Port Gamble, Washington

How Port Gamble is governed

Port Gamble appears to be an unincorporated community or a census-designated place, so it may have no city government of its own — services usually come from Kitsap County and its elected officials. The chart below is a generic template; readers can correct it if Port Gamble does have local officials.

Form of government not yet listed.

0 of 14 positions listed. Gray dashed boxes are placeholders waiting for a name.

• Mayor

  Executive

  Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

  The city's chief elected official. Presides over the executive branch, proposes the budget and represents the city.

  • City Manager / Administrator

    Executive

    Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

    The professional administrator who runs day-to-day operations (in some cities appointed by the council instead of the mayor).

    • Police Chief

      Administration & departments

      Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

      Leads the police department.

    • Fire Chief

      Administration & departments

      Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

      Leads the fire and emergency services department.

    • Public Works Director

      Administration & departments

      Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

      Streets, water, sewer, and city buildings.

    • Finance Director

      Administration & departments

      Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

      The budget, taxes, and city accounts.

    • Planning & Zoning Director

      Administration & departments

      Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

      Land use, zoning, building permits.

    • Parks & Recreation Director

      Administration & departments

      Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

      Parks, programs, and public facilities.

• City Council

  Legislative

  Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

  The elected body that passes ordinances, sets the tax rate and approves the budget.

  • City Clerk

    Administration & departments

    Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

    Keeps the official records, runs meeting agendas and, often, local elections.

  • City Attorney

    Administration & departments

    Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

    The city's lawyer; advises officials and prosecutes ordinance violations.

  • Boards & Commissions

    Legislative

    Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

    Citizen advisory bodies, such as planning, zoning appeals and library boards.

• Municipal Court

  Judicial

  Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

  Hears traffic, ordinance and other minor cases.

  • Municipal Judge

    Judicial

    Not yet listed. Log in to add who holds this

    Presides over the municipal court.

Looking for your county, state and federal representatives too? See who represents 98364 or everyone in Washington.

History

Gamble Bay was named by the Wilkes Expedition in 1841. The source of the name is unclear. Wilkes often named places after historical figures, and speculation centers on Lt. Col. John M. Gamble, an illustrious figure in the War of 1812; or U.S. Navy Lt. Robert Gamble, an officer aboard the frigate USS President wounded in an exchange with HMS Belvidera. But the name may have had a more prosaic origin. Wilkes's published account of the expedition omits mention of either Gamble but does say that a lieutenant's survey party "[o]n entering [Hood's] canal [at what would become Gamble Bay] camped near some Suquamish Indians who had received as visitors a party of fifty Clalams, by appointment to gamble for blankets: they continued their games throughout the night."

The community, originally known as "Teekalet" and later renamed "Port Gamble" for the bay which gave it access to ocean commerce, was founded as a company town by Josiah Keller, William Talbot, and Andrew Pope's Puget Mill Company in 1853.

In 1856, USS Massachusetts was sent from Seattle to Port Gamble on the Puget Sound, where indigenous raiding parties from British and Russian territories had been enslaving local Native Americans. When the warriors refused to hand over those among them who had attacked the Puget Sound Native American communities, Massachusetts landed a shore party and a battle ensued in which 26 natives and 1 sailor were killed. In the aftermath of this, Colonel Isaac Ebey, the first white settler on Whidbey Island, was shot and beheaded on August 11, 1857, by a Haida raiding party in revenge for the killing of a native chief during similar raids the year before. British authorities demurred on pursuing or attacking the northern tribes as they passed northward through British waters off Victoria, and Ebey's killers were never caught.

The first school in the county went up in 1859, and the community took its present name in 1868. In 1966, the town of Port Gamble was designated a National Historic Landmark District. In 1985, Pope & Talbot, the successor company to Puget Mill, split into Pope & Talbot and Pope Resources, the latter of which took over the site and the sawmill. In 1995, the mill shut down after 142 years, ending the longest span of operation of any sawmill in the country.

Founding

In 1849, William Talbot and Andrew Pope arrived in San Francisco from East Machias, Maine, in hope of taking part in its shipping and lumber industry, for the shipping of lumber to the rapidly growing Western United States was becoming a very lucrative business. Pope and Talbot quickly realized that the lumber shipments from New England were not enough to meet the growing demand for building materials in the West. After hearing about the dense forests in the Oregon Territory, Talbot and Pope, along with partners Josiah Keller and Charles Foster, formed the Puget Mill Company to harvest the much-needed lumber for the expanding West. In the summer of 1853, Talbot, after searching the Puget Sound area for the best possible site for a mill, spotted a sand spit at the mouth of Gamble Bay as an excellent location, for it provided a location near the abundant trees of the Oregon Territory and a port for shipping the cut lumber to California. Soon after arriving, Keller sailed up the coast to join him with the boiler, engine, and muley saw for the mill. By September, the new mill was cutting logs into lumber.

Although they had a ready and working mill, Pope, Keller, and Talbot had difficulty finding enough workers to run the mill. During the 1850s, the Pacific Northwest was frontier territory with little population. With the help of their partner in Maine, Charles Foster, the mill was able to recruit experienced mill workers from East Machias to come west to Gamble Bay. In their new and labor-intensive environment, workers quickly became homesick for the lifestyle they had left behind in Maine. As houses were constructed for workers' and company executives' families, the design reflected their desire to feel at home, as the architecture looked like that which could be found in a New England city. This new little town that grew up by the mill was named "Port Gamble" after its location on Gamble Bay, which had been named by the American explorer Commodore Wilkes in 1842.

The founders of the mill of Port Gamble, however, were not the first to occupy Gamble Bay. The S'Klallams, or Nux Sklai Yem, had been living in the Puget Sound region since 2400 B.C. Legally, land was not available for non-Native settlement until March 8, 1859, when Congress ratified the Treaty of Point No Point, which was signed January 26, 1855, by representatives of the United States and the Chemakum, S'Klallam and Skokomish nations. But by that time, the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe had moved across the bay to Point Julia. As part of an agreement between them and the mill company, the S'Klallams were given jobs at the mill and lumber to build their new homes, community facilities, and a new school. The new little town across Gamble Bay became known as Little Boston.

Tree farms

As the Port Gamble mill continued to expand and increase its production of lumber, their need for suitable logging areas increased. The Puget Mill Company continued purchasing viable timberland, and by 1892 had ownership of 186,000 acres (750 km2). With the depletion of forestland in other states, more and more companies turned to Washington to supply the growing need for timber. By 1906 there were over 900 lumber mills of various sizes in Washington alone.

As Washington's old-growth forests were dwindling, the need for new sources of lumber became readily apparent. On June 12, 1941, the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company designated the first certified tree farm, the Clemons Tree Farm in Washington state. The Puget Mill Company, now known as Pope & Talbot, Inc., soon followed suit, forming the Hood Canal Tree Farm in 1946 and having 75,000 acres (30,000 ha) in it by 1953.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Other cities in Washington

• Seattle 737,015
• Spokane 228,989
• Tacoma 219,346
• Vancouver 190,915
• Bellevue 151,854
• Kent 136,588
• Everett 110,629
• Renton 106,785

All Washington cities →