The Steamboat That Opened a Hidden Kitsap Country
In 1883 a new Seattle steamer route began serving isolated Kitsap farms south of Bainbridge Island, where settlers hoped for a post office, a mail route and the beginnings of a town.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The steamer Lone Fisherman has begun business on a new route from this city to that portion of Kitsap County lying south of Bainbridge Island and west of Blake Island, some fourteen miles southwest of Seattle. The country there has long been neglected, but of late has attracted the attention of home seekers, who have been going in there almost every week for a year or two past and settling down upon the choice lands to be found. In all, upwards of sixty farms have been taken and are now in their first stages of cultivation. With the one exception of their isolation the settlers are well pleased with their location, and the isolation is now little heeded, for the reason that it must of necessity be rapidly shortened from this on. All that is lacking is a wood and water station for steamboats, a post office, a mail route, the beginning of a town. These things are coming soon. One man is building a house there with the intention of opening a store, and a petition has been sent on asking for a post office and the establishment of a mail route. The steamer Lone Fisherman has been put on the route from Seattle, and makes two trips a week, one on Tuesday and one on Friday, running over and back the same day. She gets considerable traffic, and will probably build up a business that will call for daily trips from her before the year 1884 is gone.
“All that is lacking is a wood and water station for steamboats, a post office, a mail route, the beginning of a town.”
The route maps a familiar Puget Sound pattern: a steamboat landing becomes the seed of a town, and access to the water decides who can live and prosper. Today's ferries, bridges and rural broadband debates are different infrastructure, but the same question remains—how to connect isolated communities to the city.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.