Christopher Dunagan writes:
Lloyd Reiman of Bremerton asks today, in a letter to the editor, why people call the area north of Port Washington Narrows "East Bremerton" when it is clearly north of Bremerton, according to his compass. "Was the Earth's magnetic field compromised?" he wonders.
Well, I contacted my new friend Russell Warren, who has been researching the history of Bremerton for years.
Christopher Dunagan writes:
Everybody wanted to be Port Orchard.
The reason, it turns out, has a lot to do with the waterway named by Capt. George Vancouver in 1792, but there are a few interesting twists along the way.
You've followed the Kitsap Sun's "How Kitsap Got Its Names" series, which ran from Dec. 25-30. Now test your knowledge of the origins of Kitsap Peninsula place names.
It’s tempting to think that all Kitsap communities were named after prominent explorers or noble Native American tribes. But sometimes it came down to whatever book the local postal worker happened to be reading at the time.
Continue reading "Inspiration for Names Gleaned From Novel Sources" »
Bremerton’s twin city, Charleston, officially ceased to exist in 1927. Except for a few twists of fate, Bremerton might be known today as Charleston, Burwell or maybe even Port Orchard.
Continue reading "Charleston Embedded Deeply in the Local Landscape" »
During the mid-1800s Jacob Hauptley, a native of Switzerland, was likely the most well-known man in Seabeck. Now, more than a century later, no one has ever heard of him, let alone knows anything about how he kept the early community of Seabeck in order.
Continue reading "Seabeck One of the Oldest Places in the State" »
In the early 1850s, San Francisco had burned five times, Seattle did not exist and entrepreneurs were in search of the day’s real gold — lumber.
One of the places they landed was in North Kitsap, where sawmills planted some of the first settlements in what today is Kitsap County.
Continue reading "Names a Nod to Region's Timber Heritage" »
Capt. George Vancouver’s fruitless quest to find the Northwest Passage brought him to Puget Sound and Bainbridge Island in 1792, possibly making him the first known European contact in this region.
Continue reading "Explorers Brought Variety of Names to Bainbridge" »
Twanoh. Quilcene. Suquamish. Skokomish. S’Klallam.
From the first people came the first names.
The Twana, S’Klallam and Suquamish were the first inhabitants of the Kitsap corner of the Pacific Northwest, where archaeologists estimate settlements date back between 2,000 and 10,000 years ago.
Continue reading "How Kitsap Got Its Names: Discover Kitsap's Heritage" »
Brynn Grimley writes:
While it may be a household name today, at some point someone somewhere has to have asked “What is Seabeck? And where did the name come from?”
Is it a combination of last names? Is it a name designated by an explorer who thought Hood Canal was the sea and it was beckoning him?
Turns out it’s neither.