1940

   The first Tacoma Narrows Bridge opens in July, linking the Kitsap Peninsula to Tacoma by road. A windstorm destroys it four months later.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Navy Yard ran around the clock. By the spring of 1943, as many as 300 men a day were arriving to apply for work at the Yard and the ammunition depot. Bremerton grew from about 15,000 people in 1940 to an estimated 82,000 by 1945, and housing authorities built thousands of new homes. Women took shipyard jobs in large numbers; at the peak, 4,266 women worked at the Yard. Thousands of Black workers and their families came for war jobs. They faced segregated housing and limits on where they could live and work, and they built strong communities anyway, like the Black women’s USO group shown here.

“Growing up in Bremerton in the forties was fun. Of course, population exploded during the war… The Navy Yard went 24 hours a day and when the war ended we were worried that the town wouldn’t keep… but a lot of people stayed.”

Don Christensen, oral history interview, 2009. Kitsap History Museum archives

1. March 30, 1942

   227 Japanese American residents of Bainbridge Island become the first in the nation forced from their homes under Executive Order 9066. They board a ferry at the Eagledale dock under armed guard. A memorial there now carries the words Nidoto Nai Yoni, “Let it not happen again.”

2. April 1942

   Barrage balloons rise over the Navy Yard and Bremerton to guard against low-flying air attack. Several are pictured below.

3. 1942 – 1943

   Five of the battleships damaged at Pearl Harbor come to the Yard for repairs and modernization: Tennessee, Maryland, Nevada, California and West Virginia.

4. 1943

   Sinclair Park, also called Sinclair Heights, opens as wartime housing. Housing assignments concentrate Black families there, creating a segregated neighborhood with poor bus service and long trips to stores and schools. Its residents build a close community.

5. 1943

   The Filipino American Community of Bainbridge Island and Vicinity is founded. Filipino Americans had long worked and farmed on the island, many alongside Japanese American families.

6. 1945

   The Yard’s workforce peaks at about 32,000, and it is renamed Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. The Navy also opens an ammunition depot at Bangor.

Explore moreThe Sinclair Park ProjectBlack Trailblazers of KitsapFilipino American PioneersVintage Fashion: The Forties

Beyond our museumPuget Sound Navy Museum ↗ (opens in a new tab)Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial ↗ (opens in a new tab)Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community ↗ (opens in a new tab)

Many wartime workers stayed. New bridges and a state ferry system tied the peninsula to the rest of Puget Sound, and quiet farm towns grew into suburbs. The Cold War kept the Navy at the center of Kitsap life. The aerial photo shown here looks down on the shipyard’s reserve, or “mothball,” fleet; a handwritten note on the print points out the battleship Missouri. In the 1970s the Navy chose Bangor, on Hood Canal, as the home of its new Trident submarines.

1. 1946

   Olympic Junior College, today’s Olympic College, opens in Bremerton.

2. 1948 – 1949

   Residents found the Kitsap County Historical Society on January 16, 1948, the county’s 91st birthday. Its first museum opens in 1949 in two small rooms of the county courthouse in Port Orchard.

3. October 7, 1950

   The Agate Pass Bridge opens, linking Bainbridge Island to the rest of the peninsula. A new Tacoma Narrows Bridge opens the same year.

4. October 1950

   Seattle–Manchester ferry service ends on October 28. The notice posted at the Manchester dock is pictured below.

5. 1951

   Mosquito Fleet The State of Washington buys most of the Black Ball Line’s ferries and starts Washington State Ferries on June 1, ending the era of private steamboat companies that began with the Mosquito Fleet.

6. 1955 – 1984

   The battleship USS Missouri, where Japan signed its surrender in 1945, is kept in reserve at Bremerton. Millions of visitors walk its decks.

7. August 12, 1961

   The Hood Canal Floating Bridge opens. A storm sinks its western half in February 1979, and it reopens in 1982.

8. 1969

   Rainie Woods breaks the color barrier as Bremerton’s first Black police officer. Black Trailblazers of Kitsap →

9. 1974

   In United States v. Washington, known as the Boldt Decision, a federal court upholds the treaty tribes’ right to half of the harvestable salmon.

10. 1976

    A bequest from member Rosamond Laurie Johnson, Port Orchard’s poet laureate, lets the Historical Society buy the old Silverdale State Bank building for its museum. Watch her Kitsap Story →

11. February 1, 1977

    The Navy activates its Trident submarine base at Bangor.

Explore moreThreads of the SixtiesKitsap Stories (videos)

Beyond our museumPuget Sound Navy Museum ↗ (opens in a new tab)Naval Undersea Museum, Keyport ↗ (opens in a new tab)

The museum, shown here, makes its home in the former Seattle-First National Bank building on Fourth Street in downtown Bremerton. The 2020 census counted 275,611 people in Kitsap County. The Navy is still the county’s largest employer, and ferries and bridges link the peninsula to Seattle and Tacoma. The Suquamish and Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribes run cultural centers, businesses and services that reach the whole region. Tribal nations continue to shape life in their homelands, alongside generations of families who have made Kitsap home.

1. 1982

   USS Ohio, the first Trident submarine, arrives at Bangor.

2. 1991

   All of Bainbridge Island becomes one city.

3. 1992

   Puget Sound Naval Shipyard becomes a National Historic Landmark District.

4. 1995

   The Port Gamble mill closes after 142 years. The same year, the Historical Society buys the former Seattle-First National Bank building on Fourth Street in downtown Bremerton, the museum’s home today.

5. 2004

   Olympic College opens its Poulsbo campus in January, bringing college classes to North Kitsap. Later that year the Bremerton and Bangor bases join to form Naval Base Kitsap.

6. 2009

   The Suquamish Tribe opens the House of Awakened Culture, followed in 2012 by the new Suquamish Museum.

7. Today

   Mosquito Fleet Two veterans of the Mosquito Fleet still sail. The Carlisle II, built in 1917, is still part of Kitsap Transit’s foot-ferry fleet on the Bremerton–Port Orchard run, and the steamer Virginia V is the last working steamer of the fleet. Read about the Carlisle II →

8. Today

   Kitsap’s history is still being written. Do you have a photo, letter or object that tells part of the story? We would love to hear from you.

Explore moreDowntown Bremerton Historic Walking TourOral HistoriesKitsap Stories (videos)

Beyond our museumSuquamish Museum ↗ (opens in a new tab)Steamer Virginia V ↗ (opens in a new tab)