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The waters
of Puget Sound
and Hood Canal
The City of
Shelton is located 8 miles from the south end of the Hood Canal, a 50 mile
long salt water fjord off Admiralty
Inlet about 15 miles south of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and yet it is on
Hammersley inlet of Puget Sound.
At the time of first
settlement in the 1850’s until around 1900 when the railroads came to Puget Sound the main way commerce traveled was on the
water by boat.
One of the reasons there
is not more development on Hood Canal is its isolation from the waters of Puget Sound where most of the commerce of the 1850’s
to 1900’s was taking place..
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To go from the south end
of Hood Canal to Shelton over land is 8 miles, to go to Shelton by water
you would have to go 50 miles north, then east about 5 miles, then south
around the Kitsap Peninsula, about
80 miles, nearly to Olympia, then west up the Hammersley inlet to Shelton a
total of over 150 miles.
At the closest point Hood Canal and
the southern Puget Sound are only 2.25
miles apart. If that 2.25 miles were
not high enough to be above water, the entire Kitsap Peninsula
would be an island.
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Hood Canal as seen from the picnic area in Twanoh State Park
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Except for this narrow
2.25 mile spit of land, the Tacoma
Narrows Bridge,
and the Hood Canal
floating bridge, the only way to get to the Kitsap Peninsula
is by Washington State Ferry.
With all this you’d
think Shelton’s claim to fame would be that
it is the gateway to the Kitsap
Peninsula but the
bridges and ferries have that claim.
Shelton’s claim to fame has been the
lumber industry and that Shelton is the
gateway to the Lower
Hood Canal
recreation area.
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The first
settlers came here in 1851 and seemed to open the flood gates. By the end of the 1850’s there were several
lumber mills operating in the area.
By 1864 the 10 year old Sahewamish
County was renamed Mason County. Shelton
was incorporated as a city in 1889.
Now the
city is governed by three Commissioners.
Shelton is one of only three
municipal entities still governed by commissioners in the State of Washington. Today Shelton is a vibrant city experiencing
fast growth. The city is committed
to maintaining the Historic Downtown Shelton area with its turn of the
century traditions.
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This turn of the century Shay
logging railroad locomotive is on display on Railroad Avenue honoring the
towns lumber town history.
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