Port Gamble, Washington

Port Gamble is an unincorporated community on the northwestern shore of the Kitsap Peninsula in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. It is also a small, similarly named bay, along which the community lies, near the entrance to Hood Canal. The unincorporated communities of Port Gamble and Little Boston, part of Kitsap County, lie on either side of the mouth of this bay. The Port Gamble Historic District is a U.S. National Historic Landmark. The population was 916 at the 2010 census.

The community of Port Gamble has a wide range of shops from antiques to a tea shop to an old-fashioned general store. It is a popular tourist destination, due to its location near Bremerton, Port Townsend, Bainbridge Island, and Seattle and its downtown. Port Gamble is also home to the grave of Gustave Englebrecht, the first U.S. Navy sailor to die in the Pacific.

History

Port Gamble, 1900

Gamble Bay was named by the Wilkes Expedition in 1841 after U.S. Navy Lt. Robert Gamble, an officer aboard the frigate USS President who was wounded in an exchange with the HMS Belvedira early in the War of 1812. 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, the USS Massachusetts was sent from Seattle to Port Gamble, Washington Territory on Puget Sound, where indigenous raiding parties from British and Russian territories had been raiding and 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 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, making it the longest operating sawmill in the country.

Walker-Ames house in Port Gamble, WA.

Port Gamble was the setting of and filming location for the 2010 film ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction.^{[citation needed]}

Events

The annual Old Mill Days festival takes place over the course of three days during late September and encompasses the entire downtown area. The event includes craft and food stands, a logging show, fireworks, and various other forms of entertainment.

See also

• Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve
• Old Man House

External links

• The official Port Gamble website
• Port Gamble - Kitsap Peninsula Visitor & Convention Bureau