The City that Dreamed of Greatness
by Pamelagrace Beatty
Many of us dream of greatness. How many achieve it? How many of us find joy right where and right who we are? The same can be said for cities. Take Port Townsend for example, which is actually more of a small town than a city (sorry Port Townsend). This little town, now a favorite tourist spot, once had dreams of grandeur. So often it got close, and then the plug was pulled.
It all started 10,000 years ago when the native peoples came to the Olympic Peninsula. Then, the Strait of Juan de Fuca led to the discovery of the NW Coast. After more time, more “discoveries” and lots of Spanish expeditions (who knew?), plus Lewis and Clark and the Pacific Fur Company being established in the early 1800s, things heated up!
Washington Territory was created on March 2, 1853, and in 1854 the headquarters of the Puget Sound Customs Collection District was moved to Port Townsend from Olympia. During this time, transportation for people and goods was mostly dependent on travel by sea. Port Townsend was surrounded by three waterways. Every vessel that entered the waterways to the Northwest had to stop at Port Townsend. This was good for Port Townsend. It brought in more traffic and revenue. Port Townsend was even being considered the capital of Washington state. But alas, then came the not-so-good part.
Enter Hudson’s Bay Company, where the usual thing happened when the immigrants to America wanted Native American lands. The villages of the Native American residents, the S’Klallam, were burned, and the native people were pushed away. Hudson’s Bay Company established the first trading post and agricultural settlement in Puget Sound. Also, as the white settlers and sailors came to that part of the country, they brought diseases such as smallpox, measles, diphtheria and other illnesses the Native American population had no previous exposure to, nor resistance to. This reduced the Native population considerably. The S’Klallam, and the Chimakum and Skokomish tribes, gave up most of their homelands in the January 1855 Treaty of Point No Point. They were pressured to exchange 440,000 acres for a mere 3,480-acre reservation on Hood Canal. The tribes were paid $60,000 over 20 years. Although some of the peoples resisted moving, many reluctantly relocated.
Meanwhile, like with the early beginnings of San Francisco, Port Townsend was where ships had to stop to clear customs, and half wanted to pick up men for crews. The town grew and downtown became flush with bars, bordellos and many questionable actions (such as shanghaiing sailors for ships). Things were wild and lawless for a while.
As the land settlers in Port Townsend grew, the town calmed down a bit. Sea captains settled there and built beautiful homes in the upper part of the town. Churches, shops, schools, hospitals and other businesses were established. Over time, Port Townsend competed with, and lost to, other towns, such as Port Ludlow and Port Gamble, for logging mills which supplied wood to Washington state and territories as far south as California. Early on, Port Townsend’s nearest forests were stripped, which meant working further back into the land. Port Townsend’s geography didn’t make that easy. This made nearby Port Ludlow and Port Gamble better choices because they were easier to get to and their waters less capricious. Port Townsend did not have land that lent itself to farming, being made up of forests and a sharp cliff that dropped off to the water. The city did manage to stay afloat by shipping produce from other communities.
During this time the citizens of Port Townsend were counting on having a railroad come to their city which would link them to the wider world. James G. Swan spent 30 years trying to make that happen. He worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad and made recommendations for where the railroad should terminate in the west. Of course, he recommended Port Townsend but he was ignored and the end station was built in Tacoma.
The possibilities of a railway connecting Port Townsend to other city ports like Seattle and Olympia created a boom! The dreams of the settlement to become a thriving city were within reach. Folks came, and built homes and businesses, all with the belief that Port Townsend would soon be on the map in a big way. But once the railroad question was settled and Tacoma was chosen, despite the growth, things changed for Port Townsend. When the settlers realized that the railroad was a bust, many left their beautiful homes and businesses for better opportunities. The “City of Dreams” headed downhill quickly. The population shrank markedly, as did business. There were a few hearty optimists who held tight to the belief that one day Port Townsend would be something. There were far more who shook their heads, “no.”
Even though the lack of a railroad sent some people packing, Port Townsend continued to grow. Between 1880 and 1890 the population increased by 400% to 4,558. Unfortunately, the population increased even more in other towns. Over the same ten years, Seattle’s population increased by more than 1,100 percent, Tacoma’s by nearly 3,500 percent, and Spokane’s by nearly 5,300 percent. People were pouring into the Northwest, but the vast majority of them were settling somewhere other than Port Townsend.
The dream of a railroad returned to Port Townsend through the work of James G. Swan and other businessmen who came up with the brilliant idea to build their own railroad. They got the money together and laid one mile of track before the venture folded. Then came the Union Pacific, a transcontinental railroad that offered to have Port Townsend be its terminus point. The deal was dependent on Port Townsend meeting a number of criteria, which they did. The hope was that if they could make this a success, then Northern Pacific Railroad might take an interest and build a track to Seattle.
The towns folk were elated. A new city hall was built along with a railroad station, roundhouse and rail-yard. The impressive Jefferson County Courthouse was built on top of the bluff overlooking downtown. The city hall and courthouse buildings are now part of the National Register of Historic Places.
Once again, however, the dream crashed. To the south, Union Pacific’s subsidiary, the Oregon Improvement Company, apparently badly run, caused Union Pacific’s investments to go bad. It went into bankruptcy receivership in November 1890. To the north, the railroad was completed as far as Quilcene, where, according to railroad historian Steve Hauff, “somebody noticed that Mount Walker was there. They found there was really no way to get around this, and that was the end of the dream. Hundreds of people left the town. The population shrank to less than 3500. Port Townsend would never be the competitor it had hoped to be in the northwest. The panic of 1893 only added to the loss. It was mainly caused by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and fragile railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures.
WWI brought an uptick in commerce and jobs as well as three forts built after much lobbying by James G. Swan. Then something unexpected happened. In 1927, a pulp and paper mill was built in the area, due to Port Townsend’s access to water. The addition of the paper mill got Port Townsend through the Great Depression and has continued to provide jobs for its residents. It remains the largest single employer in Jefferson County. So, although the dream to be a major contender in the northwest didn’t turn out. Something else did. Stay tuned for the next blog to get details of that discovery!
